NBCC member Meena Venkataramanan wrote about Alfred Peredo Flores’ 'Tip of the Spear' and Maile Arvin’s 'Possessing Polynesians' for Public Books: buff.ly/4attHBw

Samoa and the Cook Islands are as far from each other as LA and Portland. Yet, the inhabitants of the two islands must contend with a time difference of a remarkable 23 hours.

Western colonialism even shapes the way Pacific Islanders experience time. buff.ly/3PX1ECq

For Public Books, Meena Venkataramanan reviewed new books from Alfred Peredo Flores & Maile Arvin on Pacific Islands histories:
publicbooks.org/the-pacific-is…

Maile Arvin’s “Possessing Polynesians” theorizes Pacific Islanders’ identity as shaped by a “logic of possession through whiteness.”

Her analysis makes sense of different forms of racialization, colonization, and subjugation enacted by US colonizers. buff.ly/4cM2mMt

Alfred Peredo Flores’s “Tip of the Spear” argues that Guam, or Guåhan, the island’s Chamorro name, was developed through “settler militarism” where the financial and sexual needs of white Americans were privileged over the Indigenous Chamorro. buff.ly/3PUF4KI

New at PB, Meena Venkataramanan reviews two new books on US colonialism in the Pacific Islands.

They show how the US authorized distinct forms of colonial control based on how settler colonizers racialized Indigenous communities as proximal to whiteness. buff.ly/49A29t0

Enjoyed this review by Meena Venkataramanan

“But a good story, we are reminded by both Theroux and Tan, doesn’t descend magically on a writer like an autumn leaf on a windowsill.” Meena Venkataramanan reviews two novels, 'The House of Doors' by Tan Twan Eng and 'Burma Sahib' by Paul Theroux. lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-te…

I wrote about British colonialism in Southeast Asia, Tan Twan Eng's 'The House of Doors,' and Paul Theroux's 'Burma Sahib' for Los Angeles Review of Books. Read it here:

lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-te…

Just out via Los Angeles Review of Books lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-te… --an insightful & enjoyable two-book essay by Meena Venkataramanan about novels set in Asia that each have a famous novelist as a character, one by Tan Twan Eng featuring Maugham, one by Paul Theroux featuring Orwell cc The Orwell Prizes

.Meena Venkataramanan reviews two novels imagining the experiences of English literary figures, George Orwell and W. Somerset Maugham, in Southeast Asia. 'What unites these novels is the underlying cynicism threading through both.' lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-te…

Scott Wessman Meena Venkataramanan wrote about this last year! Check out this article: washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05…

NBCC member Meena Venkataramanan wrote about Shakespeare, Jan. 6, and white nationalism for The Washington Post: washingtonpost.com/history/2024/0…

Why the Jan. 6 insurrectionists apologized in advance to the Folger Shakespeare library in D.C.

A must-read crazy tale by Meena Venkataramanan :
washingtonpost.com/history/2024/0…

NBCC member Meena Venkataramanan interviewed Curtis Chin for The Washington Post: washingtonpost.com/books/2023/11/…

'Curtis Chin’s memoir puts everything on the table.' Thanks Meena Venkataramanan Little, Brown and Co washingtonpost.com/books/2023/11/…