June 11, 2025 • 41 mins
“As my own mother is aging, she's telling me … before I take this to my grave, here is something you should know. So the secrets are coming out. And as more and more secrets are revealed, I'm learning more about myself.” - Ibi Zoboi
Ibi Zoboi writes to remember—her own story, her family’s legacy, and the long history of migration, myth, and memory that shaped them both. For Ibi, storytelling is a form of resistance and reclamation. It’s how she makes sense of the secrets that shaped her life and gives voice to those left out of the narrative. A National Book Award finalist and the bestselling author of American Street, Pride, Star Child, and (S)Kin, Ibi’s work blurs the line between folklore and futurism.
In this episode, Stories Left Untold: Ibi Zoboi on Secrets Lost and Found, she opens up about growing up Haitian in 1980s Brooklyn, discovering a half-sister decades later, and finding her way to writing through soap operas, Stephen King, and the voices of women who came before her. She also shares how a Vodou ceremony in Brooklyn changed her relationship to her culture, why she always sought out elders and activists, and how she’s still learning to push back against the pressure to fit a mold—on the page and off.
Ibi’s reading challenge, Haitian Creations, celebrates stories of migration and identity from first-generation and immigrant voices—stories that, like hers, speak to the truths we inherit and the ones we uncover for ourselves.
Download Ibi’s reading challenge at thereadingculturepod.com/ibi-zoboi
And this week’s Beanstack Featured Librarian is once again William Shaller, the librarian at Hoffman Middle School in Houston, Texas. This time, he shares how a surprise resurgence of Twilight led to an unforgettable moment of joy and connection in his school library.
Show Chapters
Chapter 1: Under The Table
Chapter 2: Danny Boy
Chapter 3: Two Thousand Suns
Chapter 4: Brooklyn Vodou
Chapter 5: Ghosted
Chapter 6: Reading Challenge
Chapter 7: Beanstack Featured Librarian
Links
- The Reading Culture
- The Reading Culture Newsletter Signup
- Follow The Reading Culture on Instagram (for giveaways and bonus content)
- Ibi Zoboi
- Ibi Zoboi Instagram
- Two Thousand Seasons
- Beanstack resources to build your community’s reading culture
- Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Host and Production Credits
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Producers: Mel Webb and Lower Street Media
Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Mel Webb, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ibi Zoboi (00:03):
As my own mother was aging, she's telling me before I
take this to my grave, here issomething you should know. So
the secrets are coming out. Andas more and more secrets are
revealed, I'm learning moreabout myself.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (00:19):
You might describe a secret as just a
story someone won't tell you.Maybe it's too embarrassing, too
private, or too dangerous foryou to hear. But there are
larger ways too for a story tobecome a secret. It can be
banned or burned. It can beerased just as a culture is
(00:40):
erased, vanishing as itsstorytellers are disappeared.
Sometimes, a story becomes asecret just because we were too
distracted to ask someone totell it.
Ibi Zoboi (00:51):
They were not listening to our elders where,
you know, just put him innursing homes. There's so much
that we don't even know is lost.We don't know what we don't
know, and we lost what we didn'teven have.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (01:04):
Eby Zaboi is a National Book Award
finalist and the best sellingauthor of American Street,
Pride, Starchild, and mostrecently, Skin. Her work blends
folklore, futurism, and familylegacy into something that feels
part poetry, part protest, andpart spell. In this episode, Eby
(01:25):
opens up about the cost ofsecrets, including one family
bombshell her mother waitedthirty years to drop on her. She
tells us about growing up inBushwick, Brooklyn before the
coffee shops moved in, writingsoap opera fan fiction in marble
notebooks, and getting to knowAmerica from Irish nuns who
taught her how to sing DannyBoy, plus a transcendent
(01:49):
experience at a New York voodooceremony. My name is Jordan
Lloyd Bookie, and this is thereading culture, a show where we
speak with diverse authors aboutways to build a stronger culture
of reading in our communities.
We dive deep into their personalexperiences and inspirations.
Our show is made possible byBeanstack, the leading solution
(02:10):
for motivating students to readmore. Learn more at
beanstack.com, and make sure tocheck us out on Instagram at the
reading culture pod andsubscribe to our newsletter for
bonus content at thereadingculturepod.com forward
slash newsletter alright on tothe show hey listeners are you
(02:32):
looking for a fun easy way totrack your reading and earn cool
rewards well meet beanstack theultimate reading app used by a
community of over 15,000 schoolslibraries, and organizations
nationwide. Are you an avidreader? Check with your local
library to see if they offerBeanstack for free.
(02:53):
A parent? Ask your child'steacher if the school library
already uses Beanstack. And ifyou are an educator searching
for a fresh alternative toaccelerated reader, Beanstack is
the perfect tool to cultivate athriving reading culture. Ready
to turn the page? Visitbeanstack.com to learn more.
(03:17):
Evie, you know I'm very excitedabout this conversation today.
Let's get started with yourimmigration experience. And I
don't know, like, do you
remember much about that experience?
Ibi Zoboi (03:27):
I came here when I was four. I do remember Haiti at
three and four. They come inbits and pieces, but I remember
feeling loved and protected.There was always somebody
around. It a whole community, itseemed.
And I remember the starkdifference of leaving Haiti and
coming to New York, theisolation, the loneliness, cold,
(03:48):
dark. Where in Haiti, I remembermy mother being around and in
New York, my mother alwaysworking. Yeah. So I've described
that shift as sort of sciencefiction y in that it did felt
like I was coming to a differentplanet. Yeah.
The landscape is different. Theweather, the climate is
different. The people aredifferent. And I always talk
(04:10):
about the reason why my motherleft is not the reasons the
stereotypical reasons. My motherwas a broadcast journalist, a
news commentator on a radiostation.
And as a young woman, what voicedo you have? In what ways can
you really share your opinionsunder a dictatorship? Because at
(04:31):
that time, Haiti had adictatorship. And that sort of
freedom is why many peopleleave, And it's not always
because of lack of food orpoverty. It is a sort of
artistic and intellectualfreedom that they're seeking.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:47):
Definitely. I think, like, especially right
now, a lot of people forgetthat, you know, are forgetting
that in the story. And whatabout your dad? You're talking
about your mom, but was he inthe picture?
Ibi Zoboi (04:57):
My father was a few decades older than my mother and
was a married man with his ownchildren. And my mother was
young, a young beautiful woman.So that was not your typical
relationship. And I think it wasexploitative and a little bit
emotionally abusive. I'vewritten that in an essay about
(05:19):
my father and who he was, a verywealthy and popular and famous
man.
So in that sense, this is whyI'm a writer because there are a
lot of things I know about how Icame to be, and there are a lot
of things I don't know. Andeverything is tied into the
politics of Haiti, thepatriarchy under a dictatorship,
(05:43):
what it means to be an upwardlymobile young woman in the
seventies, what does feminismlook like in the seventies, and
what a single motherhood lookedlike for an immigrant woman.
Mhmm. So when being asked aboutmy childhood, I can't help but
to make it political.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (06:03):
I can imagine. Your mom also, like,
thinking about her you saidthat, yes, she started to be not
present as much when you're inNew York, but that mother
daughter bond and then to, like,leave home and all those things
together. I mean, like, thatcloseness, you know, is really
intense under any circumstance.Was that, like, always in the
fabric of your relationship whenyou said it was very, like,
(06:24):
political? Was she very, veryopen with you about everything
from a young age?
Ibi Zoboi (06:29):
No. No. She was not open, but I was intuitive. I
think when you're like an on upchild for a little bit, when
you're kind of alone toyourself, you're figuring out
what is going on with thesegrown ups. There are things
happening.
There are things being said. Noone is speaking to you directly.
I was the kind of child who hidunder the table and listened. As
(06:51):
I'm telling you all thesethings, I'm realizing this is
why I'm a writer. I waseavesdropping on the adults
around me because no one wassharing these secrets with me.
And when I say secrets, thereweren't anything salacious or
anything like that. It was moreabout what was happening
politically in Haiti. Yeah.People being disappeared under a
(07:15):
dictatorship. These were theconversations that were being
had.
And, of course, they're notgonna be talking to a five year
old or an eight year old aboutthese things. There were
passionate conversations. Therewas laughter. There were jokes.
There were stories and talltales all around me.
And I listened to them becausethis was the only entertainment
(07:36):
that I had. My mother wasn'tvery open with me, but she spoke
freely to her peers, you know,to other family members. And
this is where I got bits andpieces of my own story.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (07:49):
While Eby's mother shared freely with her
group of friends, women shebuilt deep friendships with
working together as nurses, shewasn't exactly as open with Eby.
