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How to Read English in India
- ggm 4y agoReminded me of the 1960s/1970s explosion of Caribbean english lit, and studies in the field which continued into the 80s. I spent some time in Leeds university library checking out collections of small-print-run poetry and language mags from the islands, to help a friend doing a thesis in the space. (Leeds uni library is fantastic, it has this, it has early chartist (pre-union labour movement in the UK) papers, it has a set of the 1960s NASA research documents ("how to do appendicitis surgery in space: a speculative study in microgravity effects") The qualities in this which reminded me were the cultural overtones of "is this my tongue, is this my story" but also the exploratory navel-gazing of a culture in transition from vassal state, (albiet one with 10x the population of its nominal masters) to fully indendent. India got there first of course.