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y separately published work icon Like a Bird single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Like a Bird
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'"There was something powerful in being seen."

'Taylia Chatterjee has never known love, and certainly has never felt it for herself. Growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with her older sister Alyssa, their parents were both overbearing and emotionally distant, and despite idyllic summers in the Catskills, and gatherings with glamorous family friends, there is a sadness that emanates from the Chatterjee residence, a deep well of sorrow stemming from the racism of American society.

'After a violent sexual assault, Taylia is disowned by her parents and suddenly forced to move out. As Taylia looks to the city, the ghost of her Indian grandmother dadi-ma is always one step ahead, while another more troubling ghost chases after her. Determined to have the courage to confront the pain that her family can't face, Taylia finds work at a neighborhood caf owned by single mother and spiritualist, Kat. Taylia quickly builds a constellation of friends and lovers on her own, daring herself to be open to new experiences, even as they call into question what she thought she knew about the past.

'Taylia's story is about survival, coming to terms with her past and looking forward to a future she never felt she was allowed to claim. Writing this for eighteen years, poet and activist Fariha Róisín's debut novel is an intense, provocative, and emotionally profound portrait of an inner life in turmoil and the redemptive power of community and love.' (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Los Angeles, California,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      The Unnamed Press ,
      2020 .
      image of person or book cover 3803885905070734304.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 288p.
      Note/s:
      • Published September 2020
      ISBN: 9781951213091

Works about this Work

Other Homes Are Possible Sophiya Sharma , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , May 2021;

— Review of Like a Bird Fariha Róisín , 2020 single work novel

'As an immigrant who came to this country from rural Punjab at the age of ten, I have never quite understood the need to feel Australian. I wince at the assimilationist rhetoric of this settler-colony. I am at home in my language – its untranslatability delights me – which gives weight to my being in the world. My mentor, the anthropologist Kalpana Ram, once recalled saying to the radical feminists at the University of Sydney in the 70s, ‘going home feels like taking off a tight shoe, it’s the only place where I can speak my own language, eat my own food.’ Ram’s words made me wonder, what would the abolition of the nuclear family mean for us women of colour? Those of us who find refuge only in those heterosexual spaces of reproduction. I have always been suspicious of liberal white feminism and its appropriation of the language of intersectionality, with its myriad challenges to the linear teleology of equality that posits a project with a culmination – a tidy ending.' (Introduction)

Survival and Healing In a Debut Novel Priya Arora , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The New York Times , 5 October 2020; (p. 2)

— Review of Like a Bird Fariha Róisín , 2020 single work novel
Other Homes Are Possible Sophiya Sharma , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , May 2021;

— Review of Like a Bird Fariha Róisín , 2020 single work novel

'As an immigrant who came to this country from rural Punjab at the age of ten, I have never quite understood the need to feel Australian. I wince at the assimilationist rhetoric of this settler-colony. I am at home in my language – its untranslatability delights me – which gives weight to my being in the world. My mentor, the anthropologist Kalpana Ram, once recalled saying to the radical feminists at the University of Sydney in the 70s, ‘going home feels like taking off a tight shoe, it’s the only place where I can speak my own language, eat my own food.’ Ram’s words made me wonder, what would the abolition of the nuclear family mean for us women of colour? Those of us who find refuge only in those heterosexual spaces of reproduction. I have always been suspicious of liberal white feminism and its appropriation of the language of intersectionality, with its myriad challenges to the linear teleology of equality that posits a project with a culmination – a tidy ending.' (Introduction)

Survival and Healing In a Debut Novel Priya Arora , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The New York Times , 5 October 2020; (p. 2)

— Review of Like a Bird Fariha Róisín , 2020 single work novel
Last amended 26 Oct 2021 16:27:11
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  • Manhattan, New York (City), New York (State),
    c
    United States of America (USA),
    c
    Americas,
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