Diversify the Library Project: Home

Olympian and World Champion Caster Semenya is finally ready to share the vivid and heartbreaking story of how the world came to know her name. Thrust into the spotlight at just eighteen years old after winning the Berlin World Championships in 2009, Semenya's win was quickly overshadowed by criticism and speculation about her body, and she became the center of a still-raging firestorm about how gender plays out in sports, our expectations of female athletes, and the right to compete as you are. Told with captivating speed and candor, The Race to Be Myself is the journey of Semenya's years as an athlete in the public eye, and her life behind closed doors. From her rural beginnings running free in the dust, to crushing her opponents in record time on the track, to the accusations and falsehoods spread about her in the press, the legal trial she went through in order to compete, and the humiliation she has been forced to endure publicly and privately. This book is a searing testimony for anyone who has been forced to stop doing what they love.

"In interviewing 27 men aged between 74 and 95 in the late 2000s, David Gould discovered lives - now rapidly being lost to history - that were lived under the shadow of homophobic prejudice. Their stories reveal how men tried to make sense of their same-sex attraction in an era when homosexuality was defined as a mental illness and criminal. What emerges is a revelation - stories of resilience and, sometimes, joy."--Publisher's website.

"An eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention - including striking up a friendship with a hijra (trans) woman - confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more 'modern' of the two. At the older woman's insistence they travel back to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist."--Publisher.

Although the vast majority of LGBT persons are healthy, resilient, and hardy individuals who do not seek social work intervention, some have been or will be clients in social work agencies. The third edition of Social Work Practice with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People updates this classic text and expands its scope to include new content on social work with older and younger LGBT people. Written by a team of highly experienced experts, this book provides a knowledge base for practice that will better prepare students and practitioners for working sensitively, competently, and effectively with LGBT individuals and groups. Comprehensive and practical, this unique text discusses the pragmatic aspects of social work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It will improve and reinforce competent practice with LGBT persons and their families in multiple settings. Chapters focus on important topics such as: the profession's core values and ethical principles; social work and queer theory; LGBT and race--heterosexism, racism, and sexism; applying the life model and the stress-coping process; practice with bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming persons; relationship building between lesbian partners; the impact of creating family for lesbian couples; internalized homophobia, heterocentrism, and gay identity; group work practice with the LGBTQ community; clinical assessment for families where sexual orientation is an issue; and LGBT parenting. There are also new chapters on social work with LGBT young people and LGBT older people. Complete with a highly detailed appendix of symbols, definitions, and terms, Social Work Practice with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People, third edition is an invaluable resource for social workers and mental health professionals as well as for students and educators at all levels of experience.

Winner of the Palestine Book Award and the American Book Award  National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry Finalist Shortlisted for the 2022 Walcott Poetry Prize "Written from his native Gaza, Abu Toha's accomplished debut contrasts scenes of political violence with natural beauty."--The New York Times In this poetry debut Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is inspired by a profound humanity. These poems emerge directly from the experience of growing up and living in constant lockdown, and often under direct attack. Like Gaza itself, they are filled with rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land, and they are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. Children are born, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins as Palestinians go on about their lives, creating beauty and finding new ways to survive. Accompanied by an in-depth interview (conducted by Ammiel Alcalay) in which Abu Toha discusses life in Gaza, his family origins, and how he came to poetry. Praise for Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: "Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishingly gifted young poet from Gaza, almost a seer with his eloquent lyrical vernacular ... His poems break my heart and awaken it, at the same time. I feel I have been waiting for his work all my life."--Naomi Shihab Nye "Though forged in the bleak landscape of Gaza, he conjures a radiance that echoes Miłosz and Kabir. These poems are like flowers that grow out of bomb craters and Mosab Abu Toha is an astonishing talent to celebrate."--Mary Karr "Mosab Abu Toha's Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear arrives with such refreshing clarity and voice amidst a sea of immobilizing self-consciousness. It is no great feat to say a complicated thing in a complicated way, but here is a poet who says it plain: 'In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die.' Later, 'This is how we survived.' It's remarkable. This is poetry of the highest order."--Kaveh Akbar

A powerful journey from star athlete to sudden paralysis to creative awakening, award-winning science fiction writer Nnedi Okorafor shows that what we think are our limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths. Nnedi Okorafor was never supposed to be paralyzed. A college track star and budding entomologist, Nnedi's lifelong battle with scoliosis was just a bump in her plan--something a simple operation would easily correct. But when Nnedi wakes from the surgery to find she can't move her legs, her entire sense of self begins to waver. Confined to a hospital bed for months, unusual things begin to happen. Psychedelic bugs crawl her hospital walls; strange dreams visit her nightly. Nnedi begins to put these experiences into writing, conjuring up strange, fantastical stories. What Nnedi discovers during her confinement would prove to be the key to her life as a successful science fiction author: In science fiction, when something breaks, something greater often emerges from the cracks. In Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Nnedi takes the reader on a journey from her hospital bed deep into her memories, from her painful first experiences with racism as a child in Chicago to her powerful visits to her parents' hometown in Nigeria. From Frida Kahlo to Mary Shelly, she examines great artists and writers who have pushed through their limitations, using hardship to fuel their work. Through these compelling stories and her own, Nnedi reveals a universal truth: What we perceive as limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths--far greater than when we were unbroken. A guidebook for anyone eager to understand how their limitations might actually be used as a creative springboard, Broken Places & Outer Spaces is an inspiring look at how to open up new windows in your mind.

