USA based Writer Launches her Book on the Existential Crises of Women



"LET THE NIGHT SING" BOOK LAUNCH
  



“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” --- Virginia Woolf


In the lands of today, many things have changed yet everything is the same, astray. A fact I can properly say that we humans might take to our graves. Poetry and stories help us talk about those changes in life that have happened and most importantly the changes people want to make.
Feminism is the mother of many changes that society has had over the years and nowadays more and more women and men alike are talking and writing about it.

29th July, 2017 was one such day, esteemed writer Lopamudra Banerjee launched her book of poems titled “Let the Night Sing”, a tribute to not just her experiences as a mother, a daughter, a lover but also as a woman.

(From left) Ms Sufia Khatoon,Dr Santosh Bakaya, Lopamudra Banerjee
Dr Sanjukta Dasgupta
In her book she has graced us with many poems, one being about the women of the illustrious brothel of Calcutta, Sonagachi. She says that many of her poems are her reactions to existential issues dealing with women such as the plight of Jyoti Singh, the spirit of Malala Yousufzai to name a couple.

When we asked her about her feelings regarding the topic of feminism and what her stance is as a feminist, she told us that feminism is an elemental but yet an essential part of humanism according to her. Her words were:

“raw, vulnerable entities of women in our everyday lives form the tapestry that is my muse in this life”.

She said she uses this raw energy in her writings and this energy is what defines her identity as a woman. In her non-fiction book “Thwarted Escape” and her present “Let the Night Sing” she claims to have strived to essay the inward journey of women that’s replete.

During our talk with her, she with her undying humility referred to herself as a lover of the night. “I’m in love with night” being her exact words, and the reason for the title of her book. She explained that she has narrated her feelings about love, attachment, and even relationships in the form of her many poems. She has talked about the relationship between a mother and a daughter, the relationship between her daughters and their father, and even her love for her city in this book.

(From left) Dr Santosh Bakaya with Lopamudra Banerjee and
Dr Sanjukta Dasgupta at the launch
Her emotions being her drive in her works, we asked her what she finds to be the feeling she finds most difficult to write on. She told it to be “the intensity of my longings as a woman, a Diaspora being”. She shed light on the fact that out of the various recollection of memories in her pages shadowing mists, there are a few that did make her bleed more than she could give.

“At the same time, many others are written as surreal inner sojourns which come from an intense personal space where I delve deep into my childhood, my motherhood and also my personal anguish resulting from the loss of loved ones. For example, in my poem ‘For Fathers and Daughters’, I have presented a dedication to my daughters and their relationship with their father where my childhood also comes to haunt me as a melancholic melody, in context of his terminal ailment and later, his demise.”  

She says that apart from this, writing about other painful experiences like her mother’s demise was immensely difficult for her but she had to, for her own good.
“I write about a plethora of poems ranging from personal trauma and anguish, including my mother’s demise, and putting them in words were indeed challenging, but I had to do it for my own catharsis.”    

It’s a collection of all these “broken pieces” that she says make up “Let the Night Sing” so I urge you all to please give it a read. It is a humble woman’s journey while taking the heinous thorns and splinters of life, but still never losing faith in it’s beauty at the same time.






                                                                 

Lopamudra Banerjee is a writer, poet, editor and translator, currently based in Dallas, USA. She has a Masters’ degree with thesis in creative nonfiction writing from the Department of English, University of Nebraska at Omaha. She is the co-editor of the bestselling anthology on women, 'Defiant Dreams: Tales of Everyday Divas'.
'Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant's Wayward Journey', her debut memoir/nonfiction novel, published by Authorspress, has recently received Honorable Mention at the Los Angeles Book Festival 2017. The manuscript has also been a First Place Category Winner at the Journey Awards 2014 hosted by Chanticleer Reviews and Media LLC. Her literary works have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, both in India and the US and her fiction is published in Silhouette I & II anthology, by Authorspress.
She has received the Reuel International Award 2016 (category: Translation) for her English translation of Rabindranath Tagore's novella Nastanirh (translated as The Broken Home) instituted by The Significant League, a renowned literature group in Facebook, and the book is available in Amazon Kindle.It is now part of the book 'The Broken Home and Other Stories'.  


Book blurb:


By: Aritro Ghosh


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