Research Catalog

Title

Dirty river : a queer femme of color dreaming her way home / Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.

Author

Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi, 1975-

Publication

• Vancouver, BC, Canada : Arsenal Pulp Press, [2015]
• ©2015

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

237 pages; 21 cm

Summary

"In 1996, poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, carrying only two backpacks, caught a Greyhound bus in America and ran away to Canada. She ended up in Toronto, where she was welcomed by a community of queer punks of color offering promises of love and revolution, yet she remained haunted by the reasons she left home in the first place. This passionate, riveting memoir is a mixtape of dreams and nightmares, of immigration court lineups and queer South Asian dance nights; it is an intensely personal road map and an intersectional, tragicomic tale that reveals how a disabled queer woman of colour and abuse survivor navigates the dirty river of the not-so-distant past and, as the subtitle suggests, "dreams her way home"--Page 4 of cover.

Alternative Title

Queer femme of color dreaming her way home

Subjects

• Sexual minority women
• Minority authors
• Sexual minority community
• Lesbians
• South Asians
• Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi, 1975-
• Biographies
• Autobiographies
• autobiographies (literary works)
• Ontario > Toronto
• Canada
• LGBTQ+ people
• LGBTQ+ communities
• Communautés de minorités sexuelles > Ontario > Toronto
• Autobiography
• Sexual minority women > Canada > Biography
• Minority authors > Canada > Biography
• Sexual minority community > Ontario > Toronto
• Lesbians > Canada > Biography
• Poets, Canadian > Biography
• Authors, Canadian > Biography
• South Asians > Canada > Biography
• Poets, Canadian (English) > 21st century > Biography
• Poètes canadiens-anglais > 21e siècle > Biographies
• Écrivains issus des minorités > Canada > Biographies
• Femmes issues des minorités sexuelles > Canada > Biographies
• Lesbiennes > Canada > Biographies
• Poètes canadiens > Biographies
• Écrivains canadiens > Biographies
• Sud-Asiatiques > Canada > Biographies
• BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / LGBT
• SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / Asian American Studies
• SOCIAL SCIENCE / Feminism & Feminist Theory
• SOCIAL SCIENCE / LGBT Studies / Lesbian Studies

Genre/Form

• Autobiography
• autobiographies (literary works)
• Autobiographies
• Biographies
• Autobiographies.

Additional Formats (note)

• Issued also in electronic format.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Preface. Let's get something straight : surviving abuse as choose-your-own-adventure-novel -- Part 1. How I Run Away. How I run away from America : New York, 1997 -- 1996, summer of love -- Girlbomb -- Running away root -- Some notes about the going away : or, you are a twenty-two-year-old brown slutty girl who thinks maybe you're an incest survivor reading The Courage to Heal standing up in the bookstore -- Piece of my heart : queer women of color -- The punk kid of color clusterfuck -- A story of a river -- Survivor psychic powers -- Gasoline in the eyes -- Part 2. Going Into the Sky. The last time I went home for Christmas -- Mom -- A good brother -- June 17, 1997 -- The amethyst room -- Paula : Toronto, 1997 -- The winter you are so broke -- The letter -- Part 3. How to Come Back. Healing justice mix tape -- Hard times survival dinner no. 1, Toronto 1998 -- Chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome -- Psychiatric survivor movement -- Punk Desi girls -- Funkasia, 1999 -- Dad again -- Not picking up the phone -- Learning to be brown, parts 1-3 -- Changed my name -- Landed -- Part 4. Opening/Femme Like a Fist. Early '90s New York femme memory no. 2 -- Spinster -- Shit calms down -- Precious -- The palace of words -- Feed the ache : 2010 -- The opening -- Mama, three ways -- Multigenerational -- Made it home : 2012 -- Redemption song.

ISBN

• 9781551526003
• 155152600X
• 9781551526010 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2017434272

OCLC

• 904968483
• SCSB-12151454

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library