This collection of personal stories is a record of our Pacific histories in Aotearoa New Zealand from the mid-1940s to the present. The writers are twenty amazing people, including community practitioners, public servants, musicians, academics and sportspeople. The stories express alofa, resilience and grit in the face of adversity, discrimination and systemic racism. Each contributors shows how by taking their cultural values into everything they do, they are diversifying and enriching our Pacific legacy and the national knowledge base, whilst at the same time shaping new Pacific pathways. Written against the backdrop of a nation seeking to find itself and its place in the world and navigating the complexities of Tiriti o Waitangi obligations, biculturalism and multiculturalism, and Pacific and international diplomacy, these accounts are also now part of the history of Aotearoa New Zealand. This collection of personal stories is a record of our Pacific histories in Aotearoa New Zealand from the mid-1940s to the present.

This volume explores the diversity and complexity of transgender people's experiences and demonstrates that gendered bodies are constructed through different social, cultural and economic networks and through different spaces and places. Rethinking Transgender Identities brings together original research in the form of interviews, participatory methods, surveys, cultural texts and insightful commentary. The contributing scholars and activists are located in Aotearoa New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, Catalan, China, Japan, Scotland, Spain, and the United States. The collection explores the relationship between transgender identities and politics, lived realities, strategies, mobilizations, age, ethnicity, activisms and communities across different spatial scales and times. Taken together, the chapters extend current research and provide an uthoritative state-of-the-art review of current research, which will appeal to cholars and graduate students working within the fields of sociology, gender studies, sexuality and queer studies, family studies, media and cultural studies, psychology, health, law, criminology, politics and human geography.

"When Tuma Hazou joined the BBC Arabic Service in London in 1957 he was, at 22, the youngest announcer at the BBC. Relocating ten years later to Amman, in Jordan, Tuma was a free-lance journalist contributing Middle East coverage to UPI, BBC, NBC TV News, and later, as both cameraman and radio reporter, with ABC TV & News. In 1990 Tuma joined UNICEF as its Director of Information for the Middle East and North Africa until, in 1997, he retired with his wife, Virginia, back home in New Zealand."--Back cover.

'Sometimes I wonder why I have been forced to spend my creative life grappling with words & the logic & rationality they demand ... I wish I could find a way of reaching directly into another's heart. Words are my only tool. Sometimes I think perhaps I have not worked hard enough. I am still alive. There is time.' - Robert Lord, diary entry, 31 October 1981 Robert Lord (1945-1992) is an important figure in the history of literature and theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand. He wrote incisive and often satiric radio and stage plays, experimenting with traditional theatre forms and incorporating queer characters at a time when almost nobody else did. His enduring work includes such audience favourites as Well Hung, Bert and Maisy and Joyful and Triumphant. In 1973, he co-founded Playmarket, New Zealand's playwrights' agency and publisher. Lord also wrote eight lively, candid and absorbing diaries, now published for the first time in Robert Lord Diaries. From 1974, when he first moved to New York, until his death in Dunedin in 1992, Lord recorded the highs and lows of his writing practice, the theatre world and his social life. His diary entries reveal the dramatic contrast between life as a gay man in 1970s and 80s New York - a world of sex, drugs and socialising - and provincial New Zealand, with its respectable living rooms, fields of carrots and the occasional homoerotic demonstration of sheep shearing. Lord had a complex relationship with his homeland and was never quite sure where he belonged. Witty and incisive, his diary entries tell of torn loyalties and reveal the intense creative momentum Lord forged from his dislocated, outsider status. 'Lord's character comes across vividly in entries that are in turns witty, wry, maudlin and insightful.' - Alison Walls, Artistic Director, The Court Theatre 'Robert was one of my favourite people and a wonderful man.' - Sir Sam Neill 'Lord's compelling and intimate diaries chart the unpredictability of a playwriting career, revealing the exhilaration of recognition and the crushing disappointment of rewrites and rejections. The diaries provide an honest, funny and astute record of Lord's life in 1980s New York City and his eventual apprehensive return to Aotearoa. Finally, and heartbreakingly, they reveal a man alone coming to terms with his mortality while simultaneously attaining acknowledgment in his homeland as a theatre, film and television writer.' - Associate Professor Hilary Halba, School of Performing Arts, University of Otago