REVIEW: Asian Writers Meet Debating "Asian-ness"
Asian Writers Published in the Kathmandu Post, Feb 11, 2001 This event took place at the New York Times building in NYC, and was sponsored by that newspaper. It was a toss up between Derrida and Jumpha Lahiri, and I chose Jhumpa. It was the seventieth year for the Father of Deconstruction, and the philosopher sat patiently in a crumbling synagogue with Gayatri Spivak generating random, disconnected sentences on one side, and another woman, fashionably attired in bobby pins and rhinestone glitter on her hair, talking about her new book called Stupidity, on the other. It looked like the old man would not even get a word in edgewise, keeping with the best traditions of deconstruction. So I made a quick decision to jump on the subway and head uptown, where the New York Times was holding a panel on new Asian writers called Asian Voices. Jhumpa might be able to provide more insights on life, truth and reality than the panel on deconstruction could at thi...