Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home

by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Paperback, 2015

Status

Checked out

Publication

Arsenal Pulp Press (2015), 240 pages

Description

Lambda Literary Award finalist In 1996, poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha ran away from America with two backpacks and ended up in Canada, where she discovered queer anarchopunk love and revolution, yet remained haunted by the reasons she left home in the first place. This passionate and riveting memoir is a mixtape of dreams and nightmares, of immigration court lineups and queer South Asian dance nights; it reveals how a disabled queer woman of color and abuse survivor navigates the dirty river of the past and, as the subtitle suggests, "dreams her way home." Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's poetry book Love Cake won a Lambda Literary Award.

User reviews

LibraryThing member LibroLindsay
Terrific memoir of being a survivor and discovering the sometimes-terrible, sometimes-heartening truths about one's self and family. It had such a transportive sense of time and place. The only drawback for me was that the end felt a bit abrupt and disjointed, but it never stopped me loving words
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she was putting down on the page. Can't wait to read more by Piepzna-Samarasinha.
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Awards

Lambda Literary Award (Finalist — Lesbian Memoir/Biography — 2016)
Publishing Triangle Awards (Finalist — Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction — 2016)
ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Selection — 2016)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2015

Physical description

240 p.; 5.5 inches

ISBN

155152600X / 9781551526003

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