Chants of Freedom

Author: Mathews Phosa
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
ISBN: 1415207771
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 44

Book Description
Mathews Phosa developed his love for poetry as a young boy growing up in rural Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Mostly written while in exile as the commander of an MK unit, Chants of Freedom vividly recreates the feelings of anger, defiance, frustration, shame, pain and ultimately hope that characterised the exiles’ experience of the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa. Writing in a lyrical style, Phosa addresses such themes as oppression, violence, death and hatred, and recalls the atrocities and tragedies of the migrant-labour system, the murders of innocent children, the detentions without trial, the bannings and the state-sanctioned executions that characterised the apartheid era. He recalls the influences on his life, from his grandparents to struggle leaders, and pays tribute to the role played by women and the youth in the liberation struggle. He celebrates the victory over apartheid and eulogises all those who contributed to the fight for democracy, black and white. Chants of Freedom provides raw, powerful and unprecedented insight into the consciousness of a freedom fighter, and ultimately reveals his humanity.

Eve in Exile: The Restoration of Femininity

Author: Rebekah Merkle
Publisher: Canon Press & Book Service
ISBN: 1944503528
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
The swooning Victorian ladies and the 1950s housewives genuinely needed to be liberated. That much is indisputable. So, First-Wave feminists held rallies for women's suffrage. Second-Wave feminists marched for Prohibition, jobs, and abortion. Today, Third-Wave feminists stand firmly for nobody's quite sure what. But modern women--who use psychotherapeutic antidepressants at a rate never before seen in history--need liberating now more than ever. The truth is, feminists don't know what liberation is. They have led us into a very boring dead end. Eve in Exile sets aside all stereotypes of mid-century housewives, of China-doll femininity, of Victorians fainting, of women not allowed to think for themselves or talk to the men about anything interesting or important. It dismisses the pencil-skirted and stiletto-heeled executives of TV, the outspoken feminists freed from all that hinders them, the brave career women in charge of their own destinies. Once those fictionalized stereotypes are out of the way--whether they're things that make you gag or things you think look pretty fun--Christians can focus on real women. What did God make real women for?

Flight to Freedom

Author: Ana Veciana-Suarez
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 9780439381994
Category : Cuba
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
First Person Fiction is dedicated to the immigrant experience in modern America. "Flight to Freedom" is closely based on Suarez's own story of leaving Cuba during the Freedom Flights of the 1960s. Yara Garcia and her family live a middle-class life in Havana, Cuba. But in 1967, as Communist ruler Fidel Castro tightens his hold on Cuba, the Garcias, who do not share the political beliefs of the Communist Party, are forced to flee to Miami, Florida. There, Yara encounters a strange land with foreign customs. She knows very little English, and she finds that the other students in her new school have much more freedom than she and her sisters. Tension develops between her parents, as Mami grows more independent and Papi joins a militant anti-Castro organization.

A Chosen Exile

Author: Allyson Hobbs
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067436810X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 395

Book Description
Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It also tells a tale of loss. As racial relations in America have evolved so has the significance of passing. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. After emancipation, many African Americans came to regard passing as a form of betrayal, a selling of one’s birthright. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one’s own. Although black Americans who adopted white identities reaped benefits of expanded opportunity and mobility, Hobbs helps us to recognize and understand the grief, loneliness, and isolation that accompanied—and often outweighed—these rewards. By the dawning of the civil rights era, more and more racially mixed Americans felt the loss of kin and community was too much to bear, that it was time to “pass out” and embrace a black identity. Although recent decades have witnessed an increasingly multiracial society and a growing acceptance of hybridity, the problem of race and identity remains at the center of public debate and emotionally fraught personal decisions.

Children of Exile

Author: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1442450037
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
And their home is nothing like she'd expected, like nothing the Freds had prepared them for."--Back cover

Women in Exile

Author: Mahnaz Afkhami
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813915432
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
If, as has been said, exiles, refugees, and emigrants are the defining figures for the twentieth century, the thirteen women of Women in Exile give unforgettable life to the metaphor. Their stories offer a rare and special opportunity to witness the harrowing experience of flight and dislocation and to marvel at the resilience of the human spirit.

