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Uma Parameswaran

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Uma Parameswaran (b. 1938) is an Indo-Canadian writer, scholar, and literary critic. Her writing includes works of fiction and poetry, as well as plays and nonfiction. She is a retired professor of English at the University of Winnipeg.

Early life and education

Parameswaran was born in 1938 in Madras, India.[1] She was raised in a Tamil home[2] in Jabalpur.[3]

She completed her B.A. at Jabalpur University and a masters degree in journalism at Nagpur University.[1] With a Fulbright grant, she completed a masters degree in creative writing at Indiana University.[1][4] In 1972, she completed a doctorate in English at Michigan State University.[1][4]

Career

Parameswaran has written fiction, poetry, drama and literary criticism.[5] Her poetry includes the 1973 collection Cyclic Hope, Cyclic Pain, published by the Writers Workshop in Calcutta, the 1988 collection Trishanku, and the 2002 collection Sisters at the Well.[6] She published the collection of stories What Was Always Hers in 2000 and the novella The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice in 2001.[5]

She wrote the play Sons Must Die in 1962, and her other plays include Meera (1971), Sita's Promise (1981), Dear Deedi, My Sister (1989), and Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees (1998), which were all collected in Sons Must Die and Other Plays in 1998 by the South Asian Canadian Literature Series (SACLIT).[4] She was also the founder and general editor of SACLIT.[7]

Her work includes biographies of CV Raman[8] and his wife, Lady Lokosundarai Raman.[9] She is related to both CV Raman[8] and Subramaniam Chandrasekhar.

She was also a professor of English at the University of Winnipeg.[4]

Selected works

Poetry, drama, and prose

  • Cyclic Hope, Cyclic Pain, Writers Workshop (Calcutta, India), 1973. OCLC 1529139
  • Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees, TSAR (Toronto, Canada), 1987, ISBN 9780920661031, 2007, ISBN 9781894770354.
  • Trishanku, TSAR (Toronto, Canada), 1988, ISBN 9780920661048.
  • The Door I Shut Behind Me: Selected Fiction, Poetry and Drama, Affiliated East-West Press (Madras, India), 1990, ISBN 9788185336350, (includes "The Door I Shut Behind Me"; "Trishanku"; "Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees")
  • SACLIT Drama: Plays by South Asian Canadians, IBH Prakashana (Bangalore, India), 1996, OCLC 37580056, (includes "Meera"; "Sita's Promise"; "Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees").
  • Sons Must Die and Other Plays, Prestige Books (New Delhi, India), 1998, ISBN 9788175510203, (includes "Sons Must Die"; "Meera"; "Sita's Promise"; "Dear Deedi, my Sister"; "Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees").
  • Trishanku and Other Writings, Prestige Books (New Delhi, India), 1998.
  • What Was Always Hers, Broken Jaw Press (Fredericton, Canada), 1999, ISBN 9781896647128.
  • The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice, Broken Jaw Press (Fredericton, Canada), 2001, ISBN 9781896647722, 2006, ISBN 9780973382174.
  • Mangoes on the Maple Tree, Broken Jaw Press (Fredericton, Canada), 2002, ISBN 9781896647791.
  • Sisters at the Well, Indialog (New Delhi, India), 2002. ISBN 9788187981145
  • Sons Must Die, Alexander Street Press (Alexandria, United States), 2003, OCLC 137351205.
  • Sita's Promise, Alexander Street Press (Alexandria, United States), 2004, OCLC 181089504.
  • Riding High with Krishna and a Baseball Bat, iUniverse (Lincoln, NE), 2006.
  • The Forever Banyan Tree, Larkuma (Winnipeg, Canada), 2007.
  • Fighter Pilots Never Die, Larkuma (Winnipeg, Canada), 2007.
  • A Cycle of the Moon: a novel, TSAR Publications, (Toronto, Canada), 2010, ISBN 9781894770620.
  • Maru and the Maple Leaf, Larkuma (Winnipeg, Canada), 2016

Nonfiction

  • A Study of Representative Indo-English Novelists, Vikas Publishing House (New Delhi, India), 1976, ISBN 9780706904109.
  • The Perforated Sheet: Essays on Salman Rushdie's Art, Affiliated East-West Press (New Delhi, India), 1988, ISBN 9788185095936.
  • Kamala Markandaya, Rawat Publications (Jaipur, India), 2000, OCLC 43853159.
  • Salman Rushdie's Early Fiction, Rawat Publications (Jaipur, India), 2007, ISBN 9788131600726
  • Writing the Diaspora: Essays on Cul[t]ure and Identity, Rawat Publications (Jaipur, India), 2007. ISBN 9788131600733

Editor

  • The Commonwealth in Canada: Proceedings of the Second Triennial Conference of CACLALS, University of Winnipeg, 1-4 October 1981, Writers Workshop (Calcutta, India), 1983.
  • SACLIT: An Introduction to South-Asian Canadian Literature, EastWest Books (Madras, India), 1996.
  • Quilting a New Canon: Stitching Women's Words, Sister Vision (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996, ISBN 9781896705064.
  • Rana Bose, Five or Six Characters in Search of Toronto and Other Plays, Prestige Books (New Delhi, India), 1998.

