If I Could Write this in Fire

Download or read book If I Could Write this in Fire written by Michelle Cliff and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her first book-length collection of nonfiction, Cliff interweaves reflections on her life in Jamaica, England, and the United States with a powerful and sustained critique of racism, homophobia, and social injustice. If I Could Write This in Fire begins by tracing her transatlantic journey from Jamaica to England, coalescing around a graceful, elliptical account of her childhood friendship with Zoe, who is dark-skinned and from an impoverished, rural background; the divergent life courses that each is forced to take; and the class and color tensions that shape their lives as adults. In other essays and poems, Cliff writes about the discovery of her distinctive, diasporic literary voice, recalls her wild colonial girlhood and sexual awakening, and recounts traveling through an American landscape of racism, colonialism, and genocide - a history of violence embodied in seemingly innocuous souvenirs and tourist sites.