When I hit you Lenin cries is what our authors revolutionary husband tells her after every unnerving beating over the course of their short four month love marriage Seduced by poetry and politics our young narrator falls for a university professor and accepts his hand in marriage she moves for him to a new home where she doesnt speak the language It starts slowly of course answering phone calls on her behalf asking for her Facebook password but escalates into extreme physical and sexual abuse This is not an easy book our protagonist experiences and survives extreme violence and social isolation at her husbands hands There are moments where the brutalities are too much so prepare yourself That being said this is many womens reality and ignoring it doesnt make it go away domesticviolence takes the life of millions of people world wide In fact two women are killed in the UK every week by a former or current partner

Coconut Juice Book Club

Episode 19: When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy and Domestic Violence

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 a portrait of modern Britain through the eyes and interconnected stories of 12 different British people mostly women and mostly black all moving through the world in different times and decades Each character has a chapter within the chapters their lives overlap but their experiences backgrounds and choices could not be more different Theres Amma a lesbian socialist playwright and nonbinary Morgan who uses the internet to navigate their gender identity but also Shirley a teacher who feels alien in Ammas community and Winsome a bride who has arrived from Barbados to an unhappy marriage Many of the characters are close friends relatives or lovers while others simply visit the same theatre on the same night or argue with each other on Twitter

Episode 18: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Imagine if there was a network of secret passages a rail transport system with safe houses conductors and secret routes through out America that could help slaves escape bondage A way for them to get into the free states and Canada while avoiding captivity This is called alternative historySet during the 19th century Colson Whitehead takes us to the plantations of the southeastern United States expertly recreating the unique terrors felt by black Americans precivil war Our protagonist is Cora a determined teenage slave who makes a bid for freedom with the help of Caesar a new arrival from Virginia There are abolitionists there are loyalists slave catchers and sympathisers a plenty In this ingenious conception we make our harrowing journey through USA via Cora encountering a different world with its own horrors in each stateIn reality The Underground Railroad was not literally a railroad but rather a secretly organised means of movement

Episode 17: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Sugar Tax and Prince Andrew

Philip Hutton is a loner Its 1937 in Malaysia and being the mixed race son of an English father and Chinese mother comes with certain hardships Never quite fitting in and feeling like an outsider Philips life takes a turn when he meets an older Japanese diplomat Hayato Endo an aikido master who takes Philip under his tutelage As war looms and the Japanese invade British territory both Endo and Philip find themselves torn between their loyalty to each other versus loyalty to their country and family Philip decides to assist the Japanese and Endo in administering the country in an attempt to keep his family safe but how far is he willing to betray his countrymen for his senseiSet in Penang this is a story of betrayal barbaric cruelty steadfast courage and enduring loveYou guys know we avoid spoilers like the plague but trust us when we say its too hard for this book So if youre still reading or thinking about reading just listen out for the spoiler alerts

Episode 16: The Gift of Rain by Tan Twang Eng and British Opium [SPOILER ALERT]

New York Times best selling author Brit Bennett answers Zainab Rav and Stevens burning questions about her debut novel The Mothers Were going across the pond for this one all the way to the sunburnt shores of Southern California Set within a contemporary black military community The Mothers is described as an emotionally perceptive take on community and ambition Refreshingly all the characters in the book are African American unless described otherwiseOur story orbits around three central characters beautiful Nadia Turner an ambitious 17 year old who is recovering from her mothers suicide meek and Godfearing Aubrey Evans the perfect church girl with scars that run deep and finally the local pastors son Luke Sheppard a former football star whos lost his future to an injury

Episode 15: The Mothers by Britt Bennett, Interview with the Author and Drake

Sorry weve been away for so long But like Chance the Rapper were better than we were the last timeIn this poignant eyeopening and emotionally vivid novel Mahbod Seraji lays bare the beauty and brutality of the centuriesold Persian culture while reaffirming the human experiences we all shareIn a middleclass neighbourhoodof Irans sprawling capital city Tehran 17yearold Pasha spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari who has been betrothed since birth to another man But the bliss of Pasha and Zaris stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shahs secret police

Episode 14: Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji, BP and Unilever

LONDON CALLING InOurMadandFuriousCitytakes place over 48 hours in a North London estateDescribed by Waterstones as an authenticaccount of a less visible but fully livedLondonOur story follows a group of young men and their parents withelsewhere in their bloodwho live in and around the council estate in Neasden Theres Yusuf who is doing his best to avoid the attention of local Muslim extremists Ardan the aspiring rapper with a troublesome home life and Selvon an obsessively disciplined athlete desperate to escape the neighbourhood We have Caroline one of the older protagonists who fled Northern Ireland during the Troubles and Selvon a mute and wheelchair bound man part of the Windrush generationWritten by BritishSriLankanauthorGuy Gunaratne we could not pick this book being Londoners ourselves

Episode 13: In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne, London and Slang

What do you know about Native Americans Growing up in Britain our knowledge of Native American culture is very minimal essentially existing of what Hollywood wishes to portray That was our biggest motivation for picking this book we are keen to learn and for our listeners to learn Described as fierce funny and heartbreaking Tommy Oranges There There offers up a shattering portrait of America through the eyes of 12 different characters

