Transnational Literature

Third Culture Kids and Privilege

2021-12-16T13:49:45+00:00

A conversation piece about Third Culture Kids and Privilege

“Third Culture Kids”: Detachment, Adolescence, and Yann Martel’s Self

2021-03-26T14:11:36+00:00

This interdisciplinary paper uses Third Culture studies (drawn from the social sciences) in tandem with literary analysis of Canadian/ Third Culture Yann Martel’s first novel Self (1996) to argue that Martel’s work exemplifies both the international freedoms of Third Culture individuals and the psychology of Third Culture itself, which is, as I suggest here, seemingly stuck in an adolescent phase of identity-formation. Third Culture tends to connote expatriate privilege, including the ability to cross borders at will with an ease other types of dislocated populations do not enjoy. Literary analysis allows me to reconsider Martel’s novel and fruitfully intervene in scholarship addressing the vexed internationalism expressed in it. I also further the scholarship on Third Culture, especially as it engages with the interaction between rootlessness and privilege, and with the possibility that internationally disrupted adolescence renders national commitments permanently unstable.

Transnational Writing to Aminatta Forna

2021-03-21T12:44:01+00:00

I was fascinated by Aminatta Forna’s keynote speech at the conference Transnational Literature and Writing: Follow the Sun. This creative-critical and personal letter addressed to Aminatta Forna is a response to her keynote speech about the transnational writer.

Westward Ho!

2020-12-05T13:29:12+00:00

Abstract

Annemarie Schwarzenbach was a Swiss writer, photographer and traveller who visited the Middle East and Persia several times in the mid-nineteen-thirties. In an attempt to free herself from morphine addiction, she left Geneva in June 1939 with fellow Swiss traveller Ella Maillart, the two women driving overland to Afghanistan. They parted company in Kabul, met again briefly in India from where Schwarzenbach travelled back by steamship to Genoa. War had broken out, she was restless, addicted, and unsure where her life was heading. After a short stay in Switzerland, she was back in Genoa and caught the steamship Manhattan bound for New York, where her friends Erika and Klaus Mann were in exile, and where she would meet the young writer Carson McCullers. Written on board the Manhattan, this short text illustrates Schwarzenbach’s wandering spirit, her trustafarian, romantic view of Asia, as well as her lyrical gift. In New York her addiction and disorientation took a turn for the worse, she was committed to Bellevue psychiatric clinic and eventually expelled from the United States. She died in Switzerland in November 1942, from injuries sustained in a fall from her bicycle. Schwarzenbach’s photos were the subject of a major exhibition in the Klee Center in Bern in September 2020.

Casteism

2020-12-07T05:32:37+00:00

It is a short story about how casteism is inherent in our contemporary Indian society.

[Translated by Somdatta Mandal from the original Bangla story “Barnabad” by Manoranjan Byapari]

Water Thy Shadow

2021-02-11T22:18:24+00:00

From the confines of a North London bedsit, Boka embarks on a journey to find a job and escape his mother’s hold on the future, the same grip she held on his late brother’s life.

Black Pelican

2021-02-08T12:08:34+00:00

An extract from, Black Pelican, a memoir reflecting a Third Culture upbringing in the Middle East, Nigeria and the West.

Rows of Lavender

2021-01-07T14:17:42+00:00

The narrative of Rows of Lavender centres around Hani, a young Somali woman, and reflects the inhuman conditions of detention centres in Malta which are unhygienic and lack access to mental health care. It also explores the concept of migration, reaching the wrong destination and adapting to a new culture.

Letting Go: A Prayer

2021-02-27T22:49:45+00:00

Letting Go: A Prayer explores the challenges of being a young Muslim in Britain. Written in reference to ongoing human rights abuses in China, the narrative considers the impact of international atrocities on youth at home, and the effect of pervading feelings of threat and physical violence on similar-looking bodies. The story is told through the perspective of a single mother preparing her son for the future, and it considers racial trauma, loneliness, and familial love.

Kenyan Poetry Section : Intro

2021-04-21T08:42:58+00:00

Kenyan Poetry Section

2021-04-05T04:25:41+00:00

Poems from 4 Kenyan poets.

