Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America (Asian American Writers' Workshop) - Softcover

Maira, Sunaina

3.91

11 ratings by Goodreads

9781889876009: Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America (Asian American Writers' Workshop)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1889876003 ISBN 13: 9781889876009

Publisher: Temple University Press,U.S., 1998

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This book comes at a critical time in the history of South Asians in North America. As the number of South Asian immigrants increases in the United States and Canada, a familiar tension has been the immigrant conflict between home as a physical site in North America and home as an emotional concept tied to the ancestral country, and the second generation's questioning of both notions. This anthology critically explores this familiar tension and the concept of \u0022home.\u0022 It focuses on the transformative experiences that lead individuals to declare or reject new forms of belonging in North America. Setting up \u0022home\u0022 may require contesting existing roles, inventing hybrid identities, or seeking social and political change. The anthology challenges undifferentiated, stereotypical images of South Asians in North America, portraying instead the subtleties of their varied, sometimes invisible experiences. It includes fiction, poetry, essays, and photography.

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Review:

"There is an explosion of energy and talent in this book. Through fiction, poetry, essay, interview and memoir, South Asian American/Canadian writers depict a diversity of lives: taxi-drivers, computer company owners, aspiring rockstars, rebellious sisters, gay couples, children who feign sleep to listen in on their elders, elders petrified about dying in America. Contours of the Heart is a wonderful testament to the ways in which the literatures of North America and of South Asia are being enriched by writings which stir up and recombine the continents." --Kirin Narayan, author of Storytellers, Saints and Scoundrels and Love, Stars, and All That "Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America is a splendid collection: as rich and varied as the Indian sub-continent itself. There could be no better proof--if proof were needed--of the extraordinary talent, dynamism, and energy of the South Asian diaspora in North America." --Amitav Ghosh, author of The Shadow Lines in an Antique Land and The Circle of Reason

Synopsis:

This book is distributed by Temple University Press for the Asian-American Writers' Workshop. This book comes at a critical time in the history of South Asians in North America. As the number of South Asian immigrants increases in the United States and Canada, a familiar tension has been the immigrant conflict between home as a physical site in North America and home as an emotional concept tied to the ancestral country, and the second generation's questioning of both notions. This anthology critically explores this familiar tension and the concept of "home." It focuses on the transformative experiences that lead individuals to declare or reject new forms of belonging in North America. Setting up "home" may require contesting existing roles, inventing hybrid identities, or seeking social and political change. The anthology challenges undifferentiated, stereotypical images of South Asians in North America, portraying instead the subtleties of their varied, sometimes invisible experiences. It includes fiction, poetry, essays, and photography.

Sunaina Maira is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who is doing her dissertation research on the ethnic identity development of second-generation Indian-Americans. Rajini Srikanth teaches Literature and Women's Studies at Tufts University and Wellesley College and is co-editor of "Closing the Gap: South Asian-Americans in Asian-America" (Temple).

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