Some stories were left unspoken,and it wasn't until much later
that Eby learned one of the mostsurprising truths about her own
family.
Ibi Zoboi (08:09):
Something that's weighing heavy on my mind is
that I have a half sister wholeft Haiti a couple of years ago
under the Biden program. Andthis half sister of mine, I
spent my entire adult life upuntil I was 30 thinking that she
was my childhood friend. Andafter the big earthquake in
(08:30):
Haiti in 02/2010, there was aseven point o magnitude
earthquake in Port Au Prince,Haiti that killed hundreds of
thousands of Haitians. And, ofcourse, we're all wondering, did
we have any loved ones whoperished? And my mother just
reminded me, you know, yourchildhood friend is in Haiti.
And I'm like, oh my goodness,did she get hurt? And in that
(08:50):
moment, she tells me she'sreally my half sister. And I
discover I have a sister who'sthree months older than me.
Three months. And when we saweach other, you know, and we
have a childhood photo togetherand then I see her as an adult
on Facebook, I'm like, oh, snap.
Yep. Yep. We're related. And shedidn't know either, and that
(09:12):
changed my entire life. So nowshe's in the state she managed
to leave Haiti, and, we'rewondering what her status is.
You know? Things are changingfor migrants and people seeking
asylum in this country, and I'mtrying to unpack that. The way I
do that is through writing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (09:33):
What a, like, incredible revelation,
but, yeah, it's, like, tingedwith this, like, sadness and
joy, both. You know? Loss? Yeah.Loss.
Ibi Zoboi (09:42):
A combination of loss and just discovery. You know?
It's good to find out when youdo find out, but then you
remember all those times thatyou didn't know. What if I was
allowed to have thatrelationship all throughout my
childhood years, all throughoutmy teen years? I would have
loved to have had a half sistermy age that I could we could
(10:05):
just have that bond through thetoughest times of our lives.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (10:10):
EB grew up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, though
not the version that many peoplepicture today. Long before it
became the artsy, mostly whitebackdrop for shows like girls,
it was a working classneighborhood with predominantly
black and brown families. Ibi'smother was determined to give
her the best education possibleand worked very hard to send her
(10:31):
to a nearby Catholic school.
Ibi Zoboi (10:33):
I think for a lot of Haitians and in Latin American
countries, there
are a lot
of Catholic schools on those islands. Sure. And
Catholic schools are consideredto be better.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (10:42):
That must have been, like, a very
different environment. So isthat, like, a mostly all white
environment at the time, or wasit, like, pretty mixed in the
school?
Ibi Zoboi (10:49):
Yeah. The whole entire neighborhood is black and
brown children. All the teachersare white, and they were
beloved. They seemed to love andcare about us. I still remember
my grade teacher, missusHighland, who was very Irish,
and she let us know every daythat she was a proud Irish to
the point where I know a lot ofIrish songs, and I know what an
(11:11):
Irish blarney is.
Oh, wow. And we celebrated allthroughout March. It wasn't just
Saint Patrick's Day. It wasSaint Patrick's Month. Amazing.
And to the point where now I aminfusing Irish mythology into a
book that I'm
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:27):
Really? That's amazing.
Ibi Zoboi (11:29):
Celtic mythology. And later on, I found out that
Haitian mythology infuses Celticmythology and Catholicism into
its lore. These teachers taughtus their culture.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:43):
Mhmm.
Ibi Zoboi (11:44):
There were too many of us from different parts of
The Caribbean to kind ofpinpoint one thing, but you came
into a classroom and if ourteacher was Greek, we were all
Greek. If they were Irish, wewere all Irish.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:58):
I really love this way that you're
describing your education, and Ithink it's not at
all what I would have expected when
you describe the teachers. You know?
Anyways, what were you like whenyou were in school growing up?
What was your personality?
Ibi Zoboi (12:10):
I was very introverted, very awkward, and
very socially awkward, and Istill am. And I'm thinking back
on relationships, and there's alot of conversation happening
around loneliness and isolationand making friends as adults.
Yeah. I have some friends thatI've had for twenty five plus
(12:33):
years, but making new friendsright now is difficult because I
have quirks and that can comeoff in, you know, a certain way
if you don't know me very well.But Schweck was a very tough
neighborhood, and the kids werea little tough.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (12:50):
I can imagine. And, you know,
especially as a Haitianimmigrant. Right?
When you were feeling that kind of
isolation as a kid, did you haveanother outlet? What was your
outlet?
Ibi Zoboi (13:00):
At the end of the school year when the notebooks
weren't used, you know, thoseblack and white marble
notebooks. Yeah. Yeah. Therewere bunch of pages that were
blank. I wrote stories, and Iwrote about the kids in my
classroom.
I wrote them as adults. Oh.Because at nine, 10, 11 years
old, I was watching soap operas.And and I created my own soap
(13:23):
operas. And just imagine, youknow, all my friends or not
friends in my neighborhood andin my school as ten years older.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (13:32):
That's so good.
Ibi Zoboi (13:33):
Twenty years older, who married who, who had a baby
with who, who cheated on who. Ohmy god. It was so good. Right?
Yeah.
That's so good. Yeah. I did thatfor a majority of my childhood
all the way up until high schoolto keep myself entertained and
busy until I had to step outinto the world as a teenager and
(13:55):
go socialize.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (13:57):
After high school, Ibi initially went to
Hofstra University, but quicklyfound that it was not the right
fit. Returning to Manhattan, shediscovered that another part of
her home city was in the thickof one of those perfect place,
perfect time, perfect peoplemoments for young black
creatives like herself.
Ibi Zoboi (14:18):
I had some of the worst times in college, not
because of anything happeningbecause I had a hard time
adjusting to college life, timemanagement, and just being out
on my own. And I moved back homeand went to CUNY, a city
college, a public university,and I had the best time because
(14:39):
I needed to be in a diverseclassroom, not race, but in age
and economic experience. I wasin school taking classes with
women in their thirties who hadchildren,
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (14:52):
and Oh, cool.
Ibi Zoboi (14:53):
They shared different things. There's something about
the City University of New York,that school system, that is very
special because I got to be inManhattan. I got to take the
train every day. I got toexplore the city. Mhmm.
Something I would not have beenable to do on a college campus,
and this is where I truly, trulygrew as a person. There was a
(15:16):
program called the Black andPuerto Rican studies department.
And it sounds very weird nowbecause it's like, why black and
Puerto Rican of all? You know?But it was started by black
students and Puerto Ricanstudents in New York City who
advocated for ethnic studiesprograms Yeah.
In the late sixties. That was ahuge movement. It started in
(15:36):
1968. And by the time I startedI was in college there in the
late nineties, I I realized,wait, it was 30 years old only.
By the time I was there, it wasstill called black and Puerto
Rico studies department.
And my professors were formerBlack Panther Party members Wow.
And SNCC members. A professor ofmine had traveled with the late
(15:59):
John Lewis to West Africa andhad worked with him as a freedom
writer coming out ofMississippi. I had activists as
professors in the CUNY system.Audre Lorde went to Hunter
College.
All these wonderful, like, poetsYeah. Were teaching in the City
University of New York, andthere was always a protest for
(16:22):
something. I was in that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (16:24):
Oh, really?
Ibi Zoboi (16:24):
I was in that space. Yeah. And I it was electrifying.
You know? I really evolved inthat space and in New York was
the spoken word movement.
And I remember when Erica Baduwas performing for the time in
New York City and Common wasperforming. In Queens, I was a
(16:45):
few blocks up from where a tribecalled Quest was. Yeah. And it
was this sort of Afrocentric neosoul space that really was
nurturing who I was to become asa writer. So that could have
only happened by me going toschool in the city.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (17:07):
So you had, like, your great awakening.
Absolutely. You've, like, foundyour people, it seems like.
Ibi Zoboi (17:13):
Yeah. And everybody seemed to be reading. Everybody
if you had a Che Guevara Yeah. Tshirt on, you had a Franz Fanon
paperback in your dirtybackpack. It was what they
called us.
And you had your army fatiguepants and your hoodie. Yeah.
Like, I was never home because Iwas out in the streets doing
something and reading. Yeah.There were the boyfriends that I
(17:35):
had were reading books andhighlighting and writing in the
margins and just hanging out atsomebody's apartment and just
arguing what a politicallyhegemony is.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (17:48):
Yeah. You thought you had to, like, okay.
I had to get here because thisis where my people are.
Ibi Zoboi (17:53):
I had to get here, and these weren't just black
people either. You know? We wereall from different backgrounds,
but everybody was into CheGuevara and Mumia Abu Jamal
Yeah. And fighting for thepolitically oppressed. And it
was such a time, and I thinkthat's what college was supposed
(18:14):
to be about.
