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indiom

Daljit Nagra

Now in paperback, this East-meets-West hybrid work combines playful cavort with serious comment.

£12.99
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780571372263
Date Published
12.09.2024
Delivery
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Summary

POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE

A cast of ‘Indic-heritage poets’ meets to perform poems and discuss the future of poetry. indiom engages eclectic, often Rabelaisian styles on subjects as various as the Indian poet Nissim Ezekiel, Shakespearean comedy, Under Milk Wood, The Simpsons and Newcastle United.

Daljit Nagra’s mock epic scrutinises the legacies of Empire and issues such as power and status, casteism and colourism, mimicry and mockery. What is Britishness now? How can humour help us survive hardship? The result is a capacious ‘talkie’/poem/play of resistance and redress whose ludic structures defy boundaries: a story of intertextual and misplaced identities, gods and miracles, celluloid tragedy and blushing romantic desire amid an awkwardly rolling cricket ball and rioting poodles.

Critic Reviews

[Indiom] foregrounds a discussion of how writers from migrant backgrounds might – or might not – be read and accepted, and how they position themselves in relation to standard English, the canon and knowing “thy Blighty”. This sounds forbiddingly academic, but indiom is a playfully giddy highwire act of sharp cultural and political observation, delivered with Nagra’s trademark linguistic exuberance.

Rishi Dastidar, Guardian
DaljitNagra

Daljit Nagra was born into a working class, Sikh family in London. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, on the Council of the Society of Authors, Advisor to Poetry By Heart, and presents the weekly Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra. Nagra’s collections have won the Foward Prize for…

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