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Samia Khatun : Australianama single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 Samia Khatun : Australianama
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'Bangladeshi Australian author Samia Khatun’s Australianama is a book of books, a survey of divergent modes of historical storytelling, and a search for truth in the face of cultural erasure. It opens with Khatun visiting her mother, Eshrat, in a mental health ward in Sydney’s suburbs. Plagued with terrifying visions in Bengali, Eshrat is locked each night in a shared room with a uniformed Australian soldier – recently returned from Afghanistan – who she believes will murder her in her sleep. With the hospital refusing to relocate her mother, Khatun comprehends an irresolvable dissonance: “Western states cannot bomb, exploit, drone, invade and kill South Asians andhave us as part of their citizenry at the same time.” She laments, “The migrant story I had inhabited for much of my life buckled, and eventually collapsed.” This acts as the catalyst for Khatun’s expansive history of the South Asian diaspora in colonial Australia.' (Introduction)

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Last amended 26 Aug 2019 09:49:31
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