And then you add the city to it,you know, and you add music to
it. Yeah. The music wasreflecting who we are Yeah. At
that time.
We are not a people of yesterday. Do they ask how
(18:35):
many single seasons we haveflowed from our beginnings till
now? We shall point them to theproper beginning of their
counting. On a clear night whenthe light of the moon has
blighted the ancient woman andher seven children, on such a
night, tell them to go aloneinto the world. There, have them
count the one, then the seven,and after the seven, all the
(18:57):
other stars visible to theireyes alone.
After that beginning, they willbe ready for the sand. Let them
seek the sea line. They will nothave to ponder where to start.
Have them count the sand. Letthem count it grain from single
grain.
And after they have reached theend of that counting, we shall
(19:18):
not ask them to number theraindrops in the ocean. But with
the wisdom of the aftermath,have them ask us again how many
seasons have flowed by since ourpeople were unborn. The air
everywhere around us is poisonedwith truncated tales of our
origins that is also part of thewreckage of our people. What has
(19:40):
been cast abroad is not a of ourhistory even if its quality were
truth. The people called ourpeople are not the of our
people, but the haze of thisfouled world exists to wipe out
knowledge of our way, the way.
These myths are here to keep uslost. The destroyer's easy prey.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (20:03):
The book Eby read from is entitled 2,000
seasons by Aiyi Kwei Armagh, aGhanaian writer who published
the novel in the nineteenseventies. Eby encountered it in
a college course called theAfrican novel, where she studied
stories not just of slavery, butof entire civilizations. Empires
(20:24):
disrupted, identities fractured.2,000 seasons is a sweeping
litany of loss, of land, people,of culture, of memory. It
unlocked for Eby a deeperunderstanding of the histories
that shaped her and the onesthat she never got to learn.
Ibi Zoboi (20:45):
The thing I love about this book is the way in
which he captures what has beenlost. And there's no, like,
enslavers or masters. There'sthe destroyed and the
destroyers, the lost and thestolen, the thief. No. He
(21:07):
doesn't use the word thief, butthere's this idea of just it's
not the bodies that weredestroyed.
It's culture. Yeah. And it's alonging for, oh my goodness.
What did we really lose in theprocess? And it's my favorite
and still is my favorite book.
I write for children because Iwanna be able to capture this
(21:31):
idea in a 100 different waysthrough a 100 different books,
and I'm working on it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (21:37):
Yeah. It's really making me think about
people pulling on those storiesthat kinda, like, loop through
generations and just how thatgets physically completely shut
off and ended, destroyed.
Ibi Zoboi (21:48):
Yeah. Once you stop, you'll forget it. If they're
banning books now and then we'renot listening to our elders,
we're, you know, just put themin nursing homes. They're not in
our homes. You know?
Extended family is not existing.Yeah. There's so much that we
don't even know is lost. Wedon't know what we don't know,
and we lost what we didn't evenhave. That course really opened
(22:13):
my eyes to read the Africannovelists talking about the
Transatlantic slave trade.
They're writing aboutdecolonization. Their freedom
movements was our freedommovements to learn about South
Africa and anti apartheidmovement. Yeah. Like, once you
read because it's not in ourtextbooks. They're not teaching
(22:37):
the kids that in school.
And right now, you're onlyseeing it maybe through a Marvel
movie.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (22:44):
Right. Like like Wakanda.
Ibi Zoboi (22:45):
Right. But how do you push back against that narrative
to say, no. There were peoplewho were fighting in the same
way that, yes, you have kings.You had people who are corrupted
and were greedy. Also, you havepeople who had no idea.
It's everywhere. Right? Yeah.Yeah. People who had no idea
what they were sending you to.
Right. But you get this nuancedportrayal of what happened to
(23:09):
us, and you read all the manybooks, the accounts of women in
the eighteen hundreds at theturn of the century. So all this
to say, I am trying to do thisfor children.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (23:22):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (23:22):
Just here here is your history.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (23:28):
In college, Eby was searching for wise
elders and for writers who sawthe world the way she did.
Writers who made space formagic, myth, and power without
having to leave their culturebehind. And then she found
Octavia Butler.
Ibi Zoboi (23:47):
My friends were fans, and it wasn't so much she as a
person was not glamorous. Youknow? She was a tall black
woman, spoke very slowly andintentionally, and had a deep
voice, not like a rock star byall means in terms of
presentation, but we loved howshe thought about the world. We
(24:07):
loved her mind. I was that sortof young person who sought out
elders.
Like, in college, I'm like, letme go to the 60, 70 year olds.
They
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (24:17):
have Interesting.
Ibi Zoboi (24:18):
More to say. And I think I'm now that I'm saying
this, I'm like, it's probablybecause of missus Highland in
the grade Yeah. Who was tellingus about Irish Blarney's Yeah.
In the nineteen thirtiesIreland. And then I wanted more
of that probably in college.
It's like at the older you were,the wiser you were, and you
could tell me the truth. Right?You can tell me the truth about
(24:41):
what is this world? Why is thishappening? What happened to us?
Why are people like this? And Ifound that in the professors. My
professors for this course hadlived through the worst of
colonization in the fifties andsixties.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (24:57):
It's so interesting, you know, because,
like, you're hearing all thesestories that feel like I
don't know. I think of them
as being, ancient history, but it's not.
Right? You're hearing thesestories from your elders, your
professors right there. Soyou're hearing those stories
from them. And then when didthat turn from hearing stories
to wanting to create stories,especially for kids?
Ibi Zoboi (25:15):
I didn't always wanted to write for children.
Oh. I always wanted to writespeculative fiction. Uh-huh. And
the hard part of that is notfrom a western lens.
Even with skin, it's promoted asmy fantasy debut. Yeah. And I
think readers are expecting highfantasy. Right? Some dragons.
Yeah. They're expecting some ofthe tropes there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (25:37):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (25:38):
And it's like, what is this? What is it? Poems?
What? Brooklyn?
What is going on here? Yeah. Thehard part of claiming those
things is that there's anexpectation. There's a norm.
There's a standard already thatI'm walking into.
So I studied with Butler in02/2001, and it was at the
(25:59):
Clarion West science fiction andfantasy writers workshop in
Seattle. When I got into thatworkshop, was was very
competitive and prestigious atthe time, and I think it still
is. It was the most diverseclass they've ever had in its
thirty plus year history. Wow.So I knew I wanted to write
speculative fiction because Iwas a lover of mythology.
(26:22):
And that love of mythology camefrom exploring my own Haitian
identity. I grew up hearing theworst things about Haitian
Vodou, Wes Craven's the serpentand the rainbow, which was the
feature film to be set in HaitiOh, yeah. Was so dehumanizing. I
did not grow up with Lugaostories, which is what they're
(26:43):
called in Haiti. My mother, hereshe is in New York City.
She wasn't gonna sit down andtell me bedtime stories about
Lugao. It's an urban landscape.She's reading I I remember she
had Grey's Anatomy textbooks allaround. And because she was
studying nursing and chemistrytextbooks, and we had
(27:05):
Encyclopedia Britannica books.So that's all the books that
were on my shelves in theEncyclopedia Britannica set.
Oh, yeah. You know what I'mtalking about.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (27:14):
Right? We had a world book. Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (27:16):
We're right there under the television. Yeah. And
these were my books. That was myreading. And alongside the
stories of political upheaval inHaiti, what happened to whom,
who's left behind, who made itto The United States, and the
music, the food, all tell astory.
(27:39):
I wasn't really allowed to goplay outside because for a lot
of immigrant families outside isthis scary thing. So I grew up
being afraid of my own culture.And I keep bringing college into
this conversation because it'sfour years of intense
unlearning.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (27:57):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (27:57):
So I go to my very voodoo ceremony in Brooklyn.
Mind is blown. I'm scared. I'mscared. I go with a friend and
we're all in white.
You know, we're gonna have anexperience. And it was so
beautiful, so well orchestrated.It's theater. You know? Yeah.
(28:20):
It is ritual drama and soincredibly mundane at the same
time. It's all about art's timehere is very short. You better
enjoy it. This is our one day.It's like carnival, letting go
of the flesh, and it's embracingdeath and life at the same time.
It's beautiful symbolism if youunderstand the symbolism and not
(28:43):
afraid of it. This is ritual.This is what all humans do. And
a light bulb went off like, oh,wow. We're human.
We are beautifully human. And along time ago, we figured out
this is how we can orchestrate.This is how we create story
around this thing that we haveto do. Yeah.
