The challenge for this installment of the Short List is to make a list of noteworthy women writers of color based on style, storytelling, and social political commentary. When it came time to write about these authors, well, it was just like everything else worth doing, difficult to pin down to a short list of a few authors in a few words and a few works. Kara Walker, Zora Neal Hurston, Stacey Patton, Edwidge Danticat, Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith, and Jhumpa Lahiri are a few names you should know when considering works that illustrate the diversity of our experiences in relation to each other on this planet.

Kara Walker is actually not a writer but a visual artist with numerous essays and commentaries. Her works touch on the peculiar institution of America’s past and its effects on its population since. In short, Walker filters history through her own point of view. Most known for her silhouettes, the striking images Walker creates contain strong sexual tones and arrangements that shock and disturb but American history is shocking and it is disturbing. Even in her recent exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York, Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, it is obvious that Walker walks the fine line between history, intelligence, and creativity, not just in the works but in her titles. The title of the exhibit is also the title of her latest book (ISBN 978-0-935640-86-1) and covers the same works including her multimedia installments. Displayed first in her exhibit upon entrance is the panoramic silhouette Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart. If you do not get a chance to catch the exhibit definitely invest in the book. If that is not enough, check out her previous book of art and essays After the Deluge ISBN 978-0-8478-2981-1 and other published works.

While Zora Neal Hurston is not a new author or a visual artist, she is known mainly for her fictional work Their Eyes were Watching God but do not miss some of her more anthropological works like Mules and Men; a collection of African-American folk tales, songs, and culture, or her autobiography Dust Tracks in the Road. For a woman with foresight enough to document the beginnings of African-American life, especially around points uniquely steeped in slavery, it is amazing to see how far we have come and how far we have to go.

Stacey Patton, the newest African-American author on this list, also tells this tale. Her memoir That Mean Old Yesterday ISBN 978-0-7432-9310-5 shows just how much she had to endure from the seventies to present. Patton has won the collegiate equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, The William Randolph Hurst Award for feature writing not once, but twice. From overcoming the foster care system in New Jersey to pursuing her Doctorate, Patton’s story is one we all should read and learn from.

We will also learn from Haitian author Edwidge Danticat’s latest work referenced in this issue’s Sliced Fruit. Please read her other works if you have not already. Also find Indian author Arundhati Roy’s only work of fiction, The God of Small Things which won the Booker Prize in 1997. Roy’s political essays; War Talk ISBN 0-89608-668-2, The Cost of Living ISBN 0-000-714949-2, and Public Power in the Age of Empire ISBN 1-58322-682-6 to name a few, and activism are what truly set her apart and earned her the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004. Please read up on why. Then read English born Jamaican novelist Zadie Smith. Her first novel White Teeth won critical acclaim and numerous awards overseas and her third novel On Beauty was reviewed in Nat Creole issue four by Al Burton. We loved it then and love it now plus she even has a new work out, this time as editor, in The Book of Other People ISBN 978-0-14-303818-4.

Last but not least is Indian author Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri is known for her first published work the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Her second work, The Namesake, was the basis of the film with the same title. Her new collection of stories, Unaccustomed Earth ISBN 978-0-307-26573-9 is due out spring 2008 and is very, very good.

There are many other writers with notable works unmentioned and many more up and coming writers who we have not heard of yet. We are looking. Find us. After all, this is a short list.