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 27
... mind , meanderings of thought . What would it be like to have a house of one's own ? A house where no permissions were needed ? Where even to speak of permission would be odd , for after all the bramble out- side the window ledge , the ...
... mind , meanderings of thought . What would it be like to have a house of one's own ? A house where no permissions were needed ? Where even to speak of permission would be odd , for after all the bramble out- side the window ledge , the ...
Page 68
... mind slips to the darkness on which such a possibil- ity is built : Nella Larsen's world , female selves unraveling in the haste to pass . ' Her agile , anguished heroines come to mind : Helga Crane in Quicksand , Clare Kendry in ...
... mind slips to the darkness on which such a possibil- ity is built : Nella Larsen's world , female selves unraveling in the haste to pass . ' Her agile , anguished heroines come to mind : Helga Crane in Quicksand , Clare Kendry in ...
Page 83
... mind . What sense can the fraught reflections of a multicultural feminism offer us ? If to be female is already to be Other to the dominant languages of the world , to the canonical rigors of the great classical literatures of Arabic or ...
... mind . What sense can the fraught reflections of a multicultural feminism offer us ? If to be female is already to be Other to the dominant languages of the world , to the canonical rigors of the great classical literatures of Arabic or ...
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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