Bloomsbury USA faces another race row over book cover

[demoleft]

Source: the guardian

Bloomsbury USA's decision to feature a white girl on the cover of Jaclyn Dolamore's debut novel Magic Under Glass, which stars a dark-skinned heroine, has sparked controversy across the internet and accusations of "white-washing", just five months after the same publisher was forced to back down over a similar controversy.

Magic Under Glass, a young adult novel, is the story of a "foreign" music hall girl, Nimira, hired by a sorcerer to sing with a piano-playing automaton. But she finds that a fairy has been trapped inside the clockwork automaton, and the two fall in love. Although Dolamore's heroine is described in the book as black-haired and brown-skinned – and the official trailer for the novel shows her as such – the cover chosen by Bloomsbury USA Children's Books shows a white, brown-haired girl. The choice has provoked outrage from bloggers and commentators, particularly following the publisher's decision (later reversed) last year to feature a white girl on the cover of Justine Larbalestier's novel Liar, about a black girl.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/21/bloomsbury-race-row-book-cover

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it reminds me of old holliwoodian "cleopatra" characters. the black queen portrayed as a white woman.
ishmael reed's "mumbo jumbo" has a passage about it - funny and serious at the same time.

[MicaelS]

1. Just another example of a publisher's stupidty

I often have wondered if these people even read the books they sell. Seems in many cases they do not.

[denverbill]

2. Cleopatra's father was a descendent of a Macedonian general of Alexander the Great.

I'm not saying that to excuse this publisher, but in the case of Cleopatra, it's entirely possible she was mulatto or white, based on her Greek heritage. At least that's my understanding.

[demoleft]

3. right. i must dig into it. though, mulatto may be - white, i doubt. n/t

[Baltimore]

6. Cleopatra's race

Cleopatra was white. She was a direct descendant of General Ptolemy. All her ancestors are known, except, I believe, one great-grandmother. The known ancestors were all Greeks (or Macedonians, if you want to be fussy.)

[havbrush]

4. Cleo's father

How do you know this? And distant a descendent? That would have quite a lot to do with her complexion -- being the only white person in Eygpt at the time.

[Baltimore]

7. Greeks in Egypt

There had been a considerable Greek settlement in Egypt for quite some time. The city of Naukratis, was, I believe the first Greek colony in Egypt. When Alexander conquered Egypt, the Greeks made themselves into a settler aristocracy. Alexandria was a majority Greek city until very recently in the 20th century.

[denverbill]

10. I'm no expert on Egyptian history.

I just mentioned it because I only recently became aware of it. I have no idea what race Egypt was at the time of Moses. I assumed (from movies) they were Arab or Semitic at the time and that Cleopatra was as well. But I saw something on some history show that mentioned her being Greek and it made sense, since Greek conquered Egypt and installed their own government in 400BC or so, and that's who ruled it when Rome invaded again a few hundred years later.

And of course, the Arabs invaded a few hundred years after that so I don't know how much that has to do with Egypt's current racial makeup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_VII

[Glorfindel]

5. The Ptolemys also practiced brother/sister incestuous marriage

As was the custom in Egyptian royal families. Inheritance of the throne was through the female line, so the way you got to be pharoah was to marry your sister, daughter, or grand-daughter. :puke:

Interesting stuff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_dynasty

[Codeine]

8. History fail.

All the historical evidence favors the view of Cleopatra as white, of Greek descent. There were a shitload of Greeks in Egypt because of Ptolemy. The Ptolemaic aristocracy stayed so Greek in character that none of them even spoke Egyptian until Cleopatra learned the language.

[demoleft]

9. my mistake :) n/t

[rebecca_herman]

11. I'm part of the YA blogging community

The reactions to this were mixed, some people felt strongly that it should be changed, others didn't really care since it was a fantasy novel. The book was set in a completely fictional world, so there was no indication precisely what the character looked like. Personally I didn't pay much attention to the accuracy of the cover since it was a fantasy novel set in a make-believe world.

[Posteritatis]

12. And that's before the fun with the "urban fiction" schtick

If the cover did have a black character on it, a lot of bookstores would just file the book accordingly regardless of content.