Meena Alexander (1951-2018) was an Indian British poet and scholar. She is known for anthologies such as The Unreadable Heart and Raw Silk. She is best known for her poetry about displacement and immigration. She is considered one of the best diaspora writers in contemporary literature. She died of cancer on November 21, 2018.
Wiki/Biography
Meena Alexander was born Mary Alexander (age 67; time of death) on Saturday, February 17, 1951, in Allahabad, India. Her zodiac sign is Aquarius. She celebrated her fifth birthday on a ship in the Indian Ocean, traveling with her family from India to Sudan to reunite with her father, who was stationed there. She went on to visit her grandparents in Kerala, India. Mary received tutoring in Khartoum and learned to speak and write English. At the age of 13, she completed high school; in the same year, she started college at the University of Khartoum. When Alexander was 15, she changed her name to Mina. In 1969, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and French. After turning 18, she moved to England to study for a PhD in English Romantic Literature at the University of Nottingham. In 1973, Mina completed her Ph.D.
family
Meena was born into a Syrian Christian family in Kerala, India.
Parents and siblings
Her father, George Alexander, was a meteorologist with the Indian government who was posted to the newly independent Sudan in 1956, while her mother, Mary Alexander, was a housewife. She has a sister, Elizabeth Alexander.
husband and children
Mina married Jewish-American historian David Lelyveld in 1979. She met David at the Central English College in Hyderabad, where she was a lecturer and David was on sabbatical at the University of Minnesota. After her marriage, Mina and her husband moved to New York, where she spent most of her life and raised her children. Mina and David have two children, Adam Lelyveld and Svati Lelyveld.
Meena Alexander with her husband and children at home in New York in 1986
other relatives
KK Kuruvilla
KK Kuruvilla is Meena Alexander’s maternal grandfather and a representative of the Mar Thoma Church at the International World Missionary Conference. Kuruvilla was a freedom fighter and social worker and an active member of the Indian National Congress. He was actively involved in the Indian freedom movement and was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. On the night of January 16, 1937, Mahatma Gandhi stayed at the residence of KK Kuruvilla.
KK Kuruvilla
Queensland
Meena’s maternal grandmother Elizabeth, also known as Kunju, was the daughter of Rao Badur George Zakaria. She is the student secretary of the YWCA. In 1928, she was nominated as one of the first female legislators.
religion
Mina Alexander followed Christianity.
Profession
writing
Mina Alexander began writing poetry as a child. As she began her studies at the University of Khartoum, her poems were translated into Arabic and published in local newspapers. Her first collection of poems was published by Kolkata Writers’ Workshop, a publishing house founded by P. Lal, professor of English at St. Xavier’s College. Meena’s teaching in India came during a stressful period during the country’s National Emergency; imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which resulted in restrictions on civil rights in India such as freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and other forms of democracy. During this period she wrote Nampally Road (1991), a novel about Indian politics. Speaking about the connection between Alexander’s book and India’s political challenges, writer Githa Hariharan said:
Nampali Road is the landscape where Alexander’s young protagonist, Mira Kannadical, must negotiate a mission that involves personal and political challenges, choices, and discoveries. Nampally Road is also a place that has lived through a certain era. This road is located in Hyderabad, a city with its own unique history, natural and cultural atmosphere, and caste system. Life in the city now reflects life in India in the seventies, a decade etched in India’s collective memory because of Indira Gandhi’s imposition of the Emergency. “
Mina Alexander’s book “Nampali Road”
The dislocation of Alexander’s personal life experience and her desire for reconciliation are easily felt in her literary work. Much of her poetry and writing revolves around themes of migration, trauma and reconciliation. Published works include “Stone Roots” (1981), “The House of a Thousand Doors: Poems and Essays” (1988), “raw silk” (2004), “Hometown with Buried Stones” (2013), etc. In 1996, she published her second novel, Manhattan Music, set in the life of Indian immigrants in the city. In 1993, Alexander published her autobiographical memoir, “Fault Line,” and later in 2003, following the September 2011 attacks, she wrote an expanded version of the memoir in which she recounted childhood sexual abuse by her maternal grandfather. event. Really enjoyed it and talked about the impact of the September 2011 attacks on everyone and everything. Meena Alexander was appointed a National Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in 2014.
Alexander’s Autobiographical Memoirs
In 2009, her work was criticized in the book Access to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Mina Alexander, edited by Lopamudra Basu and Cynthia Leenerts. Mina Alexander has read her poetry at many literary events and forums, including the International Poetry Festival (London), Struga Poetry Evenings, African Poetry Festival, Calabash Festival, Harbor Festival and the Sahitya Academic Society. In 2013, she gave a lecture at Yale University titled “What’s Poetry Used For?” published in World Literature Today.
Mina Alexander reads her poetry
Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, and The Threepenny Review. After her death, she published a collection of poems “In Praise of Fragments” in 2020.
Mina Alexander in Praise of Shards
teaching
In 1974, after completing her PhD at the University of Nottingham, Meena returned to India and started working in the Department of English at Miranda House, University of Delhi. In 1975, she became a lecturer in French and English at Jawaharlal Nehru University and worked as a lecturer in English at the Central School of English, University of Hyderabad from 1975 to 1977. After Alexander moved to New York, she became an assistant professor. She studied at Fordham University from 1980 to 1987, then became an Assistant Professor of English at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY). Promoted to associate professor in 1989. In 1990, she also became a writing instructor at Columbia University. In 1999, she was named Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College.
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- In 2002, her “Heart of the Illiterate” won the PEN Open Book Award.
- In 2009, she received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the South Asian Literary Society.
- In 2016, the Word Masala Foundation awarded her the Word Masala Award.
- In 1993, her memoir, Fault Lines, was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 1993.
- In 2002, she won the Imbongi Yesizwe International Prize for Poetry.
die
Meena Alexander died of endometrial serous cancer on November 21, 2018 in New York.
fact
- She speaks Malayalam, French, Arabic, English and Hindi.
- In 2015, the Statesman described her as:
Undoubtedly one of the finest poets of our time.”
- Alexander’s poetry has been set to music, including her poems “Impossible Grace” (2012) and “Acqua Alta” (2008).
- She served as elector of the American Poets’ Corner at St. John’s Cathedral in New York.
- As a child, Mina wanted to be a circus trapeze artist.
- She hosted a Martha Walsh Pulver residency for a poet at Yaddo.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education