Interview: Assuring the Authentic Voice in Modern Literature
In January 2020, the novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins hit bookstores after months of positive reviews and being selected to Oprah’s Book Club. Then Latinx critics called out the book detailing a Mexican bookseller crossing the U.S. border to escape a drug cartel as perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Cummins is not Mexican, although claims Puerto Rican heritage, and critics repeated what they had been saying all along, that authentic marginalized voices don’t get published, but white authors...
authenticity reader, characterization, craft, DEI, interview, Publishing, self-editing, sensitivity reader, Writing