Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture Gaiutra Bahadur

Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture

Author: Gaiutra Bahadur
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Book Title
Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture
Author
Gaiutra Bahadur
ISBN
9780226211381
In 1903, a young woman sailed from India to Guiana as a "coolie"--the British name for indentured laborers who replaced the newly emancipated slaves on sugar plantations all around the world. Pregnant and traveling alone, this woman, like so many coolies, disappeared into history. In Coolie Woman--shortlisted for the 2014 Orwell Prize--her great-granddaughter Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on a journey into the past to find her. Traversing three continents and trawling through countless colonial archives, Bahadur excavates not only her great-grandmother's story but also the repressed history of some quarter of a million other coolie women, shining a light on their complex lives. Shunned by society, and sometimes in mortal danger, many coolie women were either runaways, widows, or outcasts. Many of them left husbands and families behind to migrate alone in epic sea voyages--traumatic "middle passages"--only to face a life of hard labor, dismal living conditions, and, especially, sexual exploitation. As Bahadur explains, however, it is precisely their sexuality that makes coolie women stand out as figures in history. Greatly outnumbered by men, they were able to use sex with their overseers to gain various advantages, an act that often incited fatal retaliations from coolie men and sometimes larger uprisings of laborers against their overlords. Complex and unpredictable, sex was nevertheless a powerful tool. Examining this and many other facets of these remarkable women's lives, Coolie Woman is a meditation on survival, a gripping story of a double diaspora--from India to the West Indies in one century, Guyana to the United States in the next--that is at once a search for one's roots and an exploration of gender and power, peril and opportunity.Binding Type: PaperbackAuthor: Gaiutra BahadurPublisher: University of Chicago PressPublished: 08/04/2014ISBN: 9780226211381Pages: 312Weight: 1.00lbsSize: 9.10h x 6.40w x 0.80dReview Citations: New York Times Book Review 10/05/2014 pg. 28Books & Culture 11/01/2015 pg. 30
In 1903, a young woman sailed from India to Guiana as a "coolie"--the British name for indentured laborers who replaced the newly emancipated slaves on sugar plantations all around the world. Pregnant and traveling alone, this woman, like so many coolies, disappeared into history. In Coolie Woman--shortlisted for the 2014 Orwell Prize--her great-granddaughter Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on a journey into the past to find her. Traversing three continents and trawling through countless colonial archives, Bahadur excavates not only her great-grandmother's story but also the repressed history of some quarter of a million other coolie women, shining a light on their complex lives.
Shunned by society, and sometimes in mortal danger, many coolie women were either runaways, widows, or outcasts. Many of them left husbands and families behind to migrate alone in epic sea voyages--traumatic "middle passages"--only to face a life of hard labor, dismal living conditions, and, especially, sexual exploitation. As Bahadur explains, however, it is precisely their sexuality that makes coolie women stand out as figures in history. Greatly outnumbered by men, they were able to use sex with their overseers to gain various advantages, an act that often incited fatal retaliations from coolie men and sometimes larger uprisings of laborers against their overlords. Complex and unpredictable, sex was nevertheless a powerful tool.

Examining this and many other facets of these remarkable women's lives, Coolie Woman is a meditation on survival, a gripping story of a double diaspora--from India to the West Indies in one century, Guyana to the United States in the next--that is at once a search for one's roots and an exploration of gender and power, peril and opportunity.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Gaiutra Bahadur
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 08/04/2014
ISBN: 9780226211381
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 0.80d

Review Citations: New York Times Book Review 10/05/2014 pg. 28
Books & Culture 11/01/2015 pg. 30
In 1903, a young woman sailed from India to Guiana as a "coolie"--the British name for indentured laborers who replaced the newly emancipated slaves on sugar plantations all around the world. Pregnant and traveling alone, this woman, like so many coolies, disappeared into history. In Coolie Woman--shortlisted for the 2014 Orwell Prize--her great-granddaughter Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on a journey into the past to find her. Traversing three continents and trawling through countless colonial archives, Bahadur excavates not only her great-grandmother's story but also the repressed history of some quarter of a million other coolie women, shining a light on their complex lives.
Shunned by society, and sometimes in mortal danger, many coolie women were either runaways, widows, or outcasts. Many of them left husbands and families behind to migrate alone in epic sea voyages--traumatic "middle passages"--only to face a life of hard labor, dismal living conditions, and, especially, sexual exploitation. As Bahadur explains, however, it is precisely their sexuality that makes coolie women stand out as figures in history. Greatly outnumbered by men, they were able to use sex with their overseers to gain various advantages, an act that often incited fatal retaliations from coolie men and sometimes larger uprisings of laborers against their overlords. Complex and unpredictable, sex was nevertheless a powerful tool.

Examining this and many other facets of these remarkable women's lives, Coolie Woman is a meditation on survival, a gripping story of a double diaspora--from India to the West Indies in one century, Guyana to the United States in the next--that is at once a search for one's roots and an exploration of gender and power, peril and opportunity.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Gaiutra Bahadur
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 08/04/2014
ISBN: 9780226211381
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 0.80d

Review Citations: New York Times Book Review 10/05/2014 pg. 28
Books & Culture 11/01/2015 pg. 30