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 6
... torn down and burning . In my novel Nampally Road , inside a burning police station in Hyderabad , built long ago by the British , the narrator puts out her hand and touches the cheek of Rameeza Be , the woman who had been gang - raped ...
... torn down and burning . In my novel Nampally Road , inside a burning police station in Hyderabad , built long ago by the British , the narrator puts out her hand and touches the cheek of Rameeza Be , the woman who had been gang - raped ...
Page 92
... torn away place names , shredding sense so that what she knew as her ordinary world has turned into someone else's darkness ? What would it be like for her granddaughter fifty , seventy , a hundred years later to try to take back that ...
... torn away place names , shredding sense so that what she knew as her ordinary world has turned into someone else's darkness ? What would it be like for her granddaughter fifty , seventy , a hundred years later to try to take back that ...
Page 144
... torn / is torn in me / All that was ever mu- tilated / is mutilated in me . ) I thought of the scores of memories that can never be lashed back into place , the white sails on the Nile , the water lights on the Hudson , the fishermen's ...
... torn / is torn in me / All that was ever mu- tilated / is mutilated in me . ) I thought of the scores of memories that can never be lashed back into place , the white sails on the Nile , the water lights on the Hudson , the fishermen's ...
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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