I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter by David Chariandy
When a moment of ignored-in-the-moment bigotry prompted his three-year-old daughter to ask, “What happened?” David Chariandy began wondering how to discuss with his children the politics of race. A decade later, in a newly heated era of both struggle and divisions, he writes a letter to his now 13-year-old daughter.
- Last updated: September 8, 2023
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Available at West Vancouver Memorial Library in Book, eBook, Kindle, and eAudiobook formats.
Canadian Encyclopedia, "David Chariandy is a professor of English literature at Simon Fraser University and a very promising creative writer."
CBC Books. "Chariandy contemplates, in an epistolary format, how to talk to his young daughter about the politics and history of race by sharing their family's story and his personal experience as the son of Black and South Asian immigrants from Trinidad."
The Guardian. "Two acts of racism – one personal, one publicly violent – led David Chariandy to write a book, I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You, addressed to his daughter"
The Globe and Mail. "This is his first work of non-fiction, which he was compelled to write after his daughter began asking hard questions about Donald Trump’s racist speeches and policies, as well the realities and politics of race in Canada."
"Chariandy’s perspective challenges conventional notions that Canada is tolerant where the U.S. isn’t and that we have..."
"Use our general nonfiction questions to get book club discussions off to a good start. They're basic but smart."
The Peak. "Chariandy talks racial politics, the SFU community, and writing"
"David Chariandy’s new book speaks to the new perspectives and realities of growing up in Canada"
"Author David Chariandy's new book is a letter to his daughter about race and life"