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Shani Mootoo's great-great-grandparents were brought to Trinidad as indentured labourers by the British. There is no record of where they were from in India or whether it was kidnapping, trickery, or false promises of wealth that took them to the Caribbean.
In Oh Witness Dey! Mootoo expands the question of origins, from ancestry percentages and journey narratives, through memory, story, and lyric fragments. These vibrant poems transcend the tropes of colonial violence through saints and spices, rebellion and joy, to reimagine tensions and solidarities among various diasporas. They circumvent traditional conventions of style to find new routes toward understanding. They invite the reader to witness history, displacements, and the legacies of our inheritance.
About this Author
SHANI MOOTOO is the author of four novels, three collections of poetry, and one short story collection. She is a four-time Giller Prize nominee, and her work has been long and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Lambda Literary Prize, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has been awarded the Doctor of Letters honoris causa degree from Western University, is a recipient of Lambda Literary's James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award, and Library and Archives Canada Scholar Award. Mootoo was born in Ireland, raised in Trinidad, and lives in Southern Ontario, Canada.
Reviews
"These poems remind us of the importance of looking back, because history defines our present and our future, as the past is not past, and the greed and violence echo down generations. Mootoo's voice captures that echo and yet transmutes it, elevates it into song." --Kaie Kellough, Griffin Poetry Prize-winning author of Magnetic Equator
"In addition to an invigorating use of documentary poetics, Mootoo uses linguistic maximalism to propel and punctuate the text. One such example is a list...she repeats throughout the book, and it functions to draw connections between disparate peoples' experiences across the vast scope of the text." --melanie brannagan frederiksen, Winnipeg Free Press
"Biting and gritty, each poem is a snapshot of the "flotsam and jetsam" of the world, "the origins of you and me / In the crucible of nuclear reaction." Oh Witness Dey! confronts the politics of belonging and reflects on how individual experiences--those crucial "umbilical cords"--connect us to our common history."--Literary Review of Canada
"A formidable, bold, and expansive collection of poetry that highlights Shani Mootoo's aesthetic and intellectual prowess. Rich in luminous detail, Oh Witness Dey! is an unflinching exploration of colonial histories, one that opens up space for supple, nuanced insights." --Linda Morra, Writer/Host, Getting Lit With Linda
"The story of how Europe's rapacity accelerated in the wake of 'discovery' is timely and inexhaustible, and these poems bear impassioned witness to a world that has raced past its precipice." --Kaie Kellough, Griffin Poetry Prize-winning author of Magnetic Equator
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