Episode 12: There There by Tommy Orange, Native Americans and America

Korea 1943 Hana has lived her entire life under Japanese occupation As a haenyeo a female diver of the sea she enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can still claim Until the day Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is herself captured and transported to Manchuria There she is forced to become a comfort woman in a Japanese military brothel But haenyeo are women of power and strength She will find her way homeSouth Korea 2011 Emi has spent more than sixty years trying to forget the sacrifice her sister made but she must confront the past to discover peace Seeing the healing of her children and her country can Emi move beyond the legacy of war to find forgiveness

Episode 11: White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht, Haenyeo and Comfort Women

This is the story of brotherhood of two young boys growing upin Scarborough a not so nice part of TorontoThese boysFrancis and Michael like David Chariandy are or Trinidadian descent with an overworked black mother who works double sometimes triple shifts andan absent Indian fatherBrother explores questions of masculinity family race and identity as they are played out in a Scarborough housing complexduring the sweltering heat and simmering violence of the summer of 1991its dangerous and its ugly and the author doesnt try to find beauty in it it doesnt exist YetChariandystill manages to capture the readers imagination his writing and story telling speak volumes

Episode 10: Brother by David Chariandy, Goodreads and Chutney Music

Its 1948 haughty Hortense Joseph arrives in London from British colonised Jamaica with her perfect white gloves and full trunk she is ready for the motherland Brought up with the consciousness that her golden skin makes her a superior creature in a country of darker skins she soon discovers that her qualifications have no meaning in Britain and her status is precisely the same as that of any other black migrant Similarly her husband Gilbert an RAF man returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero in the motherland but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second classThe novels other two main characters are their English landlady Queenie raised as a farmers daughter and Bernard Queenies mumbling husband who arrives back from wartime service to find coons renting rooms in his house Unlike her deeply racist spouse Queenie serves as refreshing break from bigoted English society

Episode 9: Small Island by Andrea Levy, Jamaicans and Racism

A Place for Us unfolds the lives of an IndianAmerican Muslim family gathered together in their Californian hometown to celebrate the eldest daughter Hadias wedding a match of love rather than tradition It is here on this momentous day that Amar the youngest of the siblings reunites with his family for the first time in three years Rafiq and Layla must now contend with the choices and betrayals that lead to their sons estrangement the reckoning of parents who strove to pass on their cultures and traditions to their children and of children who in turn struggle to balance authenticity in themselves with loyalty to the home they came fromIn a narrative that spans decades and sees family life through the eyes of each member A Place For Us charts the crucial moments in the familys past from the bonds that bring them together to the differences that pull them apart And as siblings Hadia Huda and Amar attempt to carve out a life for themselves they must reconcile their present culture with their parents faith to tread a path between the old world and the new and learn how the smallest decisions can lead to the deepest of betrayalsA deeply affecting and resonant story A Place for Us is truly a book for our times a moving portrait of what it means to be an American family today a novel of love identity and belonging that eloquently examines what it means to be both American and Muslimand announces Fatima Farheen Mirza as a major new literary talentFollow us on instagramhttpsbitly2IZWIN6Follow us on twitterhttpsbitly2EIpXPaFollow us on goodreadshttpsbitly2LBIlOT

Episode 8: A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza, Islamaphobia and 3JHUS

Deming Guo hates waking up for school he likes watching TV and hanging out with his best friend Michael Born and bred in Manhattan the 11 year olds life takes a tumultuous turn when his mother Polly an undocumented Chinese immigrant doesnt come back from work one day Abandoned and alone he is adopted by a middleclass white American couple and Deming Guo becomes Daniel Wilkinson the all american boyDaniel struggles to reconcile his new life with his mothers disappearance and the memories of the family and community he left behind in this heart wrenching story by Chinese American author Lisa Ko Follow us on instagram httpsbitly2IZWIN6Follow us on twitter httpsbitly2EIpXPaFollow us on goodreads httpsbitly2LBIlOT

Episode 7: The Leavers by Lisa Ko, Belonging and Adoption

Mireille Duvalslife reads like a fairy tale the daughter of Haitis richest sons leads avery prosperous life in USA with her all American husband and child Upon atrip to the motherland Mireilles reality is transformed when she is kidnappedand held hostage by a gang of heavily armed men for 13 excruciating daysAmerican author Roxane Gays portrayal of sexual violence and mental torture is unyieldingthe reader finds themselves wondering how much can a womans body endure Whatdo the rich owe to the poor Mireilles story is distressing to say the leastbut it also about survival and redemptionFollow us on instagram httpsbitly2IZWIN6Follow us on twitter httpsbitly2EIpXPaFollow us on goodreads httpsbitly2LBIlOT

Episode 6: An Untamed State by Roxane Gay, Valentine's Day and Fetishisation

Welcome to Shaker Heights a planned and privileged community in Ohio where each blade of grass is as wellmaintained as the carefully polished Porsches in the residents driveways How real is this excruciating perfection And at what costJoin Rav Steven and Zainab as they navigate Chinese American author Celeste Ngs masterfully crafted story exploring themes of motherhood race and privilege in the suburbsFollow us on instagram httpsbitly2IZWIN6Follow us on twitter httpsbitly2EIpXPaFollow us on goodreads httpsbitly2LBIlOT

Episode 5: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Motherhood and Privilege

Welcome to Coconut Juice, the podcast you never knew you needed and the bookclub you’ve always wanted to join but never had the time to. We think that BAME authors are marginalised and very much underrepresented, so come and join us as we add some diversity to the existing literary landscape.

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Coconut Juice Book Club

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