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TEXT
MARISKA JANSEN
ILLUSTRATIONS
JANET HILL
today’s world. A man who arrives at a party by inexpensive
rental car might secretly not be a very appealing catch for
some women.
Thanks to the way this book exposes the strange way
people’s minds can work, I am now able to view social events
more from a distance now and then. How would Austen view
this gathering, I wonder, whenever I feel embarrassed and
uncomfortable at a party full of people dressed to the nines.
She has also taught me not to make everything about me,
and this has made me a happier person. The fact that my
neighbor looks the other way, scowling, whenever she arrives
home by bike—and I have no idea why—might not have
anything to do with me. Who knows? She might just get
that surly look whenever she’s cycling against the wind.EMMA REYES ON SELF-WORTH
Colombian artist Emma Reyes wrote beautiful, detailed
letters about her childhood in Colombia. These letters
were later bundled in The Book of Emma Reyes:
A Memoir in Correspondence. In the first letter, Reyes
writes about her life in and around a poor little house in
Bogotá near a garbage dump. She lived there with her
older sister Helena, a little boy she called Piojo—she didn’t
know his real name—and María, a young woman with long
black hair. They don’t really talk much in that little house.
At this point, she doesn’t yet know the real identity of Piojo
and the young woman or what their fate is.
Reyes describes how she used to lug a full chamber pot
to the dung heap every morning to empty it. Then the best
part of the day would arrive, playing on the garbage dumpMARISKA’S READING LIST
‘The Man in the Wooden Hat’, by
Jane Gardam
‘You Should Have Left’, by
Daniel Kehlmann
‘H is for Hawk’, by Helen Macdonald
‘My Brilliant Friend’, by
Elena Ferrante
‘Pride and Prejudice’,by Jane Austen
‘The Book of Emma: A Memoir in
Correspondence’, by Emma Reyeswith the neighborhood children, digging around in the
waste with their bare hands looking for treasures, and
playing with a piece of iron wire.
When Reyes is five, María takes her and her sister on a
long lonely walk that ends in an unexpected way with the
two children being dropped off at a monastery.
The author, who later became a successful artist in
Paris, France, writes about her childhood without shame
or scruples. She insisted that her letters be published
unedited. She felt that the mistakes and imperfections
belonged to her and her history. She accepted who she
was; her origins do not affect her own self-worth.