Published Sept 2016
In fifteen speeches and essays written between 2001 and 2015, Shauna Singh Baldwin brings a new perspective and voice to Canadian public discourse. Offering examples from her personal journey as a writer and a South Asian woman who needs to “become as hyphenated as possible,” Baldwin transcends homogenized national identities.
Advance Praise:
“A beautiful, powerful book of essays and speeches that traverse continents and decades to examine the complicated experience of being a South Asian woman who belongs to many tribes, some of which are in conflict with others. Intelligent, informed, and unafraid of asking tough questions, this book is sure to delight intelligent readers of all backgrounds.”
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Author of Oleander Girl and Before We Visit the Goddess
“In this highly personal, lucid, intellectually stimulating, beckoning yet always challenging volume, Shauna Singh Baldwin moves seamlessly from her already proven mastery of fiction to this collection of meticulously researched essays. Exploring tensions in and through the power of language and naming, histories of colonialism and privilege, relations between women and between women and men, she intuitively grants her readers space for pause and reflection. Her varied fictional characters, who have become for many of her readers beloved and familiar friends, are creatively interwoven into her narrative, beacons of wisdom or critique. Baldwin shines a light on hallowed institutions, inviting her readers to question preconceived notions of ‘the way things are’, to name, take responsibility and resist injustice through acts, big or small, of reluctant rebellions.”
Doris R. Jakobsh, Department of Religious Studies
University of Waterloo
“A wonderfully illuminating and personal exploration of cultural, racial, religious and gender perspectives… [Shauna Singh Baldwin] has an intimate knowledge of multiple worlds, which she describes with insight and sympathy. The essays and addresses in this book, by extending and amplifying her earlier writing, make invaluable and enlightening companions to her fiction.”
Hugh Johnston, Simon Fraser University
