Uma Parameswaran's Publications

SACLIT Series

The following new publications can be ordered for your personal or institution library.

Trishanku is a cycle of poems consisting of about fifteen voices that cumulatively reflect the first quarter century of Indo-Canadian experience in Manitoba. Indians first came to this province in the 1960s, and the voices depict the varied landscapes of memory set against the prairie prsent, as the fledgling community grows roots in a new soil. Nostalgia for the old homeland commingles with an assertion that the prairie is indeed the new homeland where continuity and change shall simultaneously shape the Indo-Canadian ethos.

Also included in this volume are four short stories: The Door I Shut Behind Me, Darkest Before Dawn, Freeze Frame, and How We Won Olympic Gold.

Jacket design by Leelavati Bagavant

Sons Must Die and OtherPlays
The title play is set against the Indo-Pakistan war of 1947-48, and has the poignant refrain, "whose mother waits in the distant plain/ and waits in vain."

Also included in this volume are:

Meera - a dance drama.
Sita's Promise, a dance drama that links Canada and India, with Sita, of the Ramayana promising Inuit children, "I, through my people, shall surely come again."
Dear Deedi, My Sister: Performance Piece for Voices
Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees [written in 1979] is the first full-length play by a South Asian Canadian.

This book is available in paperback and hardcover.

The cover graphic is symbolic of SACLIT itself in that the leaves of the bilva tree, rooted in India, are transformed into Canada's maple leaves.

SACLIT: An Introduction to South Asian Canadian Literature brings between the covers of one volume, Uma Parameswaran's critical essays written over ten years.

SACLIT Drama: Plays by South Asian Canadians is an anthology of plays by Sadhu Binning, Rana Bose, Uma Parameswaran and Rahul Varma.

Trishanku
Toronto South Asian Review, 1988.
A collection of poetry

The Perforated Sheet : Essays on Salman Rushdie's Art
Affiliated East-West Press (P) Ltd., Madras, 1988

Quilting a New Canon:Stitching Women's Words
Sister Vision Press, 1996. Uma Parameswaran: Editor.
Contents

Rootless But Green are the Boulevard Trees
Toronto South Asian Review, 1987.
A touching, unforgettable play set in Winnipeg in the early '70s.

Meera
A Dance Drama.
This drance drama was performed in Winnipeg in 1979.

Sita's Promise
A Dance Drama performed in Winnipeg in 1981.

Raji's Favorites - listed here since I'm doing the web pages!

Prairie Gold
This is one of my most favorite of my mother's poems. Prairie Gold, by Uma Parameswaran.
Maru and the Maple Leaf
A side-splitting collection of short stories guaranteed to make those around you wonder about you as you double over in laughter. The first glimpse of Maru that the public can get is found in the Award Winning Collection of Short Stories, What Was Always Hers.
Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees
Written when I was just a lil one, I truly began to understand and marvel at this play only in my late teens.
How We Won Olympic Gold
This is one of the funniest short stories written of all time. My totally unbiased opinion!

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