The Other

In the vein of Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark, novelist and poet Mara Lee explores our literary imagination in a book of essays focusing on love and racism. With fearlessness and yet deep vulnerability, Lee asks how love may be connected to racism, and if metaphors and language at large may act as carriers of racism and power. Referring to literary giants such as Dante, Woolf, Mary Shelley and The Poetic Edda, this experimental work is equal parts glistening poetry and literary history. The form also permits the reader to partake and to perform parts of the labour through Lee’s careful guidance.  Exploring and discussing concepts such as white saviorism and emotional labour, The Other is relentlessly connecting words and violence.