PEOPLE AND STORIES / GENTE Y CUENTOS
Who Owns Literature? Communities Find Their Voice Through Short Stories
by
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An unusual meeting “Ah, a rainbow is always good news: When the Lord wanted to let Noah know that the flood was over…he sent a rainbow over the clouds,” said Pedro, a Puerto Rican man, one night, in the basement of a church in Trenton, New Jersey. A short story by Arguedas, the Peruvian writer, had just been read aloud… The man who recalled the rainbow as the Lord’s sign to Noah had never before joined the discussion. Pedro was shy, inhibited, embarrassed about not being able to read, but now he spoke up. Something in the Peruvian story struck a responsive chord in him. Others in the group, somewhat more educated, were startled by the evocative quality of his remarks. Pedro spoke more often after that night. The kind of comments that the Arguedas’ story generated are often heard during People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos sessions, a program which organizes readings and discussions of short stories with persons who have never had access to literature. Trust in the power of literature to open up to different readings and trust in the ability of persons to draw on their life experience to enter the world of fiction has been at the root of this enterprise.
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About the Book
“Sarah Hirschman’s book is … really a manifesto for an approach to education that does all these more human, more important things.”
—Danielle Allen, Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
“I’d love to see People and Stories programs for the parents of children in every at-risk school district in the country.”
—Robert Hass, US Poet Laureate, 1995-1997
People and Stories / Gente y Cuentos describes how men and women on welfare or in rehabilitation centers, prisoners, rural workers, disadvantaged youth, or just ordinary community members are offered the chance to experience literature in a way they have not been able to in the past.
Founded by Sarah Hirschman, People and Stories/ Gente y Cuentos is a reading and discussion program offered in the United States, Latin America, and France to groups of often underserved adults and adolescents. Upon attending a seminar by Paulo Freire and working with groups in New York’s Lower East Side and Dorchester, Massachusetts, Sarah created Gente y Cuentos in Spanish. Some years later, the English-language People and Stories was added. Currently, Gens et Récits in French is being developed in a prison near Paris and in the southwest of France.
This book describes the var ious influences that led to the development of this method. The clarity of the explanations and the attention to detail should help those who want to organize similar discussion groups in their own communities.
About the Author
SARAH HIRSCHMAN was born in Lithuania of Russian Jewish parents. She was educated in France and the United States in literature and philosophy. Sarah is the Founder of the program People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos in the US, France, and Latin America. She now lives in Princeton with her husband, political economist Albert O. Hirschman.