Reply To: Important topic, written by the wrong author?

I also read this some time ago.  At the time, I loved the book, and because my daughter is a labor and delivery nurse, it felt somewhat relevant.  I asked her if she had ever had a client request another nurse, and she said yes.  My daughter is an agnostic, and the family wanted a nurse who was a Christian.  Not sure how that turned out.

Since then, I too have thought a lot about who should be allowed to write about race, LGBTQ issues, etc.  I especially got into this with the novel, “American Dirt”, when there was so much controversy around that author.

There is value to both sides of the argument.  By having white authors write a book like “Small Great Things”, perhaps we are preventing people of color from being published.

I am not a writer (of fiction – only engineering papers – boring), but I have always loved reading most fiction.  In the past so much fiction would not have been written if we eliminated all appropriation, but maybe that is the very problem.

However, that said, I think the book is worth reading and should stay on the list.  It seems well researched, and I felt great sympathy for Ruth.