(29:04):
We work hard. Life is hard,
and we have to honor this energy on this particular
day so that we are all in syncand we call it a thing, you
know, and we respect it. This iswhat our tradition is about. And
who are they to bastardize itand call it evil? You do the
(29:26):
same thing, and you call itsomething else.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (29:29):
Inspired by her voodoo experience, Eby wrote
When the Star Saints ComeMarching In, a short ghost story
about gods descending to communewith ordinary people. It was
imaginative, deeply personal,and exactly the kind of story
she wanted to tell. But when shetried to sell it, she found that
publishers were looking forsomething that fit more neatly
(29:50):
into how they saw her. Herbreakthrough came with American
Street, a story that alignedmore with the narrative they
expected from her.
Ibi Zoboi (30:00):
I was pigeonholed into having to write an
immigrant story because I'm animmigrant. And I was also
writing science fiction becauseI had the bright idea to bring
the gods into space or somethinglike that. You know?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (30:26):
With American Street, Eby officially
stepped into the world of youngpeople's literature, but success
didn't necessarily meanbelonging. The atmosphere of
mainstream young adult fictionwas a jarring switch from the
radical imaginative literarycircles she'd known.
Ibi Zoboi (30:44):
I felt like I I was coming from a PhD program in
mythological studies to a highschool in Middle America. Wow.
I'm shading right now. It washard for me. There was a steep
learning curve where I'm writingthings that's appealing to the
intellect, right, to the spirit.
(31:06):
I want to do the same in youngadult space, but you are
essentially selling toteenagers, you know, who, you
know, are looking to otherteenagers as to what they want.
And I'm like, let me find thatdeeply soulful reader, you know,
who will understand what I'mdoing and how could I move
through the other stuff to getthat one reader. Yeah. I'm in
(31:29):
Brooklyn. I'm raising youngchildren.
And I sell my You book, which,you know, it's an immigrant
narrative. And I'm sayingsomething about my own culture,
Haitian Vodou, the immigrantstory. And I step into the
world, and I remember one of thethings joining, a debut group.
(31:50):
And the debut group is tosupport debut writers for a
certain number of years, andthere's so much that was asked
of us. And the fear was that ifI don't do this, I won't stay in
because it took so much to getin.
I feel like it's so fleeting. Itcould slip through my fingers. I
have more stories to tell. If Ihave to do this song and dance,
(32:12):
I'm gonna do it. But it waslike, I'm so not myself right
now.
And it took me a couple of yearsto realize, wait. I don't have
to do
this. Yeah.
You know? And being around with the right people to
tell me, no. You don't have todo this. You know? This is why
this is happening.
This is why others do it. Youhave to find out who you are in
(32:33):
this space so that you can pushback against the zychist. And
it's the same thing now. It'slike there are things happening
online. There are thingshappening in my industry.
In what ways do I participateand in what ways do I step back
and self isolate and be okaywith that loneliness and just
(32:56):
claiming yourself in the spaceand not have to fall privy to
what you should be doing inorder to be successful, I'm
realizing. It's like, oh, thisis why I had a hard time because
I pushed back against themainstream in high school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (33:10):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (33:10):
I pushed back against mainstream in college. Even in
motherhood, I pushed backagainst the mainstream. All my
children were born at home. AndI did one of the what did they
call it? They called itsomething back then where you
you carried them.
I carried my babies around.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (33:26):
Oh, yeah. Like, when you're wearing baby
wearing.
Ibi Zoboi (33:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Baby wearing, they were close. You
know? Yeah.
These ways I push back againstthe norm. And as a writer, as a
published author, there's a normthat I'm pushing back against,
and it was hard to name andfigure out and always feeling
uneasy about the space I wasoccupying. And I'm like, oh,
(33:49):
this is the norm. I know what Ihave to do. I gotta push back.
You know? All these things justrun through my mind as an author
in this space daily. How do Ipush back against the norm to be
comfortable in my own skin?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (34:04):
At every phase of her life, Abe has
carried more than just her ownvoice. Behind her are the women
who came before, whose stories,silences, and strength still
shape the way she writes.
Ibi Zoboi (34:17):
The matriarch, the matrilineal, the women who came
before me, I feel very strongly.When I'm writing, I feel like
I'm really channeling theirstories or they're somewhere
behind me or above me or aroundme whispering to me, I want my
story to be told. This is mystory. Can you tell my story?
(34:38):
There's no way I could be awriter without hearing those
voices or intuiting those voicesaround me.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (34:45):
Yeah. Do you feel like more and more that
is what's happening? That's likewhat's coming to fruition. Their
stories are emerging.
Ibi Zoboi (34:52):
Absolutely. As my own mother is aging, she is speaking
more. She's telling me storiesI've never heard. I'm in my
forties. She's in her seventies,and I'm like, you never told me
this.
And there's something aboutaging that that they're probably
just remembering something andtelling you before I take this
(35:14):
to my grave, here is somethingyou should know. So the secrets
are coming out. And as more andmore secrets are revealed, I'm
learning more about myself, moreabout them. And as a writer, as
a storyteller, I'm saying thisis a great story. Sometimes it's
not so great to think that way,but I needed to write through
(35:34):
this secret that you kept fromme.
And this is how the stories arecoming now as I'm getting older.
I wanna write more mature,sophisticated, nuanced, profound
stories because secrets, oldsecrets are being revealed to me
by my mother and the women in myfamily.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (35:58):
Phoebe's reading challenge, Haitian
creations, shines a light onstories of migration, memory,
and identity. It's a collectionthat celebrates generation
voices and the rich complexexperiences of newcomers finding
their place.
Ibi Zoboi (36:14):
When I do school visits for American Street, I do
a little exercise at thebeginning where I ask the
audience. Sometimes it'shundreds of students and
teachers. Sometimes it's a verysmall classroom. And I just go
around and I just ask threequestions and I tell them, raise
your hands if you were born in adifferent country. I get some
hands up.
Raise your hands if you have atleast one parent who was born in
(36:37):
another country. More hands goup. By the time I get to
grandparents, raise your hand ifyou have at least one
grandparent born in differentcountry. I get so many hands
raised and those are alwayssurprising no matter what the
demographic is. So I tell thoseyoung people, yes, there are
communities where they don'tknow where their parents come
(37:00):
from, like the native Americansor black Americans, African
Americans who have family who'vebeen here for centuries and they
came under differentcircumstances.
But for the most part, we have acomers or newcomers experience
in our lineage and it's soimportant to read about those
experiences. So my readingchallenge is to read about those
(37:25):
experiences. I would say skinand American street, probably my
entire body of work. Classics,if you have not read them, House
on Mango Street, Breath, Eyes,Memory by Edwidge Danticat, Dear
Haiti, Love Ellen by the Maulitsisters, Maike and Maritza
(37:46):
Maulit. I'm going to say BenPhilippe.
Two books by Ben Philippe. Thenames escape me now, but there's
one I would suggest over theother. And I have more. I have
more. But basically, newcomersexperiences even if they're not
from The Caribbean.
I want to read more about gen orimmigrant experiences from
(38:11):
places we wouldn't think of,like Europe, either or Eastern
Europe, Eastern Africa, WestAfrica, more of those stories.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (38:20):
You can find EB's reading challenge and
all past reading challenges atthe readingculturepod.com. And
this week's beanstack featuredlibrarian is once again William
Shaller the librarian at HoffmanMiddle School in Houston Texas
(38:41):
This time, William shares how asurprise resurgence of twilight,
side note, my daughter justfinished breaking dawn, led to
an unforgettable moment of joyand connection at his school
library.
WIlliam Schaller (38:56):
So with the evolution of book talk and
things that are renaissanceing,Twilight in my library has
really become I was like, oh, Idon't need to reorder that.
That's so twenty years ago. Butthe readers are, like, watching
it on their phone and they'relike, mister, where is your
vampire romance section? I'mlike, what do you mean vampire
romance section? They're like,we need Twilight.
(39:18):
And I'm like, Twilight? Like,these are 12 and 13 year olds
and they're like, we'reobsessed. I had books three and
four, but not one and two. So wespecial ordered them. They came
in.
We Amazon Primed them so theycould get here because it was
just like the energy. Theywanted this vampire romance. So
it came here. We got them. Andit was during lunchtime.
So I went in the cafeteria, andwe usually call, like, oh, so
(39:40):
and so is going home for theday, but I called them up for
their books. And they startedcheering, and they went back to
their booth because they weresitting we have, like, the
regular sitting with the sideshave the booths. And they're
doing a whole photoshoot withtheir books, and they have the
new twilight books. I'm like,these are not new, but I'm so
happy that we made your day,your week with these twilight
stories, and now you have one,two, and the rest of the series
(40:01):
are in the library for you, andyou can keep these and cherish
them forever. It was a wholegroup.
