Displaced Lives: MĀNOA Vol. 31, No. 2 (2019)

  Four Generations of a Tibetan Family. Majnu Ka Tilla Diaries (007), 2007 Serena Chopra  © courtesy sepiaEYE
Four Generations of a Tibetan Family. Majnu Ka Tilla Diaries (007), 2007 Serena Chopra © courtesy sepiaEYE

The dislocation of people in the twenty-first century has been unprecedented. At the end of 2019, over 260 million people were living outside their countries of birth. Some are voluntary migrants, but others have been forced to relocate by violence, wars, persecution, hunger, or extreme weather events. Millions more are mentally and spiritually uprooted and isolated because of PTSD, depression, addiction, and aging.

The displaced are a statistical category, but their lives, emotions, and hopes are made vividly real in these powerful and intimate works of literature by more than thirty writers from four continents. Many of the authors are themselves exiles, members of immigrant families, or witnesses to the effects of displacement on loved ones. Authors are from Bangladesh, Canada, Cuba, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Iran, Israel, Macedonia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, and the U.S.

Alok Bhalla and Ming Di guest edited this new issue of Mānoa featuring fiction, poetry, memoirs and plays, and also Serena Chopra’s photographs from Majnu Ka Tilla Diaries.


Explore Displaced Lives

Editor’s Note

Images

Borderlands
Anna Badkhen

Statue of Liberty
Mario Bojórquez, Don Cellini

The Traveler
José Manuel Cardona, Hélène Cardona

Good Night
Chang Yao, Ming Di, Kerry Shawn Keys

Bhasha India
Siddharth Chowdhury

The Missing
Mangalesh Dabral, Asad Zaidi

Pig
Jose Dalisay

Werewolf
Patrick Deeley

Neve Shalom, September 2014
Batsheva Dori-Carlier, Lisa Katz

Wulkan
Ulrike Draesner, Iain Galbraith

Vanilla Crumble
Asif Farrukhi, Durdana Soomro

turning your body into a compass
Catherine Filloux

Return of the Exiles
Huang Fan, Ming Di, Frank Stewart

In a Silent City
Ilya Kaminsky

The Serpent
Wayne Karlin

The Speculative Fiction Writer
Jee Leong Koh

At Wagah
Sukrita Paul Kumar

Two Poems
Nikola Madzirov, Peggy and Graham W. Reid, Magdalena Horvat

Something Growing
Julia Martin

Fox-Sparrow
James McCorkle

Claude McKay Describes His Own Life
Claude Mckay

Six Poems from Harlem Shadows
Claude McKay

Bread
Mihaela Moscaliuc

Yesterday and Today
Masud Mufti, Durdana Soomro

The Subhuman and His Habitat
Ramsey Nasr, David Colmer

Lament for Mrs. Mones
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, Katherine M. Hedeen

The Rehearsal
Manjula Padmanabhan

Big White Bird
Ann Pancake

Dera Baba Nanak
Joginder Paul, Naghma Zafir

Grandmas
Joginder Paul, Asif Farrukhi

Tonghui River in Beijing
Qing Ping, Ming Di, Frank Stewart

Gilt
Chloe Garcia Roberts

Two Poems
Françoise Roy, Amanda Fuller

Self
K. Satchidanandan

Two Poems
Aleš Šteger, Brian Henry

Five Prose Poems
Udayan Vajpeyi, Alok Bhalla

The Souls of Shah Alam Camp
Asghar Wajahat, Alok Bhalla

The White Night Photo Studio
Wang Suxin, Chen Zeping, Karen Gernant

Two Poems
Sholeh Wolpé

The Flower of All Water
Robert Wrigley

Refused a Visa at the U.S. Embassy
Yi Sha, Frank Stewart, Ming Di

About the Photographer

About the Contributors