Customer Reviews

Beacon Best of 2000: Creative Writing by Women and Men of All Colors (Beacon Best of ... Creative Writing by Women & Men of All Colors)

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This smart and vibrant collection represents so much that is fresh, interesting, and deeply humane in American letters. You can read it a little at a time, or all at once. Edwidge Danticat has done a fantastic editorial job.

The contributors are of various cultures and ages. They all write in English, and also live in the U.S. Many are teachers of writing, too. Whether originally from Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, or Africa, each writer has a sensibility of inevitable "otherness," and a challenging sense of differentness - and, sometimes, of belonging to a mother culture that is ultimately - and often after difficulties - rich and giving. Gay culture, too.

Conflict abounds. The stories are not predictable, and the points of view are varied. These pieces each have palpable tension - and satisfying, non-formulaic resolution. Chang-Rae Lee writes of a harrowing set of events in "The Volunteers," for example. Larry McMurtry's "Death of the Cowboy" is somber and sad personal essay. Lois-Ann Yamanaka's "Ten Thousand in the Round" is strange and arresting. Poets are included, with great success.

Contributors' notes provide additional good information. The list of small-press and mainstream publications - where these pieces originally appeared - at the collection's end includes descriptive and subscription information and is sufficient to keep one happily reading for weeks - or throughout the year. A great value and thoroughly worthwhile. I only wish I'd had this book with me the last time I was stuck at an airport for an extra few hours.

Deserves more than five Amazon stars.

The Columbia University Aitm website considers this to be one of the finest anthology of writings of our experience. We agree with Oprah Winfrey, Barnard alumnus Edwidge Danticat is ahead of her time.