Welcome to Braggsville: Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

March 4, 2015 · by Christina Kaylor | in Book Reviews | tagged "41 Shots", Bildungsroman, Black History Month, Civil War re-enactments, Comic relief in works of serious literature, Dramatic Irony, Outsider characters challenge the status quo, Performative Intervention, satire, T. Geronimo Johnson, The Hero's Journey, unreliable narrator, Welcome to Braggsville | 12 Comments

For years, Uncle Charles had rhapsodized about our Snell family roots in tiny Oconee, Georgia, stop #14 on the Central of Georgia Railroad between Macon and Savannah. Oconee (population 280) is the heart of Georgia and site of the Civil War Battle of Ball’s Ferry at the Oconee River Bridge. When I decided I wanted […]

One Thousand Scheherazades and Folktales Three Ways

February 4, 2015 · by Stephanie Knapp | in Book Reviews, Storytelling | tagged Alcee Fortier, Animal Tales, Black History Month, Compair Lapin & Bre'r Rabbit, Desegregation in New Orleans, Elizabeth Catlett, Folk Art vs. Academy Art, Laura Plantation, Louisiana folklore, Original versions of fairytales & folktlaes, The Negritude Movement, translated literature | 10 Comments

Alcée Fortier doesn’t get it. He’s spent decades listening, absorbing, and translating a vast collection of stories recounted by the humans living in and around the great estate of Le Petit Versailles built by his grandfather – the first to refine sugar in Louisiana – Valcour Aimé. It is a strange fact that the old […]