Slam

“While it would not work for me, and I do feel the process of classic immigration has liberated me in ways that expatriation never could, I must be prepared to accept the validity of my sister Mira’s narrative of expatriation and those of others like her. Their voices are hidden inside me, I have written some of their stories, and I grieve for them far more than I resent them—it’s a reaction curiously similar to that of most Third World writers towards the work of V. S. Naipaul. “Damn him,” I want to shout, damn his superior airs, damn his cold detachment, damn his vast talent, damn his crystalline sentences. I want him to manifest love, for just a paragraph or two, to cut loose. This does not affect my respect for his work. I want my sister to feel love for this country that she, in the depth of her heart, cannot” (222).

Mukherjee, Bharati. “Imagining Homelands.” Seeing and Writing 3. Ed. Donald and Christine McQuade. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2006. 216-222.