A Mixed Race Take On What It Means To Be ‘Free’ |
A Mixed Race Take On What It Means To Be ‘Free’
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National Public Radio
2011-06-24
NPR Staff
A lonely young New Yorker finds a puppy while jogging. A middle class couple tries navigating the treacherous waters of admission to a sought-after preschool. A new mother grows jealous of the chic and thin mom living across the hall.
It’s all stuff you may have seen before—but not quite. At least not if Danzy Senna has anything to say about it.
These are all characters in Senna’s new collection of short fiction, titled You Are Free. The stories start with the familiar, but soon take subtle turns to reveal racial and other tensions lurking not too far below the surface.
Senna herself is mixed race. Her father is half African-American and half Mexican, while her mother is Irish and English. Growing up in Boston, Senna was raised to self-identify as black.
“I think growing up black or growing up biracial is something that’s part of your daily language and your daily awareness of the world you’re living in,” she tells NPR’s Michel Martin.
But she doesn’t see her work being about race or mixed race. Instead, Senna uses race as the background of her fiction, as a way to understand the culture and characters…
Read the entire story here.
Read the transcript of the interview here.
Listen to the interview here (00:13:32).