Books by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22
By Maggie Wills ’25
Staff Writer
March is Women’s History Month, a time to highlight the accomplishments of women and reflect on centuries of work done to advocate for gender equality. These new nonfiction books amplify pivotal moments in women’s history and spotlight the lives of women who have made a difference in the world.
“Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America” by Mayukh Sen
“Taste Makers” sheds light on the lives of seven women who immigrated to the United States and shared their extensive food knowledge with Americans. While their restaurants and cookbooks changed how Americans eat, their stories are seldom told. According to The New York Times, this nonfiction book attempts to change that by sharing the lives and careers of these chefs. Chao Yang Buwei, a medical doctor and author of “How to Cook and Eat in Chinese,” published in 1945, brought Chinese cooking techniques to the United States. Norma Shirley, an immigrant from Jamaica, established and cooked at The Station, a French restaurant with Jamaican influences in Massachusetts. Neither of these women, nor the five others discussed in the book, received the acclaim their work deserved. According to NPR’s Alisa Chang, the book examines why some foreign cuisines are welcomed in American society while others are not. For The New York Times, Mayukh Sen shared that in writing “Taste Makers,” he avoided using too much personal voice in an attempt to let the women’s voices shine.
Sen is a journalist and historian whose work has been published in Food52 and the New York Times. He frequently writes about food history and stories of individual chefs. According to his website, he currently teaches food writing at Columbia University and lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
“Manifesto: On Never Giving Up” By Bernadine Evaristo
“Manifesto” is the memoir of award-winning author Bernadine Evaristo. According to The New York Times and The Guardian, “Manifesto” sees Evaristo share stories spanning from her childhood to her career as a poet and author. Growing up in Southeast London in the 1960s and as one of eight children of a Nigerian father and a white mother, she discusses her mixed-race identity and how she often felt in between two groups. Evaristo pushes further, reflecting on her own internalized racism towards her father, as well as the racism that the family experienced during her upbringing. Evaristo’s also unpacks her complex queer identity, from her unhealthy relationship with a woman at 25 to her marriage to a man later in life. Evident throughout is Evaristo’s persistence in pursuing her goal of telling the stories of Black British women.
According to the Washington Independent Review of Books, Evaristo began her writing career as a poet in college. She co-founded the Theater of Black Women in 1982 and later established a mentorship program for poets of color called The Complete Works that operated from 2007-2017. Her novel “Girl, Woman, Other,” published in 2019, is her most successful. The novel also won the 2019 Booker Prize, making Evaristo the first Black woman to do so. She currently teaches Creative Writing at Brunel University London.
“The Family Roe: An American Story” By Joshua Prager
This nonfiction book chronicles the life and family of Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in the United States. The woman behind the name is Norma McCorvey, and, according to The New York Times, her story is more complex than readers might expect.
“The Family Roe: An American Story” takes readers through McCorvey’s tumultuous childhood in Texas, where she was part of a religious and often abusive family. McCorvey had two unplanned pregnancies that she gave up for adoption prior to the 1969 pregnancy that was the catalyst for the 1973 Supreme Court decision. Since then, McCorvey has had a somewhat contradictory life. At times she worked at abortion clinics, and at others worked with pro-life advocates. Joshua Prager dives into the lives of McCorvey’s mother, grandmother and three daughters in hopes of painting a more accurate picture of McCorvey. The book also reveals details of the Roe v. Wade trial, highlighting how lawyers molded McCorvey into a plaintiff that would be most impactful for their cause.
The book received mixed reviews. Lauren Gutterman of Slate argued that the timing of the book’s release, which coincided with Texas’ SB8 bill, was poor. However, others like Anand Giridharadas of The New York Times emphasized the book’s importance in covering the true history of a watershed moment in the history of reproductive rights.
Prager is a former journalist for The Wall Street Journal. His writing tends to focus on revealing the under-acknowledged details of events in U.S. history. He currently lives with his family in New Jersey.