But, yeah, it's just gettingthose books in the hands of kids
that want them. The smiles werecontagious. It was just a lot of
good book energy.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (40:17):
This has been the reading culture, and
you've been listening to myconversation with Eby Zaboi.
Again, I'm your host, JordanLloyd Bookie, and currently, I'm
reading other words for home byJasmine Warga and the year of
magical thinking by Joan Didion.If you enjoyed today's episode,
please take just one minute togive us five stars on Apple or
(40:40):
Spotify or wherever you listen.Your reviews really help us, and
they help get the show recommendto others. So thank you for
taking the time to do it.
This episode was produced by MelWebb and Lower Street Media and
script edited by Josiah LambertoEgan. To learn more about how
you can help grow yourcommunity's reading culture,
please check out all of ourresources at beanstack.com. And,
(41:03):
of course, remember to sign upfor our newsletter at the
readingculturepod.com forwardslash newsletter for special
offers and bonus content. Thanksfor listening, and keep reading.
As my own mother was aging, she's telling me before I
take this to my grave, here issomething you should know. So
the secrets are coming out. Andas more and more secrets are
revealed, I'm learning moreabout myself.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (00:19):
You might describe a secret as just a
story someone won't tell you.Maybe it's too embarrassing, too
private, or too dangerous foryou to hear. But there are
larger ways too for a story tobecome a secret. It can be
banned or burned. It can beerased just as a culture is
(00:40):
erased, vanishing as itsstorytellers are disappeared.
Sometimes, a story becomes asecret just because we were too
distracted to ask someone totell it.
Ibi Zoboi (00:51):
They were not listening to our elders where,
you know, just put him innursing homes. There's so much
that we don't even know is lost.We don't know what we don't
know, and we lost what we didn'teven have.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (01:04):
Eby Zaboi is a National Book Award
finalist and the best sellingauthor of American Street,
Pride, Starchild, and mostrecently, Skin. Her work blends
folklore, futurism, and familylegacy into something that feels
part poetry, part protest, andpart spell. In this episode, Eby
(01:25):
opens up about the cost ofsecrets, including one family
bombshell her mother waitedthirty years to drop on her. She
tells us about growing up inBushwick, Brooklyn before the
coffee shops moved in, writingsoap opera fan fiction in marble
notebooks, and getting to knowAmerica from Irish nuns who
taught her how to sing DannyBoy, plus a transcendent
(01:49):
experience at a New York voodooceremony. My name is Jordan
Lloyd Bookie, and this is thereading culture, a show where we
speak with diverse authors aboutways to build a stronger culture
of reading in our communities.
We dive deep into their personalexperiences and inspirations.
Our show is made possible byBeanstack, the leading solution
(02:10):
for motivating students to readmore. Learn more at
beanstack.com, and make sure tocheck us out on Instagram at the
reading culture pod andsubscribe to our newsletter for
bonus content at thereadingculturepod.com forward
slash newsletter alright on tothe show hey listeners are you
(02:32):
looking for a fun easy way totrack your reading and earn cool
rewards well meet beanstack theultimate reading app used by a
community of over 15,000 schoolslibraries, and organizations
nationwide. Are you an avidreader? Check with your local
library to see if they offerBeanstack for free.
(02:53):
A parent? Ask your child'steacher if the school library
already uses Beanstack. And ifyou are an educator searching
for a fresh alternative toaccelerated reader, Beanstack is
the perfect tool to cultivate athriving reading culture. Ready
to turn the page? Visitbeanstack.com to learn more.
(03:17):
Evie, you know I'm very excitedabout this conversation today.
Let's get started with yourimmigration experience. And I
don't know, like, do you
remember much about that experience?
Ibi Zoboi (03:27):
I came here when I was four. I do remember Haiti at
three and four. They come inbits and pieces, but I remember
feeling loved and protected.There was always somebody
around. It a whole community, itseemed.
And I remember the starkdifference of leaving Haiti and
coming to New York, theisolation, the loneliness, cold,
(03:48):
dark. Where in Haiti, I remembermy mother being around and in
New York, my mother alwaysworking. Yeah. So I've described
that shift as sort of sciencefiction y in that it did felt
like I was coming to a differentplanet. Yeah.
The landscape is different. Theweather, the climate is
different. The people aredifferent. And I always talk
(04:10):
about the reason why my motherleft is not the reasons the
stereotypical reasons. My motherwas a broadcast journalist, a
news commentator on a radiostation.
And as a young woman, what voicedo you have? In what ways can
you really share your opinionsunder a dictatorship? Because at
(04:31):
that time, Haiti had adictatorship. And that sort of
freedom is why many peopleleave, And it's not always
because of lack of food orpoverty. It is a sort of
artistic and intellectualfreedom that they're seeking.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:47):
Definitely. I think, like, especially right
now, a lot of people forgetthat, you know, are forgetting
that in the story. And whatabout your dad? You're talking
about your mom, but was he inthe picture?
Ibi Zoboi (04:57):
My father was a few decades older than my mother and
was a married man with his ownchildren. And my mother was
young, a young beautiful woman.So that was not your typical
relationship. And I think it wasexploitative and a little bit
emotionally abusive. I'vewritten that in an essay about
(05:19):
my father and who he was, a verywealthy and popular and famous
man.
So in that sense, this is whyI'm a writer because there are a
lot of things I know about how Icame to be, and there are a lot
of things I don't know. Andeverything is tied into the
politics of Haiti, thepatriarchy under a dictatorship,
(05:43):
what it means to be an upwardlymobile young woman in the
seventies, what does feminismlook like in the seventies, and
what a single motherhood lookedlike for an immigrant woman.
Mhmm. So when being asked aboutmy childhood, I can't help but
to make it political.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (06:03):
I can imagine. Your mom also, like,
thinking about her you saidthat, yes, she started to be not
present as much when you're inNew York, but that mother
daughter bond and then to, like,leave home and all those things
together. I mean, like, thatcloseness, you know, is really
intense under any circumstance.Was that, like, always in the
fabric of your relationship whenyou said it was very, like,
(06:24):
political? Was she very, veryopen with you about everything
from a young age?
Ibi Zoboi (06:29):
No. No. She was not open, but I was intuitive. I
think when you're like an on upchild for a little bit, when
you're kind of alone toyourself, you're figuring out
what is going on with thesegrown ups. There are things
happening.
There are things being said. Noone is speaking to you directly.
I was the kind of child who hidunder the table and listened. As
(06:51):
I'm telling you all thesethings, I'm realizing this is
why I'm a writer. I waseavesdropping on the adults
around me because no one wassharing these secrets with me.
And when I say secrets, thereweren't anything salacious or
anything like that. It was moreabout what was happening
politically in Haiti. Yeah.People being disappeared under a
(07:15):
dictatorship. These were theconversations that were being
had.
And, of course, they're notgonna be talking to a five year
old or an eight year old aboutthese things. There were
passionate conversations. Therewas laughter. There were jokes.
There were stories and talltales all around me.
And I listened to them becausethis was the only entertainment
(07:36):
that I had. My mother wasn'tvery open with me, but she spoke
freely to her peers, you know,to other family members. And
this is where I got bits andpieces of my own story.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (07:49):
While Eby's mother shared freely with her
group of friends, women shebuilt deep friendships with
working together as nurses, shewasn't exactly as open with Eby.
Some stories were left unspoken,and it wasn't until much later
that Eby learned one of the mostsurprising truths about her own
family.
Ibi Zoboi (08:09):
Something that's weighing heavy on my mind is
that I have a half sister wholeft Haiti a couple of years ago
under the Biden program. Andthis half sister of mine, I
spent my entire adult life upuntil I was 30 thinking that she
was my childhood friend. Andafter the big earthquake in
(08:30):
Haiti in 02/2010, there was aseven point o magnitude
earthquake in Port Au Prince,Haiti that killed hundreds of
thousands of Haitians. And, ofcourse, we're all wondering, did
we have any loved ones whoperished? And my mother just
reminded me, you know, yourchildhood friend is in Haiti.
And I'm like, oh my goodness,did she get hurt? And in that
(08:50):
moment, she tells me she'sreally my half sister. And I
discover I have a sister who'sthree months older than me.
Three months. And when we saweach other, you know, and we
have a childhood photo togetherand then I see her as an adult
on Facebook, I'm like, oh, snap.
Yep. Yep. We're related. And shedidn't know either, and that
(09:12):
changed my entire life. So nowshe's in the state she managed
to leave Haiti, and, we'rewondering what her status is.
