‘Blackass’ author to read at Green Apple Books

A. Igoni Barrett wrote that sentence into his pocket notebook in 2011, and found it after finishing his collection of short stories, “Love Is Power, Or Something Like That,” and deciding to attempt his first novel.

When I sat down to write about it, I realized pretty quickly how similar it was to Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” Barrett said by phone.

A native and resident of Nigeria, he’s on a U.S. tour for the novel, “Blackass,” which was published in Britain in June and released in the U.S. last week by Graywolf Press.

Kafka’s character had changed into an insect but still wanted to be human, wanted to be loved by the family, and in the end was destroyed by that need to be accepted as a human despite appearing to people as an insect.

[...] in my character’s case, he took advantage of his situation … he accepted it and began to act, and began to become what society saw him as.

Members of society want to see themselves reflected in the images of those societies, and yet when you live in a society that doesn’t, that somehow renders you invisible, that never represents you or represents you in stereotypical fashions, at some point you either rebel against that image and say, show the complexity of our situation, you know, show the complexity of the minorities within societies; or there are other people, unfortunately the majority, who try to fit in to society’s images of what is good, or what is important.

[...] you have people lightening their skin, straightening their hair, wearing wigs and wearing human hair even, to look like something else.

The bilingual reading series and open mike Voz Sin Tinta, which is sponsored by San Francisco’s Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguía, celebrates its third anniversary along with Women’s History Month with a special showcase of Las Lunas Locas, a women’s writing collective from Los Angeles (6:30 p.m. Thursday, March, 10, Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St., S.F., free). www.facebook.com/events/951462031576414

Litquake’s annual daylong Palo Alto festival features a keynote talk by Joyce Carol Oates, along with readings by the likes of Yangsze Choo, Daniel Handler, Bich Minh Nguyen and Kevin Sessums, along with themed salons, literary workshops for children, and a teen space with young adult authors (3 p.m. Sunday, March 13, Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto, free). www.paloaltojcc.org/Events/litquake-palo-alto-2016