Concert of Voices: An Anthology of World Writing in English

by Victor J. Ramraj (Editor)

'Concert of Voices' combines poetry, fiction, drama, and essays in a wide-ranging anthology of world literature in English. The collection includes a number of established writers who, despite their great reputations, have often been perceived as standing apart from the main currents of English literature (and have rarely found their way onto English Department reading lists). Most selections, though, are by a remarkable range of much less established authors. In addition to the selections, the editor has provided a general introduction and a brief biographical note on each author.

Girls at war (story) / Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) --
No sweetness here (story) / Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana) --
Snowmen (poem) / Agha Shahid Ali (Pakistan) --
Duty (story) / Mulk Raj Anand (India) --
I have no country (poem) ; We have our genealogies (poem) / Jean Arasanayagam (Sri Lanka) --
Honestly, as in the day (story) / Ven Begamudre (India-Canada) --
Anancy an ticks (folk tale) / Louise Bennett (Jamaica) --
Man as plaything, life as mockery (story) / Neil Bissoondath (Trinidad-Canada) --
Here comes the nigger (play) / Gerry Bostock (Australia) --
Return I (poem) ; --
Seen (story) / Dionne Brand (Trinidad-Canada) --
Red rising (poem) / Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados) --
I am alien in Africa and everywhere (poem) ; I am out of love with you for now (poem) / Dennis Brutus (South Africa) --
Nanaboozhoo creates the world (folk tale) / Buhkwujjenene (Canada) --
Assam's iron chest (story) / Willi Chen (Trinidad) --
Man (story) / Austin Clarke (Barbados-Canada) --
His father's medals (story) / Saros Cowasjee (India-Canada) --
Roots (poem) / Rienzi Crusz (Sri-Lanka-Canada) --
Home (poem) / Fred D'Aguiar (Guyana-UK) --
Senorita (poem) ; Elephants make good stepladders (poem) / Cyril Dabydeen (Guyana-Canada) --
Catching crabs (poem) ; New poetry (poem) / David Dabydeen (Guyana-UK) --
Introduction (poem) ; Looking glass (poem) / Kamala Das (India) --
Encounters (story) / Manoj Das (India) --
White fantasy --
Black fact (story) ; Pay back (story) / Jack Davis (Australia) --
Surface textures (story) / Anita Desai (India) --
Catholic mother (poem) ; Return (poem) / Eunice de Souza (India) --
Survivor (poem) / Lorna Goodison (Jamaica) --
Is there nowhere else where we can meet? (story) / Nadine Gorndimer (South Africa) --
Song of bullets (poem) / Jessica Hagedorn (Philippines-USA) --
Framed (poem) ; And so --
home (poem) ; Backstage at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary (poem) / Claire Harris (Trinidad-Canada) --
Kanaima (story) / Wilson Harris (Guyana-UK) --
Collector of treasures (story) / Bessie Head (South Africa) --
Hooks and feelers (story) / Keri Hulme (New Zealand) --
Game of cards (story) / Witi Ihimaera (New Zealand) --
Sisters of the modern mind (poem) / Sally Ito (Canada) --
Arrival (poem) ; Roomer (poem) ; Separate ways (poem) / Arnold Itwaru (Guyana-Canada) --
Fly the friendly skies (story) / Sunita Jain (India) --
Old lady (story) / Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (India-USA) --
My mother (story) ; On seeing England for the first time (essay) / Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua-USA) --
Coyote goes to Toronto (poem) / Thomas King (Canada) --
What do I remember of the evacuation (poem) ; When I was a little girl (poem) / Joy Kogawa (Canada) --
Ah Mah (poem) ; To Li Poh (poem) / Shirley Geok-lin Lim (Malaysia-USA) --
Abandoned British cemetery at Balasore (poem) / Jayanta Mahapatra (India) --
Charlie (story) / Lee Maracle (Canada) --
Black skin what mask (story) / Dambudzo Marechera (Zimbabwe) --
Truth is in the clothes (story) / Pauline Melville (Guyana-UK) --
Black Konarak (poem) ; Mt. St. Xavier's Church (poem) / Sudesh Mishra (Fiji) --
Swimming lessons (story) / Rohinton Mistry (India-Canada) --
One of Billy's a memoir (essay) / Timothy Mo (Hong Kong-UK) --
Night out (story) / Tolowa Marti Mollel (Tanzania-Canada) --
Slant-eyed Americans (story) / Toshio Mori (USA) --
To an expatriate friend (poem) ; Family pictures (poem) / Mervyn Morris (Jamaica) --
Coffee-cart girl (story) / Es'kia Mphahlele (South Africa) --
Hindus (story) / Bharati Mukherjee (India-USA) --
B. Wordsworth (story) ; Jasmine (essay) / V.S. Naipual (Trinidad-UK) --
Return to a certain darkness (essay) / Satendra Nandan (Fiji) --
Mother and son (story) / R.K. Narayan (India) --
Missionary would I have been (story) / Mudrooroo Narogin (formerly Colin Johnson; Australia) --
Guilt and unmasking history for the future (essay) / Njabulo S. Ndebele (South Africa) --
Possum woman (story) / Ngitji Ngitji (formerly Mona Tur; Australia) --
Goodbye Africa (story) / Ngugu wa Thiong'o (Kenya) --
Gooboora, the silent pool (poem) ; Past (poem) / Oodgeroo Moonuccal (formerly Kath Walker; Australia) --
Snowflakes sail gently down (poem) / Gabriel Okara (Nigeria) --
Light (poem) / Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lanka-Canada) --
Tiger Swami (poem) / Sasenarine Persaud (Guyana-Canada) --
She tries her tongue; Her sile...

Genres: Anthologies, Poetry, Literature

489 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 1994

Reviews

[Sam]

Davis - "White Fantasy - Black Fact"
Johnson - "The Cattle Thief"
Kogawa - "What do I remember of the Evactuation?"
Pollock - "The Komagata Maru Incident"
Selvon - "Turning Christian"
Wah - "Breathin My Name With a Sigh"

[Reader in Tokyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was intended as a multicultural alternative to mainstream anthologies, in that it excluded traditional and established works by white, male authors from North America and the United Kingdom. Instead, the editor chose world writing in English whose authors "define themselves in relation to current or residual imperial presences, or to dominant cultures within their societies."

The pieces weren't selected to stress differences from a central tradition, but rather to show what was shared in human experience, whatever the cultural, ethnic, historical, national or political specifics. The situations described included relations between husband and wife, parents and children, friends, the individual and the community, life in wartime, the hypocrisy and self-delusion of people in power, the dislocation and assimilation of people living in a country different from their own, racial, social and political conflict, the importance of tradition, and so on.

There were 107 works by 84 writers, with most of the space devoted to short stories, but also about 70 pages of poetry, plus a few essays and two short plays. The regions covered were South Asia (mainly India; writers from India or an Indian background are well represented), Sub-Saharan Africa, Canada, the Caribbean and Guyana, Southeast Asia (under-represented, with just six writers), the South Pacific, the United States and the United Kingdom. Most of the pieces were from the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

The majority of the writers included had been born in one country and lived or had studied in another. Consequently, many stories described cross-cultural experiences. One example was a work by Rohinton Mistry about a Parsee from Bombay, a writer, who lived in Canada and tried to establish roots there, but published stories about his hometown, while his parents back home tried to understand him from his writing. Another was by Bharati Mukherjee in which a divorced Indian emigrant tried to make a life in New York City and considered her relation to her new home and to India.

Other pieces enjoyed included a poem from the 1960s by an Aboriginal Australian, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, about the inheritance of the past ("Let no one say the past is dead. The past is all about us and within . . ."). And an essay by Salman Rushdie from the 1980s on the concept of Commonwealth Literature, in which he tried to define writing in English done outside the U.S. and U.K. and remarked in passing that contemporary writing in English truly reflected the new shape of language in the world.

Very little of the prose in the book was experimental, and only two pieces seemed stridently political: an excerpted play by Gerry Bostock from the 1970s whose characters criticized white Australians' treatment of Aborigines, and an essay by Njabulo Ndebele pondering whether it was possible in post-apartheid South Africa to dispossess some citizens of land and power, given the need for democracy and equality "in the short term."

Some of the older, better-known authors included Anand, Achebe, Dennis Brutus, Austin Clarke, Jack Davis, Gordimer, Jhabvala, Naipaul, Narayan, Ngugi, Rhys, Soyinka and Walcott. There were also younger writers, many of whom I didn't know, so for me the book really was a good introduction.

I appreciated this book especially for introducing me to the writing of Dambudzo Marechera, whose story expressed the cultural dislocation felt by two Zimbabweans studying at Oxford, and Neil Bissoondath, who wrote about a husband and wife who were separated when war broke out in their country and the man escaped abroad.

More writers from Southeast Asia could've been included: Gopal Baratham, Lloyd Fernando, Catherine Lim and Suchen Christine Lim from Singapore, K. S. Maniam from Malaysia, and Paulino Lim, Jr., from the Philippines, among others.

In any case, I'd recommend this book for those interested in any of the subjects above.

[scott noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

i would highly recommend substituting this book for the Norton Anthology of WESTERN literature for any World Literature class. i taught a world lit. class and wanted to burn the Norton Anthology of WESTERN literature before i even started teaching it. you've really got to give Norton credit for sticking Achebe in there at the end to appease the complete disregard for the EASTERN part of the world which, by the way, also produces much richer and more imaginative literature. great anthology!