You know? Things are changingfor migrants and people seeking
asylum in this country, and I'mtrying to unpack that. The way I
do that is through writing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (09:33):
What a, like, incredible revelation,
but, yeah, it's, like, tingedwith this, like, sadness and
joy, both. You know? Loss? Yeah.Loss.
Ibi Zoboi (09:42):
A combination of loss and just discovery. You know?
It's good to find out when youdo find out, but then you
remember all those times thatyou didn't know. What if I was
allowed to have thatrelationship all throughout my
childhood years, all throughoutmy teen years? I would have
loved to have had a half sistermy age that I could we could
(10:05):
just have that bond through thetoughest times of our lives.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (10:10):
EB grew up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, though
not the version that many peoplepicture today. Long before it
became the artsy, mostly whitebackdrop for shows like girls,
it was a working classneighborhood with predominantly
black and brown families. Ibi'smother was determined to give
her the best education possibleand worked very hard to send her
(10:31):
to a nearby Catholic school.
Ibi Zoboi (10:33):
I think for a lot of Haitians and in Latin American
countries, there
are a lot
of Catholic schools on those islands. Sure. And
Catholic schools are consideredto be better.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (10:42):
That must have been, like, a very
different environment. So isthat, like, a mostly all white
environment at the time, or wasit, like, pretty mixed in the
school?
Ibi Zoboi (10:49):
Yeah. The whole entire neighborhood is black and
brown children. All the teachersare white, and they were
beloved. They seemed to love andcare about us. I still remember
my grade teacher, missusHighland, who was very Irish,
and she let us know every daythat she was a proud Irish to
the point where I know a lot ofIrish songs, and I know what an
(11:11):
Irish blarney is.
Oh, wow. And we celebrated allthroughout March. It wasn't just
Saint Patrick's Day. It wasSaint Patrick's Month. Amazing.
And to the point where now I aminfusing Irish mythology into a
book that I'm
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:27):
Really? That's amazing.
Ibi Zoboi (11:29):
Celtic mythology. And later on, I found out that
Haitian mythology infuses Celticmythology and Catholicism into
its lore. These teachers taughtus their culture.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:43):
Mhmm.
Ibi Zoboi (11:44):
There were too many of us from different parts of
The Caribbean to kind ofpinpoint one thing, but you came
into a classroom and if ourteacher was Greek, we were all
Greek. If they were Irish, wewere all Irish.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:58):
I really love this way that you're
describing your education, and Ithink it's not at
all what I would have expected when
you describe the teachers. You know?
Anyways, what were you like whenyou were in school growing up?
What was your personality?
Ibi Zoboi (12:10):
I was very introverted, very awkward, and
very socially awkward, and Istill am. And I'm thinking back
on relationships, and there's alot of conversation happening
around loneliness and isolationand making friends as adults.
Yeah. I have some friends thatI've had for twenty five plus
(12:33):
years, but making new friendsright now is difficult because I
have quirks and that can comeoff in, you know, a certain way
if you don't know me very well.But Schweck was a very tough
neighborhood, and the kids werea little tough.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (12:50):
I can imagine. And, you know,
especially as a Haitianimmigrant. Right?
When you were feeling that kind of
isolation as a kid, did you haveanother outlet? What was your
outlet?
Ibi Zoboi (13:00):
At the end of the school year when the notebooks
weren't used, you know, thoseblack and white marble
notebooks. Yeah. Yeah. Therewere bunch of pages that were
blank. I wrote stories, and Iwrote about the kids in my
classroom.
I wrote them as adults. Oh.Because at nine, 10, 11 years
old, I was watching soap operas.And and I created my own soap
(13:23):
operas. And just imagine, youknow, all my friends or not
friends in my neighborhood andin my school as ten years older.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (13:32):
That's so good.
Ibi Zoboi (13:33):
Twenty years older, who married who, who had a baby
with who, who cheated on who. Ohmy god. It was so good. Right?
Yeah.
That's so good. Yeah. I did thatfor a majority of my childhood
all the way up until high schoolto keep myself entertained and
busy until I had to step outinto the world as a teenager and
(13:55):
go socialize.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (13:57):
After high school, Ibi initially went to
Hofstra University, but quicklyfound that it was not the right
fit. Returning to Manhattan, shediscovered that another part of
her home city was in the thickof one of those perfect place,
perfect time, perfect peoplemoments for young black
creatives like herself.
Ibi Zoboi (14:18):
I had some of the worst times in college, not
because of anything happeningbecause I had a hard time
adjusting to college life, timemanagement, and just being out
on my own. And I moved back homeand went to CUNY, a city
college, a public university,and I had the best time because
(14:39):
I needed to be in a diverseclassroom, not race, but in age
and economic experience. I wasin school taking classes with
women in their thirties who hadchildren,
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (14:52):
and Oh, cool.
Ibi Zoboi (14:53):
They shared different things. There's something about
the City University of New York,that school system, that is very
special because I got to be inManhattan. I got to take the
train every day. I got toexplore the city. Mhmm.
Something I would not have beenable to do on a college campus,
and this is where I truly, trulygrew as a person. There was a
(15:16):
program called the Black andPuerto Rican studies department.
And it sounds very weird nowbecause it's like, why black and
Puerto Rican of all? You know?But it was started by black
students and Puerto Ricanstudents in New York City who
advocated for ethnic studiesprograms Yeah.
In the late sixties. That was ahuge movement. It started in
(15:36):
1968. And by the time I startedI was in college there in the
late nineties, I I realized,wait, it was 30 years old only.
By the time I was there, it wasstill called black and Puerto
Rico studies department.
And my professors were formerBlack Panther Party members Wow.
And SNCC members. A professor ofmine had traveled with the late
(15:59):
John Lewis to West Africa andhad worked with him as a freedom
writer coming out ofMississippi. I had activists as
professors in the CUNY system.Audre Lorde went to Hunter
College.
All these wonderful, like, poetsYeah. Were teaching in the City
University of New York, andthere was always a protest for
(16:22):
something. I was in that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (16:24):
Oh, really?
Ibi Zoboi (16:24):
I was in that space. Yeah. And I it was electrifying.
You know? I really evolved inthat space and in New York was
the spoken word movement.
And I remember when Erica Baduwas performing for the time in
New York City and Common wasperforming. In Queens, I was a
(16:45):
few blocks up from where a tribecalled Quest was. Yeah. And it
was this sort of Afrocentric neosoul space that really was
nurturing who I was to become asa writer. So that could have
only happened by me going toschool in the city.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (17:07):
So you had, like, your great awakening.
Absolutely. You've, like, foundyour people, it seems like.
Ibi Zoboi (17:13):
Yeah. And everybody seemed to be reading. Everybody
if you had a Che Guevara Yeah. Tshirt on, you had a Franz Fanon
paperback in your dirtybackpack. It was what they
called us.
And you had your army fatiguepants and your hoodie. Yeah.
Like, I was never home because Iwas out in the streets doing
something and reading. Yeah.There were the boyfriends that I
(17:35):
had were reading books andhighlighting and writing in the
margins and just hanging out atsomebody's apartment and just
arguing what a politicallyhegemony is.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (17:48):
Yeah. You thought you had to, like, okay.
I had to get here because thisis where my people are.
Ibi Zoboi (17:53):
I had to get here, and these weren't just black
people either. You know? We wereall from different backgrounds,
but everybody was into CheGuevara and Mumia Abu Jamal
Yeah. And fighting for thepolitically oppressed. And it
was such a time, and I thinkthat's what college was supposed
(18:14):
to be about.
And then you add the city to it,you know, and you add music to
it. Yeah. The music wasreflecting who we are Yeah. At
that time.
We are not a people of yesterday. Do they ask how
(18:35):
many single seasons we haveflowed from our beginnings till
now? We shall point them to theproper beginning of their
counting. On a clear night whenthe light of the moon has
blighted the ancient woman andher seven children, on such a
night, tell them to go aloneinto the world. There, have them
count the one, then the seven,and after the seven, all the
(18:57):
other stars visible to theireyes alone.
After that beginning, they willbe ready for the sand. Let them
seek the sea line. They will nothave to ponder where to start.
Have them count the sand. Letthem count it grain from single
grain.
And after they have reached theend of that counting, we shall
(19:18):
not ask them to number theraindrops in the ocean. But with
the wisdom of the aftermath,have them ask us again how many
seasons have flowed by since ourpeople were unborn. The air
everywhere around us is poisonedwith truncated tales of our
origins that is also part of thewreckage of our people. What has
(19:40):
been cast abroad is not a of ourhistory even if its quality were
truth. The people called ourpeople are not the of our
people, but the haze of thisfouled world exists to wipe out
knowledge of our way, the way.
