Imran Abdullah


Former US President Barack Obama shared his list of summer reading nominations on Wednesday, encouraging the start of Tony Morrison's novelist and American author who died last week.

On his Facebook page, Obama posted a selection of novels and short story collections, and called on his followers to add their proposals as well.

The list includes new works by American novelist Coulson Whitehead, young novelist Tia Operett, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, Ethiopian-American novelist Dino Mengistu and others.

Tony Morrison
The former American president began his proposals for the work of the late Tony Morrison, the first brunette American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, and wrote 11 novels, including Obama "beloved" and "Song of Solomon" and "Sola" and "The Blue Eye" She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, the highest civilian medal in the United States.

Morrison's literary work has contributed to raising the multiculturalism of the world theater, giving great impetus to the so-called "black literature", revealing a dark era for her country's past, and addressing the history of blacks in the United States in her works that blended African literature and slave folklore with gospel texts and anecdotal drama. .

Whitehead brilliantly presents a story of American history in the civil rights movement through two boys sentenced to placement in a school in Florida and beaten and abused.

Literary novels
Obama's list has dominated novels and literary works, and the former president has said reading fiction has made him better able to imagine what is going on in people's lives throughout his presidency.

Obama regularly shared his recommendations on books and films he reads, watched and even during his presidency.

Last year, he recommended reading six books during the summer that he said "uniquely illuminate our world". Last year's list included the return of Libyan author Hesham Matar, who won the Pulitzer Prize. Obama said his memoirs skillfully reflect Libya's recent history, with the relentless pursuit of his father disappeared in Gaddafi's prisons.

History of the United States
In his reading list on Wednesday, Obama continued to promote a variety of writers, many of whom focus on issues of race, immigration, gender and social classes.

Unlike Tony Morrison, Obama has recommended to his followers a number of books about the complex history of the United States, including The Nickel Boys, the latest novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning Coulson Whitehead.

The book, published in July, was inspired by what the New York Times called a "real horror house" at the Dozier Boys School in Florida, where countless black students were tortured, assaulted and killed.

The most cyan novel of the late American writer Tony Morrison (Al Jazeera)

American Myths
Obama also nominated young novelist Tia O'Briet's "Inside," an epic journey of legendary myths and myths in the American West at the end of the 19th century, where lawlessness, drought in Arizona, and Nora's death after her husband who went looking for water with her Her youngest son, who believes that there is a mysterious beast chasing the land surrounding their house.

The suffering of the poor
Obama encouraged his followers to read "Maid: Hard Work, Low Wages, and a Mother's Will to Survive" by Stephanie Land, which discusses poverty in the United States and the widening gap between the upper middle class of Americans and poor workers.

The book examines the low-wage work and domestic services often performed by women, and through the author's work experience for years as a maid and her quest as the only mother to maintain a roof over her daughter's head, the book reveals a number of dark truths to the requirements of staying in an unfair society.

exhalation
Obama also recommended Ted Chiang's "Zephyr" short story collection, which says, "The universe began as a massive breath." "It will make you think, grapple with big questions and feel more human, and that's the best kind of science fiction," he said.

In "The Merchant and the Alchemical Gate," one of nine surprising stories, science fiction writer Chiang tells the story of forcing the time gate of a fabric vendor in old Baghdad to face past mistakes, discussing topics such as second chances, choice and free will.

Stephanie explores extreme poverty in America and tells stories of heavily indebted Americans working at very low wages to serve the rich (Al Jazeera)

Other novels
Obama also nominated the "Hall of the Wolf" of Hillary Mantell, the winner of the Man Booker World Prize, and tells the consequences of the devastation of England due to the civil war in the 1620s after the king died without a male heir. The Pope and most Europeans opposed it.

Obama also nominated Haruki Murakami's "Men Without Women," an American spy novel by Roren Wilkinson, which inspired real events from the Cold War, and US technology and author Nicholas Carr's "Flattening: The Impact of the Internet on Our Minds."

Obama's eagerness to read and recommend books seems to contradict the habits of his successor, Donald Trump, who many say he does not read.

Obama has written three books, including his memoirs in Dreams from My Father: A Race and Legacy Story, in which he told the story of his life, and Audacity of Hope: Ideas for Restoring the American Dream, and exposed many of the issues he raised later in his presidential campaign.