Poet, essayist and scholar Meena Alexander died in New York on Wednesday. She was 67.
Alexander was born in Allahabad and raised in Kerala and Sudan. Her collections of poetry include Atmospheric Embroidery, Birthplace with Buried Stones, Quickly Changing River, Raw Silk, and Illiterate Heart, which won the 2002 PEN Open Book Award. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker and Harvard Review among other journals.
Alexander has also published two novels, Nampally Road and Manhattan Music.
She was the recipient of the 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award in Literature from the South Asian Literary Association for her contribution to American literature. In 2014, Alexander was named a National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla.
She was a Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York.
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop expressed their condolence with a verse from her poem Krishna, 3.29 am.
“The many births you have passed through, try to remember them as I do mine
Memory is all you have.”
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