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Arundhati Roy: Border Crosser

William Coleman • Nov 18, 2013

Arundhati Roy is a gifted border crosser. Born in India, Ms. Roy is a novelist, screenwriter, lecturer, and political activist who is respected throughout the world.  In1997, she won the Man Booker Prize in Fiction for The God of Small Things .  Issues that she has been involved with during the years include: corporate capitalism, environment degradation, human rights, globalization, nuclear power, imperialism, unequal distribution of wealth, violent and nonviolent resistance.  She is one of those extraordinary intellectuals who crosses easily over borders and through her writing and lectures helps others see the world from diverse perspectives.

On March 18, 2013, Ms. Roy discussed her latest book, Field Notes on Democracy , at Northwestern University’s Law School. Her presentation was sponsored by Haymarket Books and the Lannan Foundation. It is worth a look and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AaIcj4MV54

WC

Gloria E. Anzaldúa

By William Coleman • 17 May, 2016
Two quotes from the poet, author, and Chicano activist Gloria E. Anzaldúa: “Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional […]

Naoto Matsumura: the world’s most radioactive man

By William Coleman • 21 May, 2014
  Perhaps you have heard of Mr. Naoto Matsumura who resides near the Fukushima nuclear power plant. He has sacrificed his life by returning to his hometown of Tomioka, which lies within the radioactive danger zone, in order to take of the animals that were left behind when the town’s residents evacuated. He is truly […]

Rebecca Solnit

By William Coleman • 02 Dec, 2013
The prolific and award winning American writer Rebecca Solnit (National Book Critics Circle Award winner, Mark Lynton History Prize winner, and Sally Hacker Prize recipient) is a border crosser.  In her book of essays titled A Field Guide to Getting Lost (Penguin Books, 2005), she writes about leaving the familiar and comfortable boundaries of one’s […]

Martin Luther King: Border Crosser

By William Coleman • 07 Oct, 2013
A half-century ago this past April 16th, Dr. Martin Luther King wrote from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  Those words and that idea are even truer today. More than ever, we […]
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