The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial ExperienceSouth End Press, 1996 - 223 pages In this book, acclaimed South Asian American poet and novelist Meena Alexander unleashes a fury of prose and poetry to confront the stereotypes and explore the challenges facing postcolonial immigrants in America. Commenting on the history of memory, language, shame, and exile, Alexander poignantly describes the wealth of experiences and imaginings that have shaped her life and writing. Her project: "to make space for what was crossed out in the decorum of femininity, in the high places of classical hierarchy, in the racism of a canonical knowledge, in the obliterations of a national memory ... all this is part of our task, part of the violent, fractured worlds that we must etch into beauty". |
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Page 172
... cultures : that of Hyderabad , where she was born , and the colonial culture of British India . Born of Bengali parents in the city of Hyderabad , she spoke not Bengali but Urdu , the Islamic language of culture in her city . Living at ...
... cultures : that of Hyderabad , where she was born , and the colonial culture of British India . Born of Bengali parents in the city of Hyderabad , she spoke not Bengali but Urdu , the Islamic language of culture in her city . Living at ...
Page 185
... culture . And women writers , often mothers in fact and not merely image , had to struggle through the cultural validations of their estate , into an imaginative intimacy with their own bodily selves . It was a world in which murdering ...
... culture . And women writers , often mothers in fact and not merely image , had to struggle through the cultural validations of their estate , into an imaginative intimacy with their own bodily selves . It was a world in which murdering ...
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... Culture " In concrete imagery and intellectual passion , Alexander is full of surprises . These are haunting texts of hybrid America . " -Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , author of In Other Worlds , Essays in Cultural Politics " This is a ...
... Culture " In concrete imagery and intellectual passion , Alexander is full of surprises . These are haunting texts of hybrid America . " -Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , author of In Other Worlds , Essays in Cultural Politics " This is a ...
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aesthetic America artist Ashtamudi Lake Asian Asian-American art Balamaniamma bits blood born breath British burning child cloth colonialism cried culture dance dark death decolonization Delhi dharma Draupadi dream earth edge English eyes face feminine fierce figure filled fire flesh forced Frantz Fanon Gandhi garden girl hair hands Hashmi head Hyderabad imagination India Kathakali Kerala Khartoum Lalithambika language light lines living Malayalam maternal Meena Alexander memory mother mouth Native American never painted Parasurama passion poem poet poetry political postcolonial published river rock Safdar Hashmi San Andreas Fault sari Sarojini Naidu sense sexual shock of arrival Sita skin Skin Song snow Song soul space speak speech stone street struggle tell Tethi Thankam things thought tion Tiruvella tongue torn trees turned Vasco da Gama violence voice walking wall window woman words writing young