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 37
... question and by her tone of utter certitude . Why should the old woman glimpsed in water want to kill me ? Was it the past rounding back ? I did not ask myself those questions . The gash of dislocation was too fierce . The composition ...
... question and by her tone of utter certitude . Why should the old woman glimpsed in water want to kill me ? Was it the past rounding back ? I did not ask myself those questions . The gash of dislocation was too fierce . The composition ...
Page 86
... questions to which quick answers can be found . But they are questions we are forced to ask ourselves at the tail end of the century , our earth torn up by multiple battles . Sometimes women's writing works through radical negativity ...
... questions to which quick answers can be found . But they are questions we are forced to ask ourselves at the tail end of the century , our earth torn up by multiple battles . Sometimes women's writing works through radical negativity ...
Page 142
... questions that come with dislocation are not necessarily new : Where am I ? Who am I ? and hardest of all , When am I ? But the forms of invention these questions propose to a postcolonial consciousness - a life reworked through the ...
... questions that come with dislocation are not necessarily new : Where am I ? Who am I ? and hardest of all , When am I ? But the forms of invention these questions propose to a postcolonial consciousness - a life reworked through the ...
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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