By Rashida Murphy
When the editors of Southern Crossings invited me to write about the idea that migrant writers use their cultural history, ethnicity and language to mobilise the ‘exotic’ nature of our cultural cache, I was keen to explore this idea further. The notion that what was previously considered a handicap is now desirable, catches me by surprise and brings to mind the (in) famous question asked by Jana Wendt of Toni Morrison in 1998.
By Gary Paramanathan
The other day I happened to be having a conversation with a colleague of mine. Much to my surprise, and a pleasant surprise at that, she said she no longer uses the term “Left Wing”, and has switched to “Progressive”. Now this is someone I look up to, someone who has a fairly strong sense of ethics and values that I ascribe to. Here I was, totally blown away that she was also contemplating abandoning the “Left”, at least semantically. I thought, when those of us who are clever with words, start abandoning certain words, it’s usually like the canary in the coal mine. A sign of changes to come.