Imagine Edward Said, George Carlin, and Malcolm X jointly writing a book about universal racism from a cosmopolitan Indian's perspective and compiling “The Fourteen Commandments of Impressing the Whites” delivered by a White God? Impressing the Whites is exactly that kind of book. It had a controversial reception when first published in India, where it was featured on national television and briefly made an online bestseller list. Ferociously satirical and idealistic in turns, “Impressing the Whites” suggests ways in which the world might be made fairer for its increasingly multicolored inhabitants. The book also urges that diverse cultures and peoples retain their authenticity what makes them unique rather than succumbing to the universal tendency towards standardization. "The reader laughs, squirms, recognizes his/her own hypocrisy and the blatant absurdity of most unquestioned social conventions. Zany exuberance . . . mischievous.", says one review. Ferociously satirical, idealistic, and politically incorrect (because political correctness becomes a barrier to thought and expression), it is an argument for diverse cultures and peoples remaining authentic rather than succumbing to a global, McDonaldsized culture.It also examines the dilemma faced by non-white people forced to strive to be judged and found worthy by the West, but also yearn to be authentic. What does this situation mean for authenticity, honesty, integrity, and a mutually respectful and honest communication between West and East? "Boldly goes where no Indian writer has gone before."--The Asian Age, Book Pick of the Fortnight.

Imagine Edward Said, George Carlin, and Malcolm X jointly writing a book about universal racism from a cosmopolitan Indian's perspective and compiling "The Fourteen Commandments of Impressing the Whites" delivered by a White God? Impressing the Whites is exactly that kind of book. It had a controversial reception when first published in India, where it was featured on national television and briefly made an online bestseller list. Ferociously satirical and idealistic in turns, "Impressing the Whites" suggests ways in which the world might be made fairer for its increasingly multicolored inhabitants. The book also urges that diverse cultures and peoples retain their authenticity what makes them unique rather than succumbing to the universal tendency towards standardization.This 2016 edition is the first paperback edition of the book to be published in the West, and is mostly faithful to the original."The reader laughs, squirms, recognizes his/her own hypocrisy and the blatant absurdity of most unquestioned social conventions. Zany exuberance . . . mischievous pleasure."--Frank Feldman"Boldly goes where no Indian has gone before."--The Asian Age, Book Pick of the Fortnight.

The present volume contains general essays on: unequal African/Western academic exchange; the state and structure of postcolonial studies; representing male violence in Zimbabwe’s wars; parihaka in the poetic imagination of Aotearoa New Zealand; Middle Eastern, Nigerian, Moroccan, and diasporic Indian women’s writing; community in post-Independence Maltese poetry in English; key novels of the Portuguese colonies; the TV series The Kumars at No. 42; fictional representations of India; the North in western Canadian writing; and a pedagogy of African-Canadian literature. As well as these, there is a selection of poems from Malta by Daniel Massa, Adrian Grima, Norbert Bugeja, Immanuel Mifsud, and Maria Grech Ganado, and essays providing close readings of works by the following authors and filmmakers: Thea Astley, George Elliott Clarke, Alan Duff, Francis Ebejer, Lorena Gale, Romesh Gunesekera, Sahar Khalīfah, Anthony Minghella, Michael Ondaatje, Caryl Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe, Salman Rushdie, Ghādah al-Sammān, Meera Syal, Lee Tamahori. Contributors: Leila Abouzeid, Hoda Barakat, Amrit Biswas, Thomas Bonnici, Stella Borg Barthet, Ivan Callus, Devon Campbell–Hall, Saviour Catania, George Elliott Clarke, Brian Crow, Pilar Cuder–Domínguez, Bärbel Czennia, Hilary P. Dannenberg, Pauline Dodgson–Katiyo, Bernadette Falzon, Daphne Grace, Adrian Grima, Kifah Hanna, Janne Korkka, T. Vijay Kumar, Chantal Kwast–Greff, Maureen Lynch Pèrcopo, Kevin Stephen Magri, Isabel Moutinho, Melanie A. Murray, Taiwo Oloruntoba–Oju, Gerhard Stilz, Jesús Varela Zapata, Christine Vogt–William.

Asian American literature is one of the most recent forms of ethnic literature and is already becoming one of the most prominent, given the large number of writers, the growing ethnic population from the region, the general receptivity of this body of work, and the quality of the authors. In recent decades, there has been an exponential growth in their output and much Asian American literature has now achieved new levels of popular success and critical acclaim. Nurtured by rich and long literary traditions from the vast continent of Asia, this literature is poised between the ancient and the modern, between the East and West, and between the oral and the written. The Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and Theater covers the activities in this burgeoning field. First, its history is traced year by year from 1887 to the present, in a chronology, and the introduction provides a good overview. The most important section is the dictionary, with over 600 substantial and cross-referenced entries on authors, books, and genres as well as more general ones describing the historical background, cultural features, techniques and major theatres and clubs. More reading can be found through an extensive bibliography with general works and those on specific authors. The book is thus a good place to get started, or to expanded one’s horizons, about a branch of American literature that can only grow in importance.