Why I'm reading only black authors

I recieved the latest edition of Solomon Northup's 12 Years a Slave for Christmas last year and finished it in one sitting. I decided then that, during the coming year, I would read only books written by black authors - or authors that didn't identify as white.

It was not an act of solidarity or defiance, but one of self-preservation. I wanted to give myself a break from emotional and intellectual somersaults - from having to ignore or mentally adjust to offensive wording, actions, turns of events and omissions.

I'm not talking about intentional slurs resulting from a writer's or characters' overt racism (the first can easily be avoided, and the latter is part of the contract between writer and reader allowing for a particular characterisation).

I am referring to the kind of ethnocentrism and chauvinism that seeps out of the minds and pens of authors unable to write about worlds in which they do not constitute the norm and the ideal.

While reading 12 Years a Slave I was reminded that I needed to spend more time with characters who would not turn around and stab me in the back, or walk past me in the street without noticing me. I decided to devote my reading time to characters that inhabit my world. I also decided, guided by experience, that the safest way to ensure that I kept my promise was to stay away from white authors.

In a recent interview, Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson, an accomplished and empathetic filmmaker (whose film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence won at the Venice Film Festival this year) revealed that he cannot imagine casting a black person in a film because he can't imagine a scene in which a black character would feel natural.

As much as I have appreciated his films, I will have to give this last one a miss. Unlike him, I learned from an early age to identify with well-constructed characters of any age, gender or ethnicity.

So I won't spend 101 minutes watching Andersson reflect on what I thought was existence in general, but which he has clarified as white existence only.

It's not that the filmmaker disclosed something I couldn't have concluded eventually. It's that he is so little bothered by his inability to see black people that bothers me so much.

Ultimately it's the same reason that made me abstain from books by white authors this year (and most probably will continue to do so during a good chunk of 2015) that compels me to bid Andersson goodbye for now.

Hedrén is a film programmer