A01=Ahmad Almallah
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
alzheimers
arabic literature
Author_Ahmad Almallah
autobiography
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biography
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DCF
COP=United States
cultural experience
culture
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
displacement
emotional
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
family
finely crafted poems
grief
homesickness
humor
immigration
Language_English
linguistics
living in exile
loss
native tongue
nonnative language
PA=Available
palestine
palestinian american
parents
personal identity
phoenix poets series
plainspoken roughness
poetry
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
sadness
SN=Phoenix Poets
social issues
society
softlaunch
united states
us
verse
witty
Product details
- ISBN 9780226642642
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 05 Sep 2019
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Imagine you are a Palestinian who came to America as a young man, eventually finding yourself caught between the country you live in with your wife and daughter, and the home--and parents--you left behind. Imagine living every day in your nonnative language and becoming estranged from your native tongue, which you use less and less as you become more ensconced in the United States. This is the story told by Ahmad Almallah in Bitter English, an autobiography-in-verse that explores the central role language plays in how we construct our identities and how our cultures construct them for us.
Through finely crafted poems that utilize a plainspoken roughness to keep the reader slightly disoriented, Almallah replicates his own verbal and cultural experience of existing between languages and societies. There is a sense of displacement to these poems as Almallah recounts the amusing, sad, and perilous moments of day-to-day living in exile. At the heart of Bitter English is a sense of loss, both of home and of his mother, whose struggle with Alzheimer's becomes a reflection of his own reality in exile. Filled with wit, humor, and sharp observations of the world, Bitter English brings a fresh poetic voice to the American immigrant experience.
Ahmad Almallah is lecturer of Arabic and Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
