On Communal Love & Freedom
with Natasha Gordon-Chipembere author of Finding La Negrita
#NuevasPaginasconLupita is a space that is both an archive and resource aimed to "spotlight" Hispanic/Latinx/e authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to new and/or old favorite Hispanic/Latinx/e authors and their books! So give this & every post a share to help us reach more readers!
How does it work?!
Here’s the deal, I came up with a set of casual/random/funny questions to ask each Hispanic/Latinx/e author, I interview. For now, the questions will all be the same but maybe in the future I’ll launch this into more specific questions to the author or maybe I’ll turn this series into a mini-podcast, or maybe……well, you get it! The possibilities are endless.
If you are new here don’t forget to check out all the other amazing interviews! We also have a great line-up of guest authors coming up so make sure you don’t miss an issue by subscribing now!
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Hi and Hello
from my Instagram-free world. I am four or five days (?) into my “break” from all things Instagram and I can’t say much is different lol. I’m still having a hard time focusing on things and struggling to motivate myself to do things that are good for me - like take long walks outdoors and or get back to consistently running. Not that I thought ditching Instagram might be a cure for those things lol but I guess I thought with all the time I spend on it, not being on it might create more time for me to be motivated to do other things?
Anyways, I can say I am on my phone a lot less and I’m feeling the relief that comes with not having to ask myself “what should I post today? if I don’t post today the Instagram algorithm will punish me”. I do miss it and most importantly I miss engaging in the comment section with fellow book franz. Thankfully a few of you saw my note about my break and found your way here. Thank you for venturing off Instagram to join me here <3 I’ve got some really great author interviews coming your way (like the one below!) and mini-book reviews of what I’ve read recently.
So without further ado, our special guest author for today’s issue is……Natasha Gordon-Chipembere author of Finding La Negrita!
Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?
This photo was taken on September 29, 2022 in my house in Heredia, Costa Rica. I was about to leave for the airport to head to New York for my book launch at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the bell rang with a delivery. It was a box of my books - this was the first time that I touched my physical book and so this moment is etched into my soul forever - pure joy! (Photo credit: Aminata Chipembere)
Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book.
My historical fiction novel was inspired the most by Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones, which is a historical fiction rendering of the 1937 Haitian Massacre of cane workers in the Dominican Republic (aka the Parsley Massacre). This was the first time that I had even come across a novel which made tangible the beautiful and complex nuances of Black life (love, sex, sacrifice, fear, dreams, tradition) within an absolute moment of violence and terror. My novel, Finding La Negrita, also attempts to do this - to bring Afrodescendant humanity right up front in the midst of the slave experience in colonial Costa Rica.
What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?
Love is the first central theme in all its manifestations - intimate/consensual love, communal love, parental/child love, and the love for freedom above all else. And the second theme is Freedom - each character sits on the line between freedom and enslavement throughout the book and I wanted this concept to be at the forefront for readers as they experience the decisions/choices made by the characters around this theme.
If a book was home, where would your home be?
Certainly, it would be in Cartago, Costa Rica amongst the mountains, enveloped by the Arenal Volcano.
If your book was a famous musician who would it be?
Without a doubt Afro-Peruvian singer, Susana Baca.
What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?
hot chocolate (cacao) and a warm vegetarian tamale (Costa Rican style)
In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?
Access to Latine literature in my lifetime has helped me most as a professor teaching these texts in my class rather than affecting me as a writer. I have used valuable texts for students in Costa Rica who have never read Latine authors in their lives (even as Latine students).
Where can readers keep up with your work?
Jaded Ibis Press: https://jadedibispress.com/product/11808/
My website: www.natashagordonchipembere.com
A huge thank you to Natasha Gordon-Chipembere for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) of her book #SupportLatinxLit!
Natasha Gordon-Chipembere holds a PhD in English from the University of South Africa. She was born in New York to a Costa Rican mom and a Panamanian dad. She is the founder and host of the Tengo Sed (“I am thirsty”) Annual Writing Retreats in Costa Rica (since January 2015).
From Bookshop website:
Finding La Negrita is a captivating retelling of the Black Madonna narrative, which has driven Costa Rica's national and spiritual identity since the 1700s. In powerful prose, Natasha Gordon-Chipembere delivers a vivid and intimate living portrait of slavery in this nation, which was radically different from plantation bondage in other parts of the Americas.
Meet Dakarai, a famed African sculptor who must buy his freedom once he is stolen into slavery and separated from his newborn daughter, Jendayi. Her mother has died in childbirth, in the hold of a Middle Passage ship. Husband and child are left to reconcile their grief over her absence and forge a life somehow in the New World. Finding La Negrita spans time and space as it captures Dakarai and Jendayi's reunion, one ripe with the secrets and sacrifices a single father confronts while raising a strong-minded young girl, in an era with a precarious line between freedom and enslavement. In those margins, and unbeknownst to each other, they both dare to pursue dangerous new loves beyond the limits of what colonial society will permit. But at what cost to themselves and each other?