Critical reception

In a 1999 review of Quilting a New Canon: Stitching Women's Words in the NWSA Journal, Shelley Lucas writes of the essay collection edited and introduced by Parameswaran that "each of the essays represents at least one of the three types of processes Parameswaran deems necessary for revising a canon: retrieving, recording, and re-reading" and the collection offers "a sample of how feminists are interacting with communities, and, as a result, are revising the canons of other disciplines."[10]

In a 2000 review of Kamala Markandaya, B. Hariharan writes in World Literature Today, "In an astute manner, the critic speaks of three distinct kinds of readers and their readings of Markandaya: Indians who have settled abroad, Indians living in India, and non-Indians. The division appears to be too neat, but she sticks to her "metacriticism," which is quite illuminating."[11]

In a 2019 review of the novel Maru and the Maple Leaf, Nilambri Ghai writes in Montreal Serai, "Parameswaran is very skilled in exploring centuries of relationships and bringing them together to a place in time that transcends a linear, chronological sequence of events."[12]

In a 2019 review of Sita's Promise, Lidwina. E. Pereira writes it "is a play which links epic India with modern Canada through myth and dance" and "elucidates upon the celebration of Indian art traditions and familiarizing its richness to the children born in Canada and other Canadians."[13] According to R. Vedavalli in 2002, writing in Critical Essays on Canadian Literature, "The promise of Sita, "I through my people, shall surely come again and we shall build our temple and sing our songs with all the children to all the different countries who make this their home" symbolizes Uma Parameswaran's vision of Canada, as a mosaic of cultures."[14]

Honors and awards

  • 2000 Canadian Authors' Association Jubilee Award for short fiction (What Was Always Hers)[3]
  • 2010 nomination for Canadian Book of the Year award (A Cycle of the Moon)[2]

Personal life

Parameswaran moved to Winnipeg in 1966, after she married.[2][3] She has one daughter.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Uma Parameswaran". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. November 1, 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2022 – via Gale.
  2. ^ a b c Kumar, Anu (May 4, 2013). "So far, yet so near". The Hindu. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "Uma Parameswaran". Asian Heritage in Canada. Toronto Metropolitan University Libraries. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d Thomas, Sonja Maria (2009). "Uma Parameswaran" (PDF). Voices from the Gaps. University of Minnesota. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  5. ^ a b Rao, Susheela N. (Winter 2002). "Uma Parameswaran: What Was Always Hers". World Literature Today. 76 (1). Retrieved 27 September 2022 – via Gale.
  6. ^ Perry, John Oliver (April 2003). "Uma Parameswaran. Sisters at the Well". World Literature Today. 77 (1). Retrieved 27 September 2022 – via Gale.
  7. ^ Rao, Susheela N. (Spring 1999). "Sons Must Die and Other Plays". World Literature Today. 73 (2). Retrieved 27 September 2022 – via Gale.
  8. ^ a b Shoba, V (December 3, 2011). "Raman Effect Minimal". The Indian Express. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  9. ^ Ravi, Bhama Devi (July 21, 2014). "The Raman wife effect: lively recollections". The Hindu. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  10. ^ Lucas, Shelley (Summer 1999). "Reviewed Works: Quilting a New Canon: Stitching Women's Words by Uma Parameswaran; Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism by Robyn R. Warhol, Diane Price Herndl". NWSA Journal. 11 (2): 199–201. JSTOR 4316668. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  11. ^ Hariharan, B. (Summer 2000). "Kamala Markandaya". World Literature Today. 74 (3). Retrieved 27 September 2022 – via Gale.
  12. ^ Ghai, Nilambri (February 25, 2019). "A review of Maru and the Maple Leaf". Montreal Serai. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
  13. ^ Pereira, Lidwina. E. (March 2019). "Between Two Cultures: Uma Parameswaran's Sita's Promise". Language in India. 19 (3): 82–85. ISSN 1930-2940.
  14. ^ R. Vedavalli (December 31, 2002). "Sending Roots: A Study of Uma Parameswaran's Sita's Promise and Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees". In Balachandran, K. (ed.). Critical Essays on Canadian Literature. Sarup & Sons. pp. 131–138. ISBN 9788176253741. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
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