These myths are here to keep uslost. The destroyer's easy prey.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (20:03):
The book Eby read from is entitled 2,000
seasons by Aiyi Kwei Armagh, aGhanaian writer who published
the novel in the nineteenseventies. Eby encountered it in
a college course called theAfrican novel, where she studied
stories not just of slavery, butof entire civilizations. Empires
(20:24):
disrupted, identities fractured.2,000 seasons is a sweeping
litany of loss, of land, people,of culture, of memory. It
unlocked for Eby a deeperunderstanding of the histories
that shaped her and the onesthat she never got to learn.
Ibi Zoboi (20:45):
The thing I love about this book is the way in
which he captures what has beenlost. And there's no, like,
enslavers or masters. There'sthe destroyed and the
destroyers, the lost and thestolen, the thief. No. He
(21:07):
doesn't use the word thief, butthere's this idea of just it's
not the bodies that weredestroyed.
It's culture. Yeah. And it's alonging for, oh my goodness.
What did we really lose in theprocess? And it's my favorite
and still is my favorite book.
I write for children because Iwanna be able to capture this
(21:31):
idea in a 100 different waysthrough a 100 different books,
and I'm working on it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (21:37):
Yeah. It's really making me think about
people pulling on those storiesthat kinda, like, loop through
generations and just how thatgets physically completely shut
off and ended, destroyed.
Ibi Zoboi (21:48):
Yeah. Once you stop, you'll forget it. If they're
banning books now and then we'renot listening to our elders,
we're, you know, just put themin nursing homes. They're not in
our homes. You know?
Extended family is not existing.Yeah. There's so much that we
don't even know is lost. Wedon't know what we don't know,
and we lost what we didn't evenhave. That course really opened
(22:13):
my eyes to read the Africannovelists talking about the
Transatlantic slave trade.
They're writing aboutdecolonization. Their freedom
movements was our freedommovements to learn about South
Africa and anti apartheidmovement. Yeah. Like, once you
read because it's not in ourtextbooks. They're not teaching
(22:37):
the kids that in school.
And right now, you're onlyseeing it maybe through a Marvel
movie.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (22:44):
Right. Like like Wakanda.
Ibi Zoboi (22:45):
Right. But how do you push back against that narrative
to say, no. There were peoplewho were fighting in the same
way that, yes, you have kings.You had people who are corrupted
and were greedy. Also, you havepeople who had no idea.
It's everywhere. Right? Yeah.Yeah. People who had no idea
what they were sending you to.
Right. But you get this nuancedportrayal of what happened to
(23:09):
us, and you read all the manybooks, the accounts of women in
the eighteen hundreds at theturn of the century. So all this
to say, I am trying to do thisfor children.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (23:22):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (23:22):
Just here here is your history.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (23:28):
In college, Eby was searching for wise
elders and for writers who sawthe world the way she did.
Writers who made space formagic, myth, and power without
having to leave their culturebehind. And then she found
Octavia Butler.
Ibi Zoboi (23:47):
My friends were fans, and it wasn't so much she as a
person was not glamorous. Youknow? She was a tall black
woman, spoke very slowly andintentionally, and had a deep
voice, not like a rock star byall means in terms of
presentation, but we loved howshe thought about the world. We
(24:07):
loved her mind. I was that sortof young person who sought out
elders.
Like, in college, I'm like, letme go to the 60, 70 year olds.
They
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (24:17):
have Interesting.
Ibi Zoboi (24:18):
More to say. And I think I'm now that I'm saying
this, I'm like, it's probablybecause of missus Highland in
the grade Yeah. Who was tellingus about Irish Blarney's Yeah.
In the nineteen thirtiesIreland. And then I wanted more
of that probably in college.
It's like at the older you were,the wiser you were, and you
could tell me the truth. Right?You can tell me the truth about
(24:41):
what is this world? Why is thishappening? What happened to us?
Why are people like this? And Ifound that in the professors. My
professors for this course hadlived through the worst of
colonization in the fifties andsixties.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (24:57):
It's so interesting, you know, because,
like, you're hearing all thesestories that feel like I
don't know. I think of them
as being, ancient history, but it's not.
Right? You're hearing thesestories from your elders, your
professors right there. Soyou're hearing those stories
from them. And then when didthat turn from hearing stories
to wanting to create stories,especially for kids?
Ibi Zoboi (25:15):
I didn't always wanted to write for children.
Oh. I always wanted to writespeculative fiction. Uh-huh. And
the hard part of that is notfrom a western lens.
Even with skin, it's promoted asmy fantasy debut. Yeah. And I
think readers are expecting highfantasy. Right? Some dragons.
Yeah. They're expecting some ofthe tropes there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (25:37):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (25:38):
And it's like, what is this? What is it? Poems?
What? Brooklyn?
What is going on here? Yeah. Thehard part of claiming those
things is that there's anexpectation. There's a norm.
There's a standard already thatI'm walking into.
So I studied with Butler in02/2001, and it was at the
(25:59):
Clarion West science fiction andfantasy writers workshop in
Seattle. When I got into thatworkshop, was was very
competitive and prestigious atthe time, and I think it still
is. It was the most diverseclass they've ever had in its
thirty plus year history. Wow.So I knew I wanted to write
speculative fiction because Iwas a lover of mythology.
(26:22):
And that love of mythology camefrom exploring my own Haitian
identity. I grew up hearing theworst things about Haitian
Vodou, Wes Craven's the serpentand the rainbow, which was the
feature film to be set in HaitiOh, yeah. Was so dehumanizing. I
did not grow up with Lugaostories, which is what they're
(26:43):
called in Haiti. My mother, hereshe is in New York City.
She wasn't gonna sit down andtell me bedtime stories about
Lugao. It's an urban landscape.She's reading I I remember she
had Grey's Anatomy textbooks allaround. And because she was
studying nursing and chemistrytextbooks, and we had
(27:05):
Encyclopedia Britannica books.So that's all the books that
were on my shelves in theEncyclopedia Britannica set.
Oh, yeah. You know what I'mtalking about.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (27:14):
Right? We had a world book. Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (27:16):
We're right there under the television. Yeah. And
these were my books. That was myreading. And alongside the
stories of political upheaval inHaiti, what happened to whom,
who's left behind, who made itto The United States, and the
music, the food, all tell astory.
(27:39):
I wasn't really allowed to goplay outside because for a lot
of immigrant families outside isthis scary thing. So I grew up
being afraid of my own culture.And I keep bringing college into
this conversation because it'sfour years of intense
unlearning.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (27:57):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (27:57):
So I go to my very voodoo ceremony in Brooklyn.
Mind is blown. I'm scared. I'mscared. I go with a friend and
we're all in white.
You know, we're gonna have anexperience. And it was so
beautiful, so well orchestrated.It's theater. You know? Yeah.
(28:20):
It is ritual drama and soincredibly mundane at the same
time. It's all about art's timehere is very short. You better
enjoy it. This is our one day.It's like carnival, letting go
of the flesh, and it's embracingdeath and life at the same time.
It's beautiful symbolism if youunderstand the symbolism and not
(28:43):
afraid of it. This is ritual.This is what all humans do. And
a light bulb went off like, oh,wow. We're human.
We are beautifully human. And along time ago, we figured out
this is how we can orchestrate.This is how we create story
around this thing that we haveto do. Yeah.
(29:04):
We work hard. Life is hard,
and we have to honor this energy on this particular
day so that we are all in syncand we call it a thing, you
know, and we respect it. This iswhat our tradition is about. And
who are they to bastardize itand call it evil? You do the
(29:26):
same thing, and you call itsomething else.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (29:29):
Inspired by her voodoo experience, Eby wrote
When the Star Saints ComeMarching In, a short ghost story
about gods descending to communewith ordinary people. It was
imaginative, deeply personal,and exactly the kind of story
she wanted to tell. But when shetried to sell it, she found that
publishers were looking forsomething that fit more neatly
(29:50):
into how they saw her. Herbreakthrough came with American
Street, a story that alignedmore with the narrative they
expected from her.
Ibi Zoboi (30:00):
I was pigeonholed into having to write an
immigrant story because I'm animmigrant. And I was also
writing science fiction becauseI had the bright idea to bring
the gods into space or somethinglike that. You know?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (30:26):
With American Street, Eby officially
stepped into the world of youngpeople's literature, but success
didn't necessarily meanbelonging. The atmosphere of
mainstream young adult fictionwas a jarring switch from the
radical imaginative literarycircles she'd known.
