CCBC-Net Archives
[CCBC-Net] Homeless Bird
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: uma at cyberport.com <uma>
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 11:33:42 -0700
At 11:17 AM 1/5/2001, RUKHSANA KHAN wrote:
I'm not familiar with the region of South Asia that is the setting of those - I did think the setting of SFS's newest, Shiva's Fire, was mostly well done, although I found a few gestures, actions that would be at odds with how a southern Indian Hindu girl would behave -- covering one's head in the presence of men, e.g, unheard of in the south though common in the rural north. Regional nuance can be a tricky thing, and I am not saying no one outside a culture should ever write of it. Bear with me, here's an example -- I was asked to write a nonfiction piece recently on Holi, a holiday I was familiar with as a child growing up in Delhi, but which my family, being from the south, did not observe as a religious holiday. I found myself working very hard to research the background, the meaning, the sense of this day to people for whom the experience of it was closer than mine -- despite the fact that as a child I'd come home with my hair happily powdered in multicolored rainbows from Holi celebrations. Just being there sometimes isn't enough!
But the issues with Homeless Bird are more egregious, IMO. E.g. I'm told
(though I didn't personally see those shows, perhaps others did) that the author has spoken on a couple of TV interviews about pulling this off w/o ever having visited India. And it shows! To my mind, that would be like my attempting (just as an example) to write about apartheid in South Africa
(in a voice of a black child) without ever having been there. I wouldn't presume to do such a thing. Am I too cynical in assuming perhaps in some people's minds the colonial era isn't exactly over? When will it become clear that writers can no longer write as if people of color don't read, or as if they don't matter?
Nuff said, by me, anyway.
Uma
Uma Krishnaswami http://www.childrensbookguild.org/Krishnaswami.html
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about [Bernard Malamud]
Received on Fri 05 Jan 2001 12:33:42 PM CST
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2001 11:33:42 -0700
At 11:17 AM 1/5/2001, RUKHSANA KHAN wrote:
I'm not familiar with the region of South Asia that is the setting of those - I did think the setting of SFS's newest, Shiva's Fire, was mostly well done, although I found a few gestures, actions that would be at odds with how a southern Indian Hindu girl would behave -- covering one's head in the presence of men, e.g, unheard of in the south though common in the rural north. Regional nuance can be a tricky thing, and I am not saying no one outside a culture should ever write of it. Bear with me, here's an example -- I was asked to write a nonfiction piece recently on Holi, a holiday I was familiar with as a child growing up in Delhi, but which my family, being from the south, did not observe as a religious holiday. I found myself working very hard to research the background, the meaning, the sense of this day to people for whom the experience of it was closer than mine -- despite the fact that as a child I'd come home with my hair happily powdered in multicolored rainbows from Holi celebrations. Just being there sometimes isn't enough!
But the issues with Homeless Bird are more egregious, IMO. E.g. I'm told
(though I didn't personally see those shows, perhaps others did) that the author has spoken on a couple of TV interviews about pulling this off w/o ever having visited India. And it shows! To my mind, that would be like my attempting (just as an example) to write about apartheid in South Africa
(in a voice of a black child) without ever having been there. I wouldn't presume to do such a thing. Am I too cynical in assuming perhaps in some people's minds the colonial era isn't exactly over? When will it become clear that writers can no longer write as if people of color don't read, or as if they don't matter?
Nuff said, by me, anyway.
Uma
Uma Krishnaswami http://www.childrensbookguild.org/Krishnaswami.html
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about [Bernard Malamud]
Received on Fri 05 Jan 2001 12:33:42 PM CST
