3 Ways To Decolonise Your Bookshelf

Decolonising The Self One Radical Book At A Time

Our bookshelves are a good reflection of who we are as individuals.

Each book we read transforms us in subtle yet radical ways. Leaving a small imprint on us, our thinking and perceptions of the world shift and grow with reach read. It’s like finding something new in a familiar picture, something you cannot unsee. Or like adding a new lens to your perspective glasses. Whether you agree with this new perspective or not, it inevitably becomes a part of you.

Without a doubt, books help us to evolve.

Think of the last five books you read and you’ll see just how much your thinking has grown prior to reading those books.

Now assess these books again. How diverse were the authors? Were all the books all situated in the West? What voices did the book empower and who could it have possibly silenced?

The conception ‘Decolonising your bookshelf’ is something that has risen recently — and it is about time. Now let’s be clear. This isn’t another rant from ethnic minorities moaning about representation. Nor is it a demand to burn every book ever written by a white author at the stake. Nor it is some sort of dystopian revenge plot of oppressing the oppressor.

This is about you as a reader and the world you construct with the books you read.

Decolonisation begins with the self. Decolonisation simply means to eradicate any and all forms of colonial thinking that subjugated certain people and grants privilege to others therefore to decolonise the mind means to actively seek new perspectives. And to do this we must turn to our bookshelves.

Here are 3 simple ways you can decolonise your bookshelf.

1. Read Global Literature

A lot of us like to think that we are diverse readers. We branch out and explore different genres. We actively seek the work of Black or Asian authors. We read empowering feminist and LGBTQ works. We try our best to find books that fairly represent minorities.

This is all great and you should definitely continue to do this.

But when was the last time you picked up a book by a Pakistani author or Nigerian or South African, Caribbean, Algerian, Japanese, Palestinian, Kashmiri (I can continue). We don’t we even know or consider the amazing work that is globally produced.

Our reading compass is so badly fixated on the west that we only read western authors even if they are diverse. Again it is great that you are reading diverse perspectives but this diversity needs to be extended beyond the west.

To decolonise our bookshelf we need to incorporate more global literature so that our perception of the world expands and develops beyond the dominant, western outlooks.

How can we expect to grow our understanding of the world if we only see it through our eyes? Most of the places I’ve mentioned above we might never travel to in our lifetime so why not pay them a little visit through books.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” — Marcel Proust

While I want you to go exploring and find global literature yourself, let your interest be your guide, I do recommend using Pinterest or Goodreads that have hundreds of brilliant reading list on global literature, just in case you don’t know where to begin.

2. Read Translated Work

We also only read English works.

I know you are probably thinking, how am I supposed to read books in another language. My point here is that you should try to read more translated works, something that was not originally written or thought of in English.

I am guilty of hardly reading translated work myself but from the very few I have read I know that it opens you up to unique ways of thinking. Storytelling, prose, themes, metaphor, motifs, all are expressed differently in other languages. Each language has its own ways of artistic expression.

By reading translated work, it allows you to immerse yourself in the philosophies, culture, in another way of thinking completely.

“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.” ― Frantz Fanon

English as the colonial language has also had detrimental consequences on the people it was imposed on. These impacts are still seen today. Many countries continue to emphasise the importance of reading, writing and knowing how to speak in English, or other colonial languages such as French, placing it above their own native tongue. Why? Sure as a skill it is amazing to be Bilingual but when the dynamics of colonial hierarchies are at play this becomes problematic.

The language of the coloniser was a colonial tool and we need to acknowledge this history of language.

Language is also used as a way of creating homogenous communities and identity which is why it is so important when it comes to creating a new nation-state and a new national identity. Now image when a colonised country gains independence, what language does it use to build its state, its identity. Does it use the language of the coloniser that dominated them or its own language it was conditioned to despise? What language does it use to tell its stories?

All these complexities of language have caused many conflicts around the world and continue to impact us all today.

Decolonise your bookshelf by allowing other languages to express their unique ways of storytelling.

3. Contextualise What You Read

History is his-story and his-story is the dominant voice that is shouting above all others.

“History is written by those who win and those who dominate.” — Edward Said

Another way to decolonise your bookshelf is to contextualise what you read in the wider political, historical, cultural context. Contextualise what you read so that you can understand what shaped the text. We approach each book with our presupposed bias understanding and we might walk away with the same if we have no idea of the wider concepts.

I believe as you read more global literature the books themselves make you consider different historical, political and cultural ways of seeing. They teach you that the neat, black and white narrative you were what you were taught in history class was actually messy, complicated and stained with shades of grey.

By contextualising what you read you place that book in a wider framework, you no longer see it as one thing but can derive much more from it. You are able to see the complexities that formed that book and how it continues to be shaped over time.

In terms of decolonisation, contextualising allows you to see that contemporary issues stem from a complex history. We need to understand this history so that we can understand our present.

Decolonising our bookshelf is a something we should all try do so that we open ourselves up to new ways of seeing our world.

“Literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it.”― James Baldwin