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by Meena Alexander (Author), Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o (Preface by), Gaiutra Bahadur (Afterword by)
In this evocative memoir, an acclaimed Indian poet explores writing, memory, and place in a post-9/11 world.
Passionate, fierce, and lyrical, Fault Lines follows one woman's evolution as a writer at home--and in exile--across continents and cultures. Meena Alexander was born into a privileged childhood in India and grew into a turbulent adolescence in the Sudan, before moving to England and then New York City. With poetic insight and devastating honesty, Alexander explores how trauma and recovery shaped the entire landscape of her memory: of her family, her writing process, and her very self. This new edition, published on the two-year anniversary of Alexander's passing in 2018, will feature a commemorative afterword celebrating her legacy. "Alexander's writing is imbued with a poetic grace shot through with an inner violence, like a shimmering piece of two-toned silk." --Ms. Magazine"Evocative and moving." --Publishers Weekly"One of the most important literary voices in South Asian American writing and American letters broadly writ, Meena Alexander's close examination of exile and migration lays bare the heart of a poet." --Rajiv Mohabir, author of The Cowherd's SonAuthor Biography
Meena Alexander (1951 - 2018) was born in Allahabad, India. She was raised both in Kerala, South India and in Khartoum, Sudan. Her many books include Illiterate Heart, The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience, In Praise of Fragments, and the critically acclaimed memoir Fault Lines.
Alexander was the recipient of the 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award in Literature from the South Asian Literary Association for contributions to American literature. In 2014, Meena Alexander was named a National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study. She was Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at the City University of New York and taught in the PhD Program in English at CUNY Graduate Center and in the English Department at Hunter College.
