What does it mean to know? Really? Is it knowing-her refusal to think concretely about other women? Her refusal to ever consider the possibility?
What a beautiful name, Kimberly said. Does it mean anything? I love multicultural names because they have such wonderful meanings, from wonderful rich cultures. Kimberly was smiling the kindly smile o...
The waiters are products of a society that has taught them that men are more important than women. And I know the waiters don’t intend any harm, but it is one thing to know intellectually, and quite a...
The more they talked, the more she told herself that this was no coincidence; there was a significance to her meeting this man on the day that she returned her voice to herself.
The first time I taught a writing class in graduate school, I was worried. Not about the teaching material, because I was well prepared and I was teaching what I enjoyed. Instead I was worried about w...
Still, I was struck by this. Because I am female, I’m expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Marriage can be...
Sometimes I hate them, Kainene said. The vandals. No, them. Kainene pointed back at the room. I hate them for dying.
She wanted Azuka to learn the ways of these foreigners, since people ruled over others not because they were better people but because they had better guns;
She thought nothing of slender legs shown off in miniskirts—it was safe and easy, after all, to display legs of which the world approved—but the fat woman’s act was about the quiet conviction that one...
She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was...
She looked at him in wonder. This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.
She liked that he wore their relationship so boldly, like a brightly colored shirt. Sometimes she worried that she was too happy. She would sink into moodiness, and snap at Obinze, or be distant. And...
She had read many of them, because he recommended them, but they were like cotton candy that so easily evaporated from her tongue’s memory.
Se repetimos uma coisa várias vezes, ela se torna normal. Se vemos uma coisa com frequência, ela se torna normal. Se só os meninos são escolhidos como monitores da classe, então em algum momento nós t...
Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and, finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious fut...
Pero no les ocurrió nada.
Perhaps he was not a true writer after all. He had read somewhere that, for true writers, nothing was more important than their art, not even love.
Pasamos demasiado tiempo enseñando a las niñas a preocuparse por lo que piensen de ellas los chicos. Y, sin embargo, con ellos no lo hacemos. No enseñamos a los niños a preocuparse por caer bien. Pasa...
Ojiugo wore orange lipstick and ripped jeans, spoke bluntly, and smoked in public, provoking vicious gossip and dislike from other girls, not because she did these things but because she dared to with...
Nuestra sociedad enseña a las mujeres solteras de cierta edad a considerar su soltería un profundo fracaso personal. En cambio, un hombre de cierta edad que no se ha casado es porque todavía no ha ele...