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". |
From inside the book
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Page 92
... sense that was submerged , mute ancestral memory . And so to travel in the mind , through places one has known , is also to scrape back history , reveal the knots , the acci- dental markings of sense and circumstance that make up our ...
... sense that was submerged , mute ancestral memory . And so to travel in the mind , through places one has known , is also to scrape back history , reveal the knots , the acci- dental markings of sense and circumstance that make up our ...
Page 193
Reflections on Postcolonial Experience Meena Alexander. CODA W Theater of Sense hat follows is an imaginary dialogue with a Kathakali dancer who leaps through the open window , into my room in Manhattan ... Sense 193 Theater of Sense.
Reflections on Postcolonial Experience Meena Alexander. CODA W Theater of Sense hat follows is an imaginary dialogue with a Kathakali dancer who leaps through the open window , into my room in Manhattan ... Sense 193 Theater of Sense.
Page 199
... sense it's a struggle for a new form of life . We need to carry over a lot , invent our place so we don't slip and slide on thin ice with nowhere to be . Fall through into a hole and land up in ether . Nowhere ! D : Here am I ! She ...
... sense it's a struggle for a new form of life . We need to carry over a lot , invent our place so we don't slip and slide on thin ice with nowhere to be . Fall through into a hole and land up in ether . Nowhere ! D : Here am I ! She ...
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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