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May 28, 2005
Story-Wallah
With all the discussion about Sri Lanka on the board, Shyam Selvadurai comes to mind. I loved his “Funny Boy” though “Cinnamon Gardens” was bit of a struggle to finish. On a side note, a few years ago, I took a writing workshop with him and I found it to be a wonderful experience as he was very insightful.
Anyway, he’s been at McMaster’s University in Toronto since his last books were published, and I just learned that he’s published an anthology together of works of 26 South Asian writers. His goal was to gather the works from the South Asian diaspora in Canada, US, UK, Guyana, Trinidad, Malaysia, Singapore, Tanzania, and Fiji.
That sounds nice, doesn’t it? But, is there anyone worth reading in "Story Wallah"?
Names like Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry, Bharati Mukherjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Monica Ali are the ones the publishers put forth first. I found a list of other writers included: Mena Abdullah, Rukhsana Ahmad, Numair Choudhury, Chitra Fernando, Zulfikar Ghose, Romesh Gunesekera, Aamer Hussein, Ginu Kamani, Ginu Kamani,, Farida Karodia, KS Maniam, Rooplall Monar, Shani Mootoo, Raymond Pillai, Sandip Roy, Sam Selvon, Kirpal Singh, and M.G. Vassanji.
Here’s a quote from Shyam regarding this book:
“Being diasporic myself, I find the idea of the diaspora very appealing as it allows one to take from both your original culture and the culture you have immigrated to and create an eclectic fusion that is very exciting.” Interview
I thought that was beautifully phrased since there is always a discussion on how to define South Asian diasporic writing, which leads to comparisons of South Asian writers in English to each other or writers in regional languages.
I think the range of writers he selected is intriguing more than anything. One more book to add to my list of must-reads.
Posted by Ashini J. Desai at May 28, 2005 04:11 PM
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Posted by: Anonymous at May 28, 2005 04:11 PM
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