colonialism
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview with Jesse Lee Kercheval
I have learned to put myself, my ego, to one side and truly experience someone else’s poetry.
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Antigua through the Eyes of Jamaica Kincaid
Antiguan-American novelist Jamaica Kincaid has often made the island a centerpiece of her writing. New York Times travel editor Monica Drake recounts visiting Antigua alongside Kincaid’s words—an alternative to the dominant, colonialist narrative around the island: The tension that we’d…
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The Role of the Critical Writer
For The Awl, Maria Bustillos sits down for lunch with writer Teju Cole in Bali, where Cole recently spoke at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. The two discuss art, colonialism, and the role of the critical writer. Regarding the latter, Cole…
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Saving History through Translation
At Lit Hub, André Naffis-Sahely discusses the vital importance of translation as a way to preserve a cultural/historical record. Translation improves a book’s chances of survival. In a way, it must. What one culture proves indifferent to, might find a better…
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Travel Writer’s Burden
In a thoughtful essay for Boston Review, Jessa Crispin reflects on the gender dynamics of travel writing, and the genre’s penchant for a colonial mentality that persists in today’s narratives: Any travel writer who deviates from gender-defined roles risks being…
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A “Voiceless” India
For the New York Times, Aatish Taseer argues that English has left Indian literature “voiceless,” as writers are often asked to produce work with western audiences in mind: India, if it is to speak to itself, will always need a lingua…
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The Rumpus Interview with Nayomi Munaweera
Nayomi Munaweera discusses Sri Lanka, its brutal Civil War, and writing a novel about two artists with their identities wrapped up in two different countries, Sri Lanka and America.
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Classic Literature Or Social Construct?
Classic literature is neither timeless nor fundamental. Writing is bound by its place in history, both as we read it and as it was written, and the idea of a universal experience is simply another construct of the dominant culture,…