Multilingual childhood/Mehrsprachige Kindheit

Sara Suleri Goodyear, Boys Will Be Boys, University of Chicago Press, reviewed in The Independent.

bq. This memoir’s interweavings reflect the Pakistani-born author’s movement across the “contour map” of her life. Chapters headings are Urdu verses, translated into Suleri’s own inimitable idiom. A host of classical poets enrich the texture, as do fragments from Urdu/Hindi pop songs, Punjabi war ballads and the national anthem. …

bq. Translations are thrown out like ropes to climbers. Papa counts in Punjabi; his children slip with ease between English and Urdu, though the author (now a professor of English at Yale) modestly admits to only a nodding acquaintance with the latter’s poetry. But Urdu has a strong hold.

I got this via Moreover – Moreover, which should be www.moreover.com – it’s the RSS feed I get, however, which is at http://p.moreover.com/cgi-local/page?index_bookreviews+rss

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