How I Became a Tree

An exquisite, lovingly crafted meditation on plants, trees, and our place in the natural world, in the tradition of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek &nbsp;&nbsp; "Sumana Roy has written--grown--a radiant and wondrous book."--Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot &nbsp; "Beautiful. . . . Roy weaves together science, nature, personal narrative, literature, sociology, and more to keep the reader turning pages--and to turn us all into tree-lovers."--Kateri Kramer, The Rumpus &nbsp; "I was tired of speed. I wanted to live tree time." So writes Sumana Roy at the start of How I Became a Tree, her captivating, adventurous, and self-reflective vision of what it means to be human in the natural world. &nbsp; Drawn to trees' wisdom, their nonviolent way of being, their ability to cope with loneliness and pain, Roy movingly explores the lessons that writers, painters, photographers, scientists, and spiritual figures have gleaned through their engagement with trees--from Rabindranath Tagore to Tomas Tranströmer, Ovid to Octavio Paz, William Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood. Her stunning meditations on forests, plant life, time, self, and the exhaustion of being human evoke the spacious, relaxed rhythms of the trees themselves. &nbsp; Hailed upon its original publication in India as "a love song to plants and trees" and "an ode to&nbsp;all that is unnoticed, ill, neglected, and yet resilient," How I Became a Tree blends literary history, theology, philosophy, botany, and more, and ultimately prompts readers to slow down and to imagine a reenchanted world in which humans live more like trees.

Literature & Fiction

Roy, Sumana

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

An enchanting and joyous exploration of life and creativity at the geographical edges of the modern world &nbsp; Who is a provincial? In this subversive book, Sumana Roy assembles a striking cast of writers, artists, filmmakers, cricketers, tourist guides, English teachers, lovers and letter writers, private tutors and secret-keepers whose lives and work provide varied answers to that question. Combining memoir with the literary, sensory, and emotional history of an ignored people, she challenges the metropolitan's dominance to reclaim the joyous dignity of provincial life, its tics and taunts, enthusiasms and tragicomedies. &nbsp; In a wide-ranging series of "postcards" from the peripheries of India, Europe, America, and the Middle East, Roy brings us deep into the imaginative world of those who have carried their provinciality like a birthmark. Ranging from Rabindranath Tagore to William Shakespeare, John Clare to the Bhakti poets, T. S. Eliot to J. M. Coetzee, V. S. Naipaul to the Brontës, and Kishore Kumar to Annie Ernaux, she celebrates the provincials' humor and hilarity, playfulness and irony, belatedness and instinct for carefree accidents and freedom. Her unprecedented account of provincial life offers an alternative portrait of our modern world.

Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries

British & Irish

An exquisite, lovingly crafted meditation on plants, trees, and our place in the natural world, in the tradition of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek "Sumana Roy has written--grown--a radiant and wondrous book."--Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot "Beautiful. . . . Roy weaves together science, nature, personal narrative, literature, sociology, and more to keep the reader turning pages--and to turn us all into tree-lovers."--Kateri Kramer, The Rumpus A Publishers Weekly Holiday Gift Guide 2021 selection "I was tired of speed. I wanted to live to tree time." So writes Sumana Roy at the start of How I Became a Tree, her captivating, adventurous, and self-reflective vision of what it means to be human in the natural world. Drawn to trees' wisdom, their nonviolent way of being, their ability to cope with loneliness and pain, Roy movingly explores the lessons that writers, painters, photographers, scientists, and spiritual figures have gleaned through their engagement with trees--from Rabindranath Tagore to Tomas Tranströmer, Ovid to Octavio Paz, William Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood. Her stunning meditations on forests, plant life, time, self, and the exhaustion of being human evoke the spacious, relaxed rhythms of the trees themselves. Hailed upon its original publication in India as "a love song to plants and trees" and "an ode to&nbsp;all that is unnoticed, ill, neglected, and yet resilient," How I Became a Tree blends literary history, theology, philosophy, botany, and more, and ultimately prompts readers to slow down and to imagine a reenchanted world in which humans live more like trees.

'Sumana Roy is one of the most original writers in Indian English today, whose writing easily slides out of the clutches of genres.'--The Indian Express '"Every relationship is a long-distance relationship," we read in one of Sumana Roy's intriguing new poems. Out of Syllabus brilliantly anatomizes those relationships, viewing them from every disciplinary perspective: chemistry, physics, biology, geography, history, botany--and finally art. The result is a dazzling dissection of love, longing, and loss in all their conflicting moods and moments. Roy's images and metaphors are as enigmatic as they are precise. However private and personal her subjects, Roy maintains an aesthetic distance, wit and verbal control that recalls Sylvia Plath--but a Plath less angry, wiser--even philosophical. This is a very special book--one that deserves a wide readership.' --Marjorie Perloff, Emeritus Professor, Stanford University 'Sumana Roy's wonderