Sycorax

by Suniti Namjoshi

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Feminism

141 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Suniti Namjoshi is a poet, children's author, and teacher. She ran a collaborative fiction site in the late nineties called The Reader's Text of Building Babel. She lives in England with her partner Gillian Hanscombe.

Reviews

[reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sycorax is by far one of the greatest poetry collections i have ever read! Namjoshi finally giving syco the spotlight that was stripped from her in The Tempest was so engaging, and it really changed the way i perceive playing with existing pieces of literature, and altering it. the ways in which small aspects of the initial text switching invokes such large changes will never not be fascinating to me. caliban and miranda as complex lesbians, why didn't i think of that one? i feel like it's a must-read for everyone, ever, in the whole world. ever!

[Ronak M Soni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Namjoshi uses these little magical stories and poems to explore all sorts of questions from the use of art to the arrangement of society in a democracy.
She's worst when trying to be overtly satirical (her satirical attempts are rather hampered by a simplistic refusal to accept the objects of satire as people with beliefs), and in fact best when she actively eschews any simple interpretation, like in the story of a crow whose cheese is stolen by a fox after being lured by the promise of a great secret but gets to see the nocturnal world for the first time or in a reworking of the story of the boy who cried wolf that has to be read to be smiled at.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a completely charming, always thought-provoking and sometimes dazzlingly illuminating collection of poems and short prose pieces couched in the form of fables and takes on different mythic and literary characters. I'll take Namjoshi over an anthology-full of displaced druggies and urban nomads.

[Dinesh Raghavendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Namjoshi is an Indian Virginia Woolf meets NK Jemisin at times. I liked this book its fantastic, full of allegories and the imagery sticks out vividly. I want to read more from this writer.