What we’re about
We are decolonising our shelves!
The world is growing smaller every day. In today’s increasingly global culture, we all need to become familiar with other traditions, and literature provides an exciting and enjoyable mode of entry into the variety of the world’s cultures. A group for bibliophiles that seeks to go beyond the Western literary canon, but also with an interest in eclectic non-fiction.
We are temporarily interrupting reading world fiction in alphabetical order.
As a reader, you may be familiar with your own historical context, but does that mean you have a clear understanding of the literature of your own culture? Read, for instance, Middlemarch by George Eliot, without understanding Victorian reform politics, class rigidity, and the slow transition from old to modern England, and it risks being misread as a purely psychological or moral novel.
This is where colonialism, postcolonialism, and neocolonialism come into play when reading the world. Without a basic grasp of how the world has been shaped over the last hundred years, world literature cannot be adequately framed in its broader historical context.
It is for this reason, and because I am preparing to enter SOAS University, that the theme of 2026 will focus on these areas. The alphabetical order will be interrupted, but as soon as I finish my MA, we will get back to Barbados.
We left it off at Bahrain before we jumped to India, so from Bahrain I will be proposing the following reading list. I hope I can keep up with all this reading as I have to prepare for my course and the Spanish and French reading clubs, so just in case I cannot keep up, I would like to warn you beforehand that I am not promising anything.
2026 Colonialism/Postcolonialism/Neocolonialism
To develop a comprehensive understanding of the interconnected themes of colonialism, neocolonialism, development, justice, and economics worldwide, I suggest the following sequence:
1-Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction by Robert J.C. Young
2-Contested Modernity: Sectarianism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Bahrain by Omar H. AlShehabi
3-Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain—Bangladesh
4-The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China by Julia Lovell
5-Rickshaw Boy by Lao She—China
6-The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara
7-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez—Colombia
8-How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
9-Heart of Darkness by Polish author Joseph Conrad—Congo
10-The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
11-Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi—Ghana
12-Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Some texts such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Sultana’s Dream exceed colonial explanation and draw heavily on local myth, narrative experimentation and internal class and gender dynamics. Acemoglu’s institutionalist economics often clashes with dependency theory and postcolonial critiques. This is to say that colonialism will not be the only lens through which we will discuss these readings.
We will continue with these themes in 2027 and cover the Indian subcontinent, North America, Orientalism, Soviet imperialism and other areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Gaia Books multilingual website and Youtube channel about everything bookish will be announced in the coming months.
Do you speak French and would like to be part of a reading group and other events in French?
https://www.meetup.com/gaia-livres/
Do you speak Spanish and would like to be part of a reading group
and other events in Spanish?
https://www.meetup.com/gaia-libros/
Are you interested in Persian literature and culture:
https://www.meetup.com/persian-culture
While we have real debates over books, the environment of this group is intended as friendly, tolerant and informal. Diversity is welcomed.
Looking forward to connecting with you,
Mónica
Upcoming events
4
Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction
Burdock The Montcalm Royal London House Hotel, 22-25 Finsbury Square, Greater London, GBAs a reader, you may be familiar with your own historical context, but does that mean you have a clear understanding of the literature of your own culture? Read, for instance, Middlemarch by George Eliot, without understanding Victorian reform politics, class rigidity, and the slow transition from old to modern England, and it risks being misread as a purely psychological or moral novel.
This is where colonialism, postcolonialism, and neocolonialism come into play when reading the world. Without a basic grasp of how the world has been shaped over the last hundred years, world literature cannot be adequately framed in its broader historical context.
It is for this reason, and because I am preparing to enter SOAS University, that the theme of 2026 will focus on these areas. The alphabetical order will be interrupted, but as soon as I finish my MA, we will get back to Barbados.
We left it off at Bahrain before we jumped to India, so from Bahrain I will be proposing the following reading list. I hope I can keep up with all this reading as I have to prepare for my course and the Spanish and French reading clubs, so just in case I cannot keep up, I would like to warn you beforehand that I am not promising anything.
2026 Colonialism/Postcolonialism/Neocolonialism
To develop a comprehensive understanding of the interconnected themes of colonialism, neocolonialism, development, justice, and economics worldwide, I suggest the following sequence:
1-Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction by Robert J.C. Young
2-Contested Modernity: Sectarianism, Nationalism, and Colonialism in Bahrain by Omar H. AlShehabi
3-Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain—Bangladesh
4-The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China by Julia Lovell
5-Rickshaw Boy by Lao She—China
6-The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara
7-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez—Colombia
8-How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
9-Heart of Darkness by Polish author Joseph Conrad—Congo
10-The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
11-Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi—Ghana
12-Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Some texts such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Sultana’s Dream exceed colonial explanation and draw heavily on local myth, narrative experimentation and internal class and gender dynamics. Acemoglu’s institutionalist economics often clashes with dependency theory and postcolonial critiques. This is to say that colonialism will not be the only lens through which we will discuss these readings.