Ibi Zoboi (30:44):
I felt like I I was coming from a PhD program in
mythological studies to a highschool in Middle America. Wow.
I'm shading right now. It washard for me. There was a steep
learning curve where I'm writingthings that's appealing to the
intellect, right, to the spirit.
(31:06):
I want to do the same in youngadult space, but you are
essentially selling toteenagers, you know, who, you
know, are looking to otherteenagers as to what they want.
And I'm like, let me find thatdeeply soulful reader, you know,
who will understand what I'mdoing and how could I move
through the other stuff to getthat one reader. Yeah. I'm in
(31:29):
Brooklyn. I'm raising youngchildren.
And I sell my You book, which,you know, it's an immigrant
narrative. And I'm sayingsomething about my own culture,
Haitian Vodou, the immigrantstory. And I step into the
world, and I remember one of thethings joining, a debut group.
(31:50):
And the debut group is tosupport debut writers for a
certain number of years, andthere's so much that was asked
of us. And the fear was that ifI don't do this, I won't stay in
because it took so much to getin.
I feel like it's so fleeting. Itcould slip through my fingers. I
have more stories to tell. If Ihave to do this song and dance,
(32:12):
I'm gonna do it. But it waslike, I'm so not myself right
now.
And it took me a couple of yearsto realize, wait. I don't have
to do
this. Yeah.
You know? And being around with the right people to
tell me, no. You don't have todo this. You know? This is why
this is happening.
This is why others do it. Youhave to find out who you are in
(32:33):
this space so that you can pushback against the zychist. And
it's the same thing now. It'slike there are things happening
online. There are thingshappening in my industry.
In what ways do I participateand in what ways do I step back
and self isolate and be okaywith that loneliness and just
(32:56):
claiming yourself in the spaceand not have to fall privy to
what you should be doing inorder to be successful, I'm
realizing. It's like, oh, thisis why I had a hard time because
I pushed back against themainstream in high school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (33:10):
Yeah.
Ibi Zoboi (33:10):
I pushed back against mainstream in college. Even in
motherhood, I pushed backagainst the mainstream. All my
children were born at home. AndI did one of the what did they
call it? They called itsomething back then where you
you carried them.
I carried my babies around.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (33:26):
Oh, yeah. Like, when you're wearing baby
wearing.
Ibi Zoboi (33:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Baby wearing, they were close. You
know? Yeah.
These ways I push back againstthe norm. And as a writer, as a
published author, there's a normthat I'm pushing back against,
and it was hard to name andfigure out and always feeling
uneasy about the space I wasoccupying. And I'm like, oh,
(33:49):
this is the norm. I know what Ihave to do. I gotta push back.
You know? All these things justrun through my mind as an author
in this space daily. How do Ipush back against the norm to be
comfortable in my own skin?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (34:04):
At every phase of her life, Abe has
carried more than just her ownvoice. Behind her are the women
who came before, whose stories,silences, and strength still
shape the way she writes.
Ibi Zoboi (34:17):
The matriarch, the matrilineal, the women who came
before me, I feel very strongly.When I'm writing, I feel like
I'm really channeling theirstories or they're somewhere
behind me or above me or aroundme whispering to me, I want my
story to be told. This is mystory. Can you tell my story?
(34:38):
There's no way I could be awriter without hearing those
voices or intuiting those voicesaround me.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (34:45):
Yeah. Do you feel like more and more that
is what's happening? That's likewhat's coming to fruition. Their
stories are emerging.
Ibi Zoboi (34:52):
Absolutely. As my own mother is aging, she is speaking
more. She's telling me storiesI've never heard. I'm in my
forties. She's in her seventies,and I'm like, you never told me
this.
And there's something aboutaging that that they're probably
just remembering something andtelling you before I take this
(35:14):
to my grave, here is somethingyou should know. So the secrets
are coming out. And as more andmore secrets are revealed, I'm
learning more about myself, moreabout them. And as a writer, as
a storyteller, I'm saying thisis a great story. Sometimes it's
not so great to think that way,but I needed to write through
(35:34):
this secret that you kept fromme.
And this is how the stories arecoming now as I'm getting older.
I wanna write more mature,sophisticated, nuanced, profound
stories because secrets, oldsecrets are being revealed to me
by my mother and the women in myfamily.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (35:58):
Phoebe's reading challenge, Haitian
creations, shines a light onstories of migration, memory,
and identity. It's a collectionthat celebrates generation
voices and the rich complexexperiences of newcomers finding
their place.
Ibi Zoboi (36:14):
When I do school visits for American Street, I do
a little exercise at thebeginning where I ask the
audience. Sometimes it'shundreds of students and
teachers. Sometimes it's a verysmall classroom. And I just go
around and I just ask threequestions and I tell them, raise
your hands if you were born in adifferent country. I get some
hands up.
Raise your hands if you have atleast one parent who was born in
(36:37):
another country. More hands goup. By the time I get to
grandparents, raise your hand ifyou have at least one
grandparent born in differentcountry. I get so many hands
raised and those are alwayssurprising no matter what the
demographic is. So I tell thoseyoung people, yes, there are
communities where they don'tknow where their parents come
(37:00):
from, like the native Americansor black Americans, African
Americans who have family who'vebeen here for centuries and they
came under differentcircumstances.
But for the most part, we have acomers or newcomers experience
in our lineage and it's soimportant to read about those
experiences. So my readingchallenge is to read about those
(37:25):
experiences. I would say skinand American street, probably my
entire body of work. Classics,if you have not read them, House
on Mango Street, Breath, Eyes,Memory by Edwidge Danticat, Dear
Haiti, Love Ellen by the Maulitsisters, Maike and Maritza
(37:46):
Maulit. I'm going to say BenPhilippe.
Two books by Ben Philippe. Thenames escape me now, but there's
one I would suggest over theother. And I have more. I have
more. But basically, newcomersexperiences even if they're not
from The Caribbean.
I want to read more about gen orimmigrant experiences from
(38:11):
places we wouldn't think of,like Europe, either or Eastern
Europe, Eastern Africa, WestAfrica, more of those stories.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (38:20):
You can find EB's reading challenge and
all past reading challenges atthe readingculturepod.com. And
this week's beanstack featuredlibrarian is once again William
Shaller the librarian at HoffmanMiddle School in Houston Texas
(38:41):
This time, William shares how asurprise resurgence of twilight,
side note, my daughter justfinished breaking dawn, led to
an unforgettable moment of joyand connection at his school
library.
WIlliam Schaller (38:56):
So with the evolution of book talk and
things that are renaissanceing,Twilight in my library has
really become I was like, oh, Idon't need to reorder that.
That's so twenty years ago. Butthe readers are, like, watching
it on their phone and they'relike, mister, where is your
vampire romance section? I'mlike, what do you mean vampire
romance section? They're like,we need Twilight.
(39:18):
And I'm like, Twilight? Like,these are 12 and 13 year olds
and they're like, we'reobsessed. I had books three and
four, but not one and two. So wespecial ordered them. They came
in.
We Amazon Primed them so theycould get here because it was
just like the energy. Theywanted this vampire romance. So
it came here. We got them. Andit was during lunchtime.
So I went in the cafeteria, andwe usually call, like, oh, so
(39:40):
and so is going home for theday, but I called them up for
their books. And they startedcheering, and they went back to
their booth because they weresitting we have, like, the
regular sitting with the sideshave the booths. And they're
doing a whole photoshoot withtheir books, and they have the
new twilight books. I'm like,these are not new, but I'm so
happy that we made your day,your week with these twilight
stories, and now you have one,two, and the rest of the series
(40:01):
are in the library for you, andyou can keep these and cherish
them forever. It was a wholegroup.
But, yeah, it's just gettingthose books in the hands of kids
that want them. The smiles werecontagious. It was just a lot of
good book energy.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (40:17):
This has been the reading culture, and
you've been listening to myconversation with Eby Zaboi.
Again, I'm your host, JordanLloyd Bookie, and currently, I'm
reading other words for home byJasmine Warga and the year of
magical thinking by Joan Didion.If you enjoyed today's episode,
please take just one minute togive us five stars on Apple or
(40:40):
Spotify or wherever you listen.Your reviews really help us, and
they help get the show recommendto others. So thank you for
taking the time to do it.
This episode was produced by MelWebb and Lower Street Media and
script edited by Josiah LambertoEgan. To learn more about how
you can help grow yourcommunity's reading culture,
please check out all of ourresources at beanstack.com. And,
(41:03):
of course, remember to sign upfor our newsletter at the
readingculturepod.com forwardslash newsletter for special
offers and bonus content. Thanksfor listening, and keep reading.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.