2020 reading list

This was truly a year like no other. Like many, I would never have predicted 2020 to turn out the way it did. I vividly can recall how I rang in 2020 on December 31st which was such a far cry to what today looks like. As trying as this year has been, I am grateful for the opportunities of growth in my writing career and for actively broadening my reading choices. I am thankful for these novelists, poets, and writers who helped guide me through the ups and downs of 2020. I am thankful for all the opportunities to speak, perform, and publish my own writing. Mostly, I am just thankful for writing and words and their ability to serve as a tonic and escape for me.

This year my top pick has to go to ‘Afropean’ by Johny Pitts which is not like anything I have read before. I don’t read much nonfiction but am grateful I spent time with this wonderful exploration of Black Europe. A truly eye opening read! I look forward to what Pitts does next.

Honourable mentions:

• Dead Girls, Selva Almada (translator, Annie McDermott)
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
• Dominicana, Angie Cruz
• Rainbow Milk, Paul Mendez
• I Won’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me, Juan Pablo Villalobos (translator, Daniel Hahn)

Here is everything I read in 2020:

1. Cockfight – María Fernanda Ampuero
2. The Edwin Morgan Twenties: Scotland – Edwin Morgan
3. If You Kept A Record of Sins – Andrea Bajani
4. I Won’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me – Juan Pablo Villalobos
5. The Havoc of Choice – Wanjiru Koinange
6. Afropean – Johnny Pitts
7. Memorial – Bryan Washington
8. Where The Memory Was – Hibaq Osman
9. Poor – Caleb Femi
10. To Be A Man – Nicole Krauss
11. You Will Be Safe Here – Damian Barr
12. Ramifications – Daniel Saldaña París
13. Dominicana – Angie Cruz
14. Mother Country – edited by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
15. The Distance – Ivan Vladislavic
16. Me and White Supremacy – Layla F Saad
17. This Mournable Body – Tsitsi Dangarembga
18. Constitution Street – Jemma Neville
19. Dead Girls – Selva Almada
20. In Memory’s Dance – Murid L Keshtmand
21. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
22. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
23. The End of Eddy – Édouard Louis
24. The Wind That Lays Waste – Selva Almada
25. Rainbow Milk – Paul Mendez
26. Your Silence Will Not Protect You – Audre Lorde
27. Sons and Lovers – D.H Lawrence
28. The Dizziness of Freedom – Bad Betty Press
29. Holiday Heart – Maragrita García Robayo
30. We That Are Young – Preti Taneja
31. The Adventures of China Iron – Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
32. The Green Road – Anne Enright
33. An Orphan World – Giuseppe Caputo
34. Animals Eat Each Other – Elle Nash
35. Falsos Odiseos – Gabriel Rodríguez Liceaga
36. The Panopticon – Jenni Fagan
37. The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
38. Hinge – Alycia Pirmohamed
39. The Black Flamingo – Dean Atta
40. Mayhem & Death – Helen McClory
41. Tonguit – Harry Josephine Giles
42. Jellyfish – Janice Galloway
43. The Spell – Alan Hollinghurst
44. Sal – Mick Kitson
45. Broken Sleep Books 2019 Anthology
46. The Poet X – Elizabeth Acevedo
47. Collected Stories – Janice Galloway
48. EARTH: 404 ink magazine
49. Hijito – Carlos Andrés Gómez
50. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong