Sitting at the Author's Table at today's Literary and Prologue Society of the Southwest's luncheon, I found the answer to a question and some food for thought.
Over my strawberry shortcake dessert, I listened to Laila Lalami, author of The Moor's Account, tell us that we are all Moors. I've always wondered if Othello was an Arab Negro, as is her main character, or if he was of a more Semitic cast. If Ms Lalami is correct, he's both of them and all of them and each of them.
I'm comfortable with that conclusion. It's nice that someone else is thinking about it, too.
Her historical novel tells the tale of the first non-European explorer/invader/conqueror of the New World. How is it that I am 63 years old and this is the first I am hearing about him? His story, though short on details, certainly deserves mention.
I flashed to Big Cuter's 9th grade social studies text, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, and my son's antipathy toward the book.
"It's history written by the losers, Mom. I'm more interested in the winners."
The unheard voices have lessons to teach us, too. I've been thinking about it all afternoon.
I love it when fiction takes me to deep thought.
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