The Lost Son: Essays on displacement of the body, heart and soul
Date
2015
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Publisher
MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa
Abstract
“The Lost Son: Essays on Displacement, Body, Heart and Soul,” is a collection about experiencing and understanding loss. The title of the collection has a dual meaning and speaks to the phenomenon of the author’s loss of son. “The Lost Son” and “Autobiography of My Children,” are essays on the children we have and those we lose. In a way, as parents we eventually lose our children, to death or adulthood; we can only hope the latter comes first. But the writer never loses; he always wins.
But “The Lost Son” title must also be viewed through the prism of the author as a lost son - lost to native land, lost to his adopted island, lost to his adopted home. Even when he has found a home, there is also a sense of displacement, of belonging but not quite, being permanently uneasy. He is the ultimate outsider and this collection is an attempt to make a statement; it is a manifesto of seeking to belong. The political sensibilities of Andre Aciman, Edward Said, Jamaica Kincaid and George Lamming imbue this collection. From the first essay, “Why I write,” to “The Sunday Morning Club” and “Children of the Fire,” themes of separation reoccur.
In “Why I Write” one hears the voice of an eight-year old boy on a Caribbean island writing to his mother in far away in London. Writing is his first act of affirmation, long before he knows what affirmation means.
Formatted: Centered
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Keywords
Loss