As 2020 draws to a close many of us are weary and frightened, but hopeful. While we’ve suffered under the pandemic and the police, we’ve also come together to build networks of aid, care, and solidarity. Record numbers of people took to the streets to protest the murders of Black people, braving arrest, beatings, sound cannons, and tear gas; 2020 opened a conversation about racism, equality, and justice that is now too loud to be ignored.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is one of the giants of contemporary literature. Writing primarily in Gikuyu, his writing spans genre and form—from novels to criticism, memoir to plays—and has been praised from the likes of President Barack Obama, the New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and others. To celebrate the publication of his new novel The Perfect Nine, we thought we would share a reading list of some of Ngũgĩ's notable works.

September is National Translation Month, a month to celebrate literature written in different languages and honor the unique and often underrecognized process of adapting a text into a new language, while preserving the original meaning, voice, and style. Translators allow us to access and experience writing from all over the world which we might never encounter otherwise.

The first Labor Day parade took place in New York City on September 5^th, 1882 as a demonstration for worker’s rights. Twelve years later, it was signed into a law as a national holiday to celebrate and honor the working class, and to give workers a day off. Since the Industrial Revolution, impoverished working class people have struggled for fair wages, hours, and treatment—with immigrants and Black people often facing the worst conditions.

When most Americans think of college, they conjure pre-pandemic images of young adults fresh out of high school strolling across bucolic residential campuses and enjoying student life in dorms. After all, a college education is often touted as a shining pathway to success. While education is proven to be transformative, securing a degree and navigating the institutions that grant them can be fraught for many students, especially first-generation, minority, and low-income students.

The 2020 presidential election is rapidly approaching, and it holds the potential for a monumental reckoning of American democracy. Protests persist across the country in an effort to defund the police and dismantle systemic racism, the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging in the U.S. longer than in any other affluent nation, the census timeline has been cut short and seeds of doubt have been planted by President Trump about the integrity of voting by mail.

With ongoing nationwide protests against police violence, race in the United States has been at the center of many conversations in recent weeks—books on racial injustice like The New Jim Crow are topping bestseller lists, and social media feeds are full of outrage over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans.

Throughout its history The New Press has published hundreds of books that challenge racism and shine a spotlight on systemic injustice, books that correct a whitewashed historical narrative and offer a vision for a more equal future.

Throughout the week, we’re celebrating the life and legacy of author Studs Terkel leading up to his birthday on Saturday. Today, we have a collection of quotes pulled from his books (you can find suggestions on which ones to read here) to serve as some food for thought in our present moment.

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Something to think about while reflecting on the past: