Publishers Weekly asked its "Top 10 Authors" of 2013 to recommend their top pick for the year. Carla was among those who contributed, citing Barbara Ransby's Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (Yale University Press).
"Women's stories—black women's stories, especially—are too often untold. Fortunately, Barbara Ransby resurrects a remarkably adventurous and independent woman, known for too long only as the hard-charging wife of 'Harlem's darling,' actor Paul Robeson. Essie, as she was called, was much more than her husband's manager. Ransby tracks Essie's political development, world travels, and survivor's resolve, holding together a marriage constantly threatened by Paul's many affairs, dodging decades of government surveillance, standing up to racist death threats, and dealing with abortions, surgeries, and illnesses."