Featured poet - Len Verwey

2021-04-08T08:38:24+00:00

A Bible Story

2021-03-18T07:04:08+00:00

Poem about inter-racial relationships

Ferienhaus Kaapes, Holsthum

2021-03-28T05:25:04+00:00

Poem about loss

Anachronistic Translations

2021-03-28T20:42:34+00:00

Grains of Memories

2021-03-28T05:12:54+00:00

Poem about homesickness

Succession Planning, Northern Rivers, Australia, January 2020

2021-03-18T05:03:26+00:00

Poem about the 2020 Australian bushfires.

The Larger World

2021-04-04T22:31:47+00:00

Poem about Bermudan history/ global warming

The Daily Haiku: Where Time Zones Collide

2021-09-30T16:29:16+00:00

Amanda White introduces the project, The Daily Haiku and charts its success across the globe.

The Daily Haiku: Where Time Zones Collide

2021-08-13T17:38:48+00:00

A conversation between Helene Guojah and The Great Margin, including some of Guojah's haiku written as part of The Daily Haiku project.

The Daily Haiku: Where Time Zones Collide

2021-08-13T17:45:04+00:00

A conversation between Eric McLachlan and The Great Margin, including some of McLachlan's haiku written as part of The Daily Haiku project.

The Daily Haiku: Where Time Zones Collide

2021-08-13T17:52:04+00:00

A conversation between Amita Paul and The Great Margin, including some of Paul's haiku written as part of The Daily Haiku project.

The Daily Haiku: Where Time Zones Collide

2021-08-13T17:47:44+00:00

A conversation between Cathryn Stone and The Great Margin, including some of Stone's haiku written as part of The Daily Haiku project.

The Daily Haiku: Where Time Zones Collide

2021-08-13T17:21:01+00:00

A conversation between Neetu Malik and The Great Margin, including some of Malik's haiku written as part of The Daily Haiku project.

The Daily Haiku: Where Time Zones Collide

2021-08-13T17:55:02+00:00

A conversation between Elizabeth Tunstall and The Great Margin, including some of Tunstall's haiku written as part of The Daily Haiku project.

Plan B Audio by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa (Isobar Press, Tokyo & London, 2020) Reviewed by Pam Brown

2021-03-01T04:03:39+00:00

Scatterlings by Rešoketšwe Manenzhe (Jacana Media, Johannesburg, 2020) Reviewed by Kristien Potgieter

2021-04-13T11:43:26+00:00

The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya (ECW Press, Toronto, 2020) Reviewed By Asma Sayed and Jacqueline Walker

2021-03-05T19:21:58+00:00

Book Review of Vivek Shraya's The Subtweet

Lightseekers by Femi Kayode (Mulholland Books, New York, 2021) Reviewed by Saliha Haddad

2021-04-13T11:32:27+00:00

I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe me by Juan Pablo Villalobos (And Other Stories, Sheffield, 2020). Reviewed by Jayne Marshall

2021-04-13T11:38:18+00:00

Are We Here Just For Saying?

2021-02-10T22:07:37+00:00

Are we here just for saying? is a lyrical essay in the form of a memoir. It follows a regular bike ride along a river through the seasons of the year and of a life, the cycles of the sun, as the rider wonders what names to call things by, taking a hint from Rilke about why we are here as creatures of language.

Bordering Heritage

2020-09-01T15:58:40+00:00

An autobiographical interrogation of multiple heritages at a conference on the Irish border.

Learning To Bake

2020-09-01T15:11:00+00:00

An artist, in touch with his father only through phonecalls, contemplates his care.

Passport Control

2020-09-01T15:40:11+00:00

Questions at an airport Passport Control lead to an interesting encounter.

The Crossing

2021-02-03T21:37:42+00:00

An extract from a coming of age novel Bed, Table, Door forthcoming from Wrecking Ball Press, UK in 2022 about a Hungarian couple, Sofie and Samu, who escape from socialist Hungary to England during the Thatcher era.