David Chariandy

This novella-length collection of gentle essays about race and belonging is written in epistolary style by novelist Chariandy to his 13-year-old daughter. In the opening essay, he recounts being in a café with her at age three, where a woman tells him he doesn’t belong there, in Canada, the country of his birth. And though his daughter doesn’t hear the words, she notices the effect they have on her father.

In the remaining essays, Chariandy, still disheartened ten years later by the show more state of race relations, delves into history -- world history itself; and the history of his African and South Asian ancestors; and his own experience, including the family he has created with his European-ancestry wife.

The future I yearn for is not one in which we will all be clothed in sameness, but one in which we will finally learn to both read and respectfully discuss our differences.

My parents wrote a history of their lives and our family, and I treasure it, as I’m sure Chariandy’s daughter will treasure hers. Yet Chariandy's has relevance beyond his family, and I'm grateful he opened it for me and the world to treasure and learn from, too.

(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.) show less

David Chariandy is known as a fiction writer but in this book he delves into the nonfiction realm to write a letter to his daughter. She was thirteen years old at the time so just entering those difficult teenage years. It's not so much advice for his daughter as an explanation of his own background and what he has learned growing up. Chariandy's parents are from Trinidad; his father is East Indian and his mother of black ancestry. David was born in and grew up in Scarborough and experienced show more his fair share of racism. He tells one instance of being out with his daughter when she was three. Going to get her a glass of water from a dispenser a white woman shoved in front of him justifying her action by saying "I was born here. I belong here." David really hopes his daughter never has to experience that kind of insult but figures she probably will. The mother probably can't explain these situations to her daughter since she is white and from a privileged background.

This short book (although a long letter) is worth taking time over. I'll bet David's daughter already treasures it. show less

David Chariandy is an eloquent and thoughtful writer and this book was easily read in practically one sitting. Although the incident that precipitated his thinking about writing it happened a decade earlier, it has taken him all these years to formulate what he wanted to say, when talking to his daughter about growing up and living in our world as a person of mixed heritage. He does so by relating some of his own experiences, while acknowledging that hers will, on many levels, be very show more different. There is the matter of gender, the fact that his parents were immigrants and hers are not, and the country and even the world she is growing up in is in many ways, not the one he grew up in.

Without ever mentioning her name (she is always *dearest daughter*), or the names of others, for that matter, Chariandy fleshes out the book with stories, anecdotes and insights from his own life, the lives of his parents, his son and daughter, his wife and her family, and history in general. A lot is packed into 120 pages but it never felt heavy-handed or forced. I really enjoyed getting to know this wonderful author and look forward to reading his 2 previous books (novels). show less

In Brother, his second novel, David Chariandy describes the complex relationship of two brothers, Francis and Michael, sons of a Trinidadian mother who immigrated to Canada with hopes of becoming a nurse but who instead wore herself out with years of menial labour as she raised her boys on her own and tried to keep food on the table. The book is narrated by younger son Michael. Years after Francis’ death, the visit to the old neighbourhood of childhood friend Aisha has triggered show more Michael’s recollections of growing up in a crumbling and dangerous Toronto public housing complex. Michael, who has come of age on streets filled with criminal activity, drugs and gang violence, characterizes himself as artistically inclined and somewhat naïve. In his recollections, Francis, who as a teen aspired to a career in music, exudes confidence and mingles easily with the street crowd. Michael though is awkward and unsure of himself. The brothers grow up frequently unattended because their mother is working two or three jobs, and Francis assumes the role of his younger brother’s protector and defender, taking pains to shield Michael from both the coarser realities as well as the allure of the street culture in which they are immersed. Francis is initially tender and protective toward his mother, though he later grows distant and secretive. He is also quick to anger and doesn’t hesitate to use his fists, especially when drunk or high, and it is this volatility that gets him into trouble. At the time of Aisha’s visit, Michael, now in his twenties, still lives with his mother, who has never stopped mourning her elder son, though now their roles are reversed, and it is Michael doing the watching and protecting and worrying. Michael’s story of his brother’s short life builds to a violent and tragic climax, and along the way draws a portrait of a vital and self-sufficient community populated by immigrants that is neglected by and culturally isolated from the society that promised to welcome them with open arms, and which is often the target of police suspicion and harassment. Though Francis’ fate is inevitable, Chariandy builds suspense in expert fashion while telling an essential story of young people whose dreams and hopes for the future clash with social structures that seem designed to keep them firmly in their place. show less