We will continue with these themes in 2027 and cover the Indian subcontinent, North America, Orientalism, Soviet imperialism, and other areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Spanish reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-libros
French reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-livres14 attendees
Live with Ai Weiwei—On Censorship
Central Hall Westminster, Storey's Gate, London, GBFaced with tyranny and violence, can an artist really hope to make a difference? Does human creativity truly have the power to change our world for the better?
Ai Weiwei is living proof that it does. Raised in a labour camp and later beaten, surveilled and secretly detained for 81 days without being officially charged by the Chinese state, Weiwei has dedicated his life to the struggle against corruption and oppression of all kinds. As a conceptual artist and activist fighting for justice, he has become an icon in his own lifetime, renowned world-wide for his work promoting freedom of thought and expression, compassion, and humanitarian values.
In conversation with internationally renowned journalist Stephen Sackur, Weiwei will share his personal experiences of censorship at the hands of the state, and show us how authoritarian regimes across the globe suppress freedom of thought and expression. Importantly, he will show us how censorship and self-censorship affect liberal, democratic countries in hidden, pernicious ways – and issue a rallying cry against complacency.
Those who control the narrative control the future: Ai Weiwei is here to help us fight back.
All tickets to this event include a copy of Ai Weiwei’s new book, On Censorship (RRP £12.99).
I’m seating at the Stalls Block E Row: B Seat: 2
After the event, we’ll meet to share impressions at the Red Lion pub in 48 Parliament St.
https://share.google/Ndfpw4Gb5pUq3MOlS
You can buy your ticket here:
https://howtoacademy.com/events/ai-weiwei-on-censorship/
Spanish reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-libros
French reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-livres8 attendees
Theatre—Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley
Wiltons' Music Hall, Wilton's Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley, London, E1 8JB, London, GBTickets selling fast!
The Historic 1965 Cambridge Union Debate, Reimagined.
Following critically acclaimed runs in New York City, London, Chicago and Los Angeles, the american vicarious’ radically staged production of the historic debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. is reenacted at Wilton’s Music Hall.
The Debate
‘Is The American Dream At The Expense Of The American Negro?’
This was the question on February 18, 1965, when an overflow crowd packed the Cambridge Union to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin— the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement—and William F. Buckley Jr., America’s most prominent conservative intellectual.
The stage was set for an extraordinary confrontation: Baldwin’s call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley’s defence of the American establishment. Their exchange laid bare the deep divisions at the heart of American democracy—divisions whose echoes continue to shape our present.
In restaging this debate, the american vicarious returns Baldwin and Buckley’s words to public conversation through the voices of contemporary artists. Sixty years later, the arguments remain piercing, the stakes undiminished, the questions still demanding our attention.
I‘m sitting at the stalls in F10.
After the event, we‘ll meet at Wilton’s Bar to share impressions of the play.
You can but your ticket on this link:
https://wiltons.org.uk/booking/?event-id=6170&instances-id=309950
Spanish reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-libros
French reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-livres4 attendees
Contested Modernity—Bahrain
Burdock The Montcalm Royal London House Hotel, 22-25 Finsbury Square, Greater London, GBSalam,
Discussions of the Arab world, particularly the Gulf States, increasingly focus on sectarianism and autocratic rule. These features are often attributed to the dominance of monarchs, Islamists, oil, and ‘ancient hatreds’. To understand their rise, however, one has to turn to a largely forgotten but decisive episode with far-reaching repercussions—Bahrain under British colonial rule in the early twentieth century.
Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined Arabic literature as well as British archives, Omar AlShehabi details how sectarianism emerged as a modern phenomenon in Bahrain. He shows how absolutist rule was born in the Gulf, under the tutelage of the British Raj, to counter nationalist and anti-colonial movements tied to the al-Nahda renaissance in the wider Arab world. A groundbreaking work, Contested Modernity challenges us to reconsider not only how we see the Gulf but the Middle East as a whole.
We‘ll continue with our 2026 reading list:
3-Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain—Bangladesh
4-The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China by Julia Lovell
5-Rickshaw Boy by Lao She—China
6-The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara
7-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez—Colombia
8-How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney
9-Heart of Darkness by Polish author Joseph Conrad—Congo
10-The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
11-Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi—Ghana
12-Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Enjoy Bahrain!
Spanish reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-libros
French reading club: www.meetup.com/gaia-livres5 attendees
Past events
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