The Films of Mira Nair

Author: Amardeep Singh
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496819128
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
The Films of Mira Nair: Diaspora Vérité presents the first, full-length scholarly study of her cinema. Mira Nair has broken new ground as both a feminist filmmaker and an Indian filmmaker. Several of her works, especially those related to the South Asian diaspora, have been influential around the globe. Amardeep Singh delves into the complexities of Nair’s films from 1981 to 2016, offering critical commentary on all of Nair’s major works, including her early documentary projects as well as shorts. The subtitle, “diaspora vérité,” alludes to Singh’s primary theme: Nair’s filmmaking project is driven aesthetically by her background in the documentary realist tradition (cinéma vérité) and thematically by her interest in the lives of migrants and diasporic populations. Mainly, Nair’s filmmaking intends to document imaginatively the experiences of diasporic communities. Nair’s focus on the diasporic appears in the long list of her films that have explored the subject, such as Mississippi Masala, So Far from India, Monsoon Wedding, The Perez Family, My Own Country, The Namesake, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist. However, a version of the diasporic sensibility also emerges even in films with an apparently different scope, such as Nair’s adaptation of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Nair began her career as a documentary filmmaker in the early 1980s. While Nair now has largely moved away from the documentary format in favor of making fictional feature films, Singh shows that a documentary realist style remains active in her subsequent fictional cinema.

Altogether Elsewhere

Author: Marc Robinson
Publisher: Harvest Books
ISBN: 9780156003896
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 415

Book Description

The Dalai Lama

Author: Alexander Norman
Publisher: Mariner Books
ISBN: 0544416589
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 445

Book Description
The first authoritative biography of the Dalai Lama--a story by turns inspiring and shocking--from an acclaimed Tibetan scholar with exceptional access to his subject. The Dalai Lama's message of peace and compassion resonates with people of all faiths and none. Yet, for all his worldwide fame, he remains personally elusive. At last Alexander Norman--acclaimed Oxford-trained scholar of the history of Tibet--delivers the definitive, unique, unforgettable biography. The Dalai Lama recounts an astonishing odyssey from isolated Tibetan village to worldwide standing as spiritual and political leader of one of the world's most profound and complex cultural traditions. Norman reveals that, while the Dalai Lama has never been comfortable with his political position, he has been a canny player--at one time CIA-backed--who has maneuvered amidst pervasive violence, including placing himself at the center of a dangerous Buddhist schism. Yet even more surprising than the political, Norman convinces, is the Dalai Lama's astonishing spiritual practice, rooted in magic, vision, and prophecy--details of which are illuminated in this book for the first time. A revelatory life story of one of today's most radical, charismatic, and beloved world leaders.

When the Iron Bird Flies

Author: Jianglin Li
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503629791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 421

Book Description
An untold story that reshapes our understanding of Chinese and Tibetan history From 1956 to 1962, devastating military conflicts took place in China's southwestern and northwestern regions. Official record at the time scarcely made mention of the campaign, and in the years since only lukewarm acknowledgment of the violence has surfaced. When the Iron Bird Flies, by Jianglin Li, breaks this decades long silence to reveal for the first time a comprehensive and explosive picture of the six years that would prove definitive in modern Tibetan and Chinese history. The CCP referred to the campaign as "suppressing the Tibetan rebellion." It would lead to the 14th Dalai Lama's exile in India, as well as the Tibetan diaspora in 1959, though the battles lasted three additional years after these events. Featuring key figures in modern Chinese history, the battles waged in this period covered a vast geographical region. This book offers a portrait of chaos, deception, heroism, and massive loss. Beyond the significant death toll across the Tibetan regions, the war also destroyed most Tibetan monasteries in a concerted effort to eradicate local religion and scholarship. Despite being considered a military success, to this day, the operations in the agricultural regions remain unknown. As large numbers of Tibetans have self-immolated in recent years to protest Chinese occupation, Li shows that the largest number of cases occurred in the sites most heavily affected by this hidden war. She argues persuasively that the events described in this book will shed more light on our current moment, and will help us understand the unrelenting struggle of the Tibetan people for their freedom.