Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bahadur, Gaiutra, 1975-

Contributor:

GIC Course Text Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature: Colonialism, Empire, and Postcolonial Studies.

Local Subjects:

Literature: Colonialism, Empire, and Postcolonial Studies.

Summary:

In 1903, a young woman sailed from India to Guiana as a "coolie"-the British name for indentured laborers who replaced the newly emancipated slaves on sugar plantations all around the world. Pregnant and traveling alone, this woman, like so many coolies, disappeared into history. Now, in Coolie Woman, her great-granddaughter Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on a journey into the past to find her. Traversing three continents and trawling through countless colonial archives, Bahadur excavates not only her great-grandmother's story but also the repressed history of some quarter of a million other coolie women, shining a light on their complex lives. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 Embarking

1 The Magician's Box 3

2 Ancestral Memory 17

Part 2 Exploring

3 The Women's Quarters 25

4 Into Dark Waters 41

5 Her Middle Passage 51

6 A New World 75

7 Beautiful Woman without a Nose 103

8 Gone but Not Forgotten 131

Part 3 Returning

9 The Dream of Return 163

10 Every Ancestor 179

11 Surviving History 191.

ISBN:

9780226211381

022621138X