Ten years ago today, I wrote about how I had constructed a science fiction course consisting of nine white men and one woman, and why that happened; and the following year I wrote about how reading intersectionally takes a bit of effort and attention because there are so many obstacles (though happily the obstacles get lesser with time as you find new ways to look for books).

This year, the New York Times published a list of the "100 best books of the 21st century" (so far). I have been low-key annoyed about it since I heard of it, and this seems as good a time as any to get it off my chest.

Even a cursory glance at the list reveals that this is not a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century (though there are some very good ones there), unless the best books of the 21st century have been written by overwhelmingly white people from North America and Europe, with a vast majority of the minority being non-white people either from or with strong connections to the US.

On a quick and not very scientific count, I get 22 white¹ men and 21 white women and enbies from the US alone (go gender equality?), and another 10 and 16, respectively from elsewhere (mainly Europe, but also Canada and Chile -- one Norwegian, probably since he just won the Nobel prize). Three of these are Elena Ferrante, 2 are Denis Johnson, 3 are George Saunders. So that is ... well over 2/3 just there.

Representing the entire non-white population of the world we have 31 books. (3 of these are Jesmyn Ward, who may or may not be that awesome -- I have not read her).

Of these, there are 21 authors (men and women together) who are either from the US or have lived in the US for much of their lives (like Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose family fled to the US when he was 4; Jin Min Lee, whose family moved when she was 8), Junot Diaz, whose family moved from Dominica to the US when he was 6).

There are 10 left.

Of these, two are Zadie Smith.
One is Kazuo Ishiguro (moved to Britain when he was 5).
One is Marjane Satrapi, who left Iran at 14, then returned, but left again for France once she had finished her studies.
One is Moshin Hamid, who was born in Pakistan but has moved back and forth to the US most of his youth and now lives in Britain, and is British.
One Hisham Matar, who is described by Wikipedia as an American-born British-Libyan writer, and whose biography reads like a spy novel (but I digress).
One is Siddharta Mukherjee, who I think has lived in the US since he started university.
One is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who is Nigerian, but moved to the US at 19 and studied there, and still lives there part of the time as I understand it.

There is Marlon James, who is Jamaican.
And there is Han Kang, who is South Korean.

My point in listing most of these authors' connection to the US is in no way to diminish them or the books they have written or their perspectives. In fact, I strongly suspect that in a list of the actual best books in the world (which I think is an impossibility), books written by people who are able to see the world from two or more cultures should probably be overrepresented.

My point is that this list represent what the US sees of the world. Not the world. And the US sees the world through its own publishing industry, or failing that, through the European or Western publishing industry. And its own incestuous and incessant lists. (For fuck's sake, they are making a list of the books of the century 24 years into it -- could they not wait for the quarter?).

They hedge a little, of course: it says "as voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review" -- though I cannot find out who these 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics, and other book lovers (really?) are. I am betting most were American. And I can tell from the comments provided that one was Norwegian (because his list is available -- and I get to be relieved that his suggestion of Handke did not make the final cut).

Methodological digression (yes, despite the fact that I hand counted the above and there are probably counting errors because my notes look like a spider died on them, I am going to gripe about the methods of the NYT book list): Despite the fact that they say that they have cooperated with "Upshot — the department at The Times focused on data and analytical journalism", who have presumably thought about these things (one hopes), there is nothing on the breakdown of the people asked (that I can find). It says that

the Book Review sent a survey to hundreds of novelists, nonfiction writers, academics, book editors, journalists, critics, publishers, poets, translators, booksellers, librarians and other literary luminaries, asking them to pick their 10 best books of the 21st century.

We let them each define “best” in their own way. For some, this simply meant “favorite.” For others, it meant books that would endure for generations.

The only rules: Any book chosen had to be published in the United States, in English, on or after Jan. 1, 2000. (Yes, translations counted!)

Translations count! I am so glad. There are 5 from outside Europe, two of which are of Roberto Bolaño.

I realise my methodological gripe mostly consists in posting their methodological section.

Why does it matter?

People look to lists like this. A book is an investment in both time and money, both of which are limited these days. We want to read what other people read. And we want to read books that will not be a disappointment. We want to read books that other people have liked because then we might like them, too.

The NYT knows this. In fact, there is a whole machinery around this list: you can click which ones you have read, which ones you want to read, you can share that with others. They give suggestions for other books you might read if you liked the ones on the list. This is great! It helps people find books they might like.

And there are so many books on interesting topics, from gender politics and trans lives to the new Jim Crow, to migration, to income inequality.

And then the list is so limited. You get just enough of a smattering of non-Americans to make it seem like it looks beyond the US borders, and yet somehow just happened to end up with this majority of white people, majority of Americans. Because, after all, those are the voices that matter?

And so we repeat the patterns. Again. Making it harder to find the other voices. Again. Making people spend valuable energy digging to find those other perspectives on the world. Again.

Am I being too critical? Some of the contributors have clearly thought about the political situation and which books are GOOD voices in that discussion. Too negative? There are some excellent LGBT authors, there are moving stories of struggles that need to be heard. Too quick? After all, an intersectional analysis with more categories might pleasantly surprise me. Too sticklerish? Because after all they SAID the best books, but they ARE an American publication (despite being read all over the world), and they did say... right at the bottom.

I don't know. I just know that whenever I run into this kind of list, these days, I start counting, and while my counting may not be stellar (please check my math), I am inevitably not very happy at the end of it.

My friend Roh and her friends made an anti-oppression reading challenge this year, which I will probably write about once I complete it. The challenge was good, but the best part was their suggestions for each prompt. Because it was a list focused on names from the Global South, and from oppressed groups in the West, and I found marvellous books I have NEVER had recommended to me. Because unless I specifically go looking, I stumble across a list that is 70% white, and 90% Western. Or I have books recommended to me by people who have read those lists.

As a final point: I have been very good. I have not commented on individual authors. I have not said "where the fuck is Bernardine Evaristo?" or "god I love The Last Samurai". That is not the point of this. But where the fuck is Bernardine Evaristo? And gods, I love The Last Samurai.

¹White-passing. I am going fully by eye here, which is a bit dodgy -- and I know I am counting latinx authors as white, which is a whole separate discussion, I think. The key point here is that there is little indigenous or Black representation in the non-US authors outside of Europe. From my count there are 5 that are either from Latin America (two of which is Roberto Bolaño) or Latinx (by surname, which is an imperfect metric) and which I have placed in this category. ^↩