Yonder

I first heard about Yonder during a creative non-fiction writing workshop I had undertaken with Jabari Asim [also the author of Yonder]. So, reading this book was exciting because I had been looking forward to it for about a year. It did not disappoint.

It is an eloquently told story of love - and the power of words. It is a story of the right to love, how no amount of restraint, however chain-like, could keep that from happening. Sometimes we may love others without knowing what it means to love at all, but maybe it is in loving another that we discover what love really is, even love for oneself - and would give anything to love, to defend another’s experience of love.

This is a book worth reading, with themes of slavery, friendship, freedom, hardship, overcoming... it is a story that we can easily relate to without wholly claiming as our own, being set in a time of African American ancestors and ancestresses. It is also a story of hope, faith, unbelief, testing, and ultimately, personal, and collective freedom.

A thought that I began to hold after reading this fictional tale was how much power the Thief has, and the impossible-to-deplete resource in the Stolen. You can take so much from a person, maybe even take everything from them, and yet, as long as they have breath in them, you still have not taken all, after all. Hope is both damning and scandalous, and audacious. One wonders, is it worth it to dream? We live for this stuff, or maybe, it is hope that allows us to live, to reach for more.

If you have access, listen to the audio version of it. Various voices are used, and I found it to be impactful [and effective].