With the new semester set to start in little more than a week, I have acquired desk copies from publishers for some of my courses. In the case of Abeng and Nervous Conditions I have older editions that are now out of print (they were texts that I was assigned as a student and am now myself assigning), but the other three are books that I do not own. This is nice because the storing of duplicate copies can be a hassle. In the case of Gilman’s and Kerouac’s works I have them in anthologies but not as standalone volumes, and Haddad’s novel just came out a few months ago, so I am doing the rare (for me) thing of assigning a text that sounds fascinating without having previously read it myself.
Cliff, Michelle. Abeng. 1984. New York: Plume, 1995.
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. 1988. Banbury, UK: Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2004.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Other Stories. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997.
Haddad, Saleem. Guapa. New York: Other Press, 2016.
Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. 1958. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
Daniel Shank Cruz 