Meena Alexander facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Meena Alexander
Alexander at Hyderabad Literary Festival, 2016
Born	Mary Elizabeth Alexander (1951-02-17)17 February 1951 Allahabad, India
Died	21 November 2018(2018-11-21) (aged 67) New York City, US
Occupation	Poet Author Scholar Essayist Professor
Language	English
Nationality	Indian
Citizenship	United States
Education	Doctorate in British Romantic Literature
Alma mater	University of Nottingham
Notable works	Fault Lines: A Memoir; Illiterate Heart
Notable awards	2009 Distinguished Achievement Award, South Asian Literary Association; 2002 PEN Open Book Award

Meena Alexander (born Mary Elizabeth Alexander, 17 February 1951 – 21 November 2018) was a famous Indian American poet, scholar, and writer. She was born in Allahabad, India, and grew up in both India and Sudan. Later in her life, Alexander lived and worked in New York City. There, she was a special professor of English at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Early Life and Education
Career and Writings
Influences
Fellowships and Residencies
Honors and Awards
Selected Works
Personal Life
See also

Early Life and Education

Meena Alexander was born on February 17, 1951, in Allahabad, India. Her parents were George and Mary Alexander. Her family was from Kerala, South India, and followed the Syrian Christian faith. Her father worked as a meteorologist for the Indian government. Her mother was a homemaker.

Meena's maternal grandmother, Kunju, was a very educated woman. She was the first woman to join the legislative assembly in Tavancore State. Meena's maternal grandfather was a religious scholar and worked with Mahatma Gandhi. He gave Meena many books and talked to her about important topics like life and death. He passed away when she was eleven.

Meena lived in Allahabad and Kerala until she was five years old. Then, her family moved to Khartoum, Sudan, because her father got a job there. She still visited her grandparents in Kerala. She learned to speak and write English at home. She finished high school in Khartoum when she was only 13. Meena remembered that she started writing poetry as a child. She wanted to write short stories in Malayalam, her family's language, but found it hard to write them in English. So, she started writing her stories as poems instead.

At 13, she started attending Khartoum University. Some of her poems were translated into Arabic and printed in a local newspaper. When she was 15, she officially changed her name from Mary Elizabeth to Meena, which was her nickname at home. In 1969, she earned her bachelor's degree in English and French from Khartoum University.

She began her PhD studies in England at 18. In 1970, at age 19, she experienced a period of intense stress. She couldn't read for over a month and went to the countryside to rest. She finished her PhD in British Romantic literature in 1973 from the University of Nottingham. She was 22 years old.

After her PhD, Alexander went back to India. She taught English at several universities, including University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University. She also taught at the University of Hyderabad during a difficult time in India called the National Emergency. She published her first poetry books in India with a publisher called Writers Workshop. In Hyderabad, she met David Lelyveld, a historian. They got married in 1979. After that, she moved with her husband to New York City. She later said that moving to the United States was a big shock because of the racism she experienced. She had never thought of herself as a "person of color" before.

Career and Writings

Meena Alexander wrote many types of works, including poetry, stories, and scholarly books, all in English. A poet named Ranjit Hoskote said that her poetry used words and rhythms from English, Hindi, and Malayalam. Meena spoke Malayalam well, but she couldn't read or write it easily. She also spoke French, Sudanese Arabic, and Hindi. She learned British English while living in Khartoum. When she moved to America, she found American English very exciting and freeing.

In 1992, she wrote an essay where she talked about an "aesthetic of dislocation." This means that Asian American writers often feel a sense of being out of place or "unselved" because they are a minority in America. She believed this feeling helped shape her art.

After moving to New York, Alexander taught at Fordham University. In 1987, she joined the English Department at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY). She became a full professor in 1992. In 1999, she was named a Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College. She also lectured at Columbia University.

Some of her most famous poetry books include Illiterate Heart (2002) and Raw Silk (2004). Raw Silk has poems about the September 11 attacks and the time after. She also wrote two books that mixed poetry and essays: The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience (1999) and Poetics of Dislocation (2009).

Meena Alexander also wrote two novels: Nampally Road (1991) and Manhattan Music (1997). She wrote two academic books too, one based on her PhD work. In 1993, she published her autobiography, Fault Lines. An updated version came out in 2003, which included her thoughts on the September 11 attacks. She also edited collections of poems and writings by Indian authors. Some of her poems were even turned into music.

Alexander shared her poetry and spoke at many literary events around the world. In 2013, she gave a speech at the Yale Political Union called "What Use Is Poetry?" She also helped judge the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1998.

Meena Alexander passed away in New York on November 21, 2018, at age 67. Her husband said she died from endometrial serous cancer. After her death, a new collection of her poems, In Praise of Fragments, was published in 2020.

Influences

Many writers and thinkers influenced Meena Alexander's work. Some of these include Jayanta Mahapatra, Kamala Das, Adrienne Rich, and Galway Kinnell. She was also inspired by Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Matsuo Bashō.

Fellowships and Residencies

Throughout her career, Meena Alexander received many special opportunities and awards. These included:

University Grants Commission Fellow at Kerala University
Writer in Residence at the National University of Singapore
Frances Wayland Collegium Lecturer at Brown University
Martha Walsh Pulver Residency for a poet at Yaddo
1979 Visiting fellow at the University of Paris-Sorbonne
1988 Writer in Residence at the Center for American Culture Studies, Columbia University
1993 MacDowell Colony fellow
1994 Poet in Residence at the American College, Madurai, India
1995 International Writer in Residence for the Arts Council of England
2003 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency
2008 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow
2011 Fulbright Specialists Program
2014 National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla
2016 Poet in Residence in Venice

Honors and Awards

Meena Alexander received many honors and awards for her writing.

Her memoir, Fault Lines, was named one of the Best Books of 1993 by Publishers Weekly.
Her poetry collection Illiterate Heart won the 2002 PEN Open Book Award.
In 2002, she received the Imbongi Yesizwe Poetry International Award.
In 2009, she was given the Distinguished Achievement Award from the South Asian Literary Association. This award recognized her important contributions to American literature.
In 2016, she received a Word Masala award from the Word Masala Foundation.

Selected Works

Meena Alexander wrote many books of poetry, novels, and essays. Here are some of her important works:

Poetry Collections

The Bird’s Bright Ring (1976)
I Root My Name (1977)
Stone Roots (1981)
House of a Thousand Doors: Poems and Prose Pieces (1988)
River and Bridge (1996)
Illiterate Heart (2002)
Raw Silk (2004)
Quickly Changing River (2008)
Birthplace with Buried Stones (2013)
Atmospheric Embroidery (2018)
In Praise of Fragments (2020)

Poetry and Essays

The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience (1999)
Poetics of Dislocation (2009)

Novels

Nampally Road (1991)
Manhattan Music (1996)

Memoirs

Fault Lines (1993, expanded 2003)

Criticism

The Poetic Self: Towards a Phenomenology of Romanticism (1979)
Women in Romanticism: Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth and Mary Shelley (1989)

Edited Works

Indian Love Poems (2005)
Name Me A Word: Indian Writers Reflect on Writing (2018)

Personal Life

Meena Alexander was survived by her mother, her husband David Lelyveld, and their two children, Adam and Svati Lelyveld. She also had a sister, Elizabeth Alexander.