The Color Line La Linea Del Colore Igiaba Scego John Cullen Translation by Igiaba Scego, John Cullen (translation), Gregory Conti (translation) 9781635420876, 1635420873 instant download after payment.

It was the middle of the nineteenth century when Lafanu Brown audaciously decided to become an artist. In the wake of the American Civil War, life was especially tough for Black women, but she didn’t let that stop her. The daughter of a Native American woman & an African-Haitian man, Lafanu had the rare opportunity to study, travel, & follow her dreams, thanks to her indomitable spirit, but not without facing intolerance & violence. Now, in 1887, living in Rome as one of the city’s most established painters, she is ready to tell her fiancé about her difficult life, which began in a poor family forty years earlier.

In 2019, an Italian art curator of Somali origin is desperately trying to bring to Europe her younger cousin, who is only sixteen & has already tried to reach Italy on a long, treacherous journey. While organizing an art exhibition that will combine the paintings of Lafanu Brown with the artworks of young migrants, the curator becomes more & more obsessed with the life & secrets of the nineteenth-century painter.

Weaving together these two vibrant voices, Igiaba Scego has crafted a powerful exploration of what it means to be “other,” to be a woman, & particularly a Black woman, in a foreign country, yesterday & today.

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Igiaba Scego was born in Rome to a family of Somali ancestry. She holds a PhD in education on postcolonial subjects & has done extensive academic work in Italy & around the world. Her memoir La mia casa è dove sono won Italy’s prestigious Mondello Prize, while La linea del colore was awarded with Premio Napoli & Scego received the International Award Viareggio-Répaci in 2021. Her other novels include Oltre Babilonia (2008) & Adua (2015), both available in English.