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THE
TELEGRAPH
Melting
pot - Cultures come together at a book launch
By
DIYA KOHLI. Feb 8 , 2008. [
more
]
"Our
vision was and is to showcase the multi ethnic literary
culture of American literature in India, to start dialogue
and walk on the bridge that Sunil Gangopadhyay and Allen
Ginsberg built in 1962 between Bengali and American
literature, "writes Gautam Datta in his foreword
to A Mingling Of Waters. The anthology of poetry,
fiction and non-fiction by American and Indian writers
is a project undertaken by the United States Kolkata
Literary Exchange (USKLE).
Slated
for launch at the Book Fair, the venue shifted to Crossword.
The readings and performances by the poets reflected
the range of cultural influences and styles in the compilation
-- the blues-influenced work of Pulitzer Prize-winner
Yusef Komunyakaa, the song-poems by Joy Harjo whose
work is influenced by her Native American heritage and
rhythms of jazz, the spoken-word poetry of Bob Holman
who uses cadences of rap, hip hop and other styles to
help the poem "explode out of the page."
"The
aim is to showcase the diversity as well as the multicultural
nature of contemporary American poetry and also introduce
these writers through a short representative selection
of their work," explained Catherine Fletcher, writer
and editor of the volume. "We also hope to make
this a fruitful collaboration between poets from Bengal
and America." The participating Bengali poets included
Sunil Gangopadhyay, Gautam Datta, Jyotirmoy Datta, Subodh
Sarkar and novelist Bharati Mukherjee.
The
non-starter fair, where the US was to be theme country,
left the writers a little disgruntled. "Not only
would the book fair have given people a chance to get
an idea of contemporary American literature, it would
have also opened up possibilities for translations of
Indian works. We are all very disappointed," said
Bharati Mukherjee. The delegation will showcase its
work through a series of performances and interactive
reading sessions till February 9 at various venues across
the city.
READ
an article in the Guardian about the Book Fair
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