Migritude Paperback – November 30, 2010

I'm so glad the publishers have reissued this book - a couple of years ago it was unavailable.This is a unique mix of poetry, narrative, image and history, which beautifully captures Patel's personal experience of living between and across cultures. She conjures the violence of East Africa in her childhood but also the tenderness of her global family. The book can't fully capture the original performance of Migritude as a play, but converts into a powerful textual object which uses techniques of collage and scrap-booking to evoke its themes of colonial appropriation and global transformation. Above all, it's witty and readable. Love it.

I read the book for a class at Baruch College-CUNY in New York City. In addition to reading the book, I watched a few of Shailja's YouTube videos for added understanding. It's a powerful message.

Shailja Patel's book is deeply satisfying for hungry readers who crave poetry that feeds the soul and nudges every brain cell awake. Beautiful writing that is extremely personal and yet manages to address the wider political issues of empire, injustice, colonialism and what it means to be an immigrant. This is not writing for the faint of heart - it is strong and rich and powerful; it is disturbing and uncomfortable but funny and tender. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves poetry, anyone who is looking for a good Christmas gift to buy, anyone at all...

A Note to a PoetThere is no way to explain a poet's voice, except to say there are all the nations,all the villages, all the people, all the salvations, all the priests, all the protests.*I buy her book at Amazon.com. When it arrives, I tear the package open: Migritude. In its reading, I'm surprised.Shailja reminds us: it is easier to run from a man in jeans, than in saris.I was pulled into a different world. It was a different kind of terror: rape: what men sometimes do.*Terror: on 9/11/11, a woman from India was taken off a plane; it made no sense:she was just sitting in her seat, near two men with turbans; someone said the men went to the bathroom too many times:they must be terrorists: the authorities took that woman away; held her against her will.*What I learn about Shailja is what speaks of what travels beyond saris.How many saris her mother wanted her to have; not Shailja's choices: a mother's desire,not a daughter's: perhaps, a still different kind of terror.*I think of a shop on University Avenue, in Berkeley: I've passed it by so many times before.There's that blue sari in the window. I remember the mannequin faces.I think of what nations and parents do.

i liked the part about the foldand the tenderness with whichthe fist smashes the face of deniali grooved to the synchronicityof the drone tuned to afrobeatof now on going wrappedand the rapa choreopoemof endless delightthe wonder of a new storytold welland gooddigging deepwho knows what may riseto the surfaceof our earsrapidnessnot sorryfor the saristhat love wasso sweetthis is an important and wonderful book. ms patel is very expressive and you can feel how this would have worked on stage as a performance. in this case for sure, you can tell a book by its cover!

This book changed my life. I love the way it is written, in somewhat prose, somewhat lyrical text, somewhat poetry, etc. It captured my attention, and left me pondering after every paragraph, sometimes every sentence. So very powerful & definitely a book that has now passed through the hands of several friends.

Shailja Patel's "Migritude" needles your conscience, demands that your muscles awaken to the riotous dance of social justice, and thrills your literary taste buds with its epic roller coaster through the bitter valleys of imperial violence and the savory peaks of revolutionary triumph. Plus it takes care of all your holiday shopping in one fell swoop -- admittedly, a few of your in-laws may take your gift of "Migritude" as some sort of personal criticism of their unenlightened embrace of capitalism -- but that's just the signal for you to take them to a live performance of "Migritude." The best book I have ever read; the best poetry I have ever experienced.Paul DoshAssociate ProfessorMacalester College

Migritude is exceptionally well designed and recently received a graphic design award. It is a book you want to buy in it's physical form to truly experience a fresh literary treat. Shailja Patel's gem is a delight to hold; enjoy the strong wood cut graphics and luxuriate in her flowery barreling journey through a tumultuous ever transitioning life. I really do not have adequate language to describe how much I love this book and think you should buy it. Really, it is the best piece I have read and felt in a long, long time. Just buy it. For you. And your friends.

A must read for every westener!

Un livre que j'ai acquis dans le cadre d'une recherche sur la condition de migrant, non les conditions sociales, économiques qu'on connait fragiles pour cette composante des populations dans le monde, mais pour comprendre et rendre compte de ce que je nomme comme l'être au monde du migrant dans les pays d'accueil. Un être au monde qui exprime quelque chose de reconnaissable dans ses structures identitaires.

I don't know where to start with this review.As poetry goes I know war time poets from learning them at school and little bit of Keats. I'm a white Scotsman with no real life experience of being a migrant and all the issues that brings up. I'm not the sort of person that would fill the usual demographic for this work, but I've had it for a while and keep going back to it like a child to a cookie jar. I was lucky enough to witness Shailja on stage in 2001 in san Francisco and bought her chap-books. They included a wide range of subjects that she treated with the same honesty and love and shock and dismay and warmth that she pours into every line of this book.There are so many layers to the incredibly rich history, social commentary and real life experience on display in Migritude that unpeeling them all to savour each new delicious find takes time and a bit of effort, and it is definitely worth it.I regard Migitrude to be an enchanting, fascinating, horrific, shocking, funny, honest and life - in all it's magnifent and not so magnificent hues - affirming collection of essays and poems.I've bought two copies now, one for me and one for my father.Thank you Shailja,Keith

Highly recommended. Thought provoking, filled with emotion.

Incredibly poignant, and beautifully written. A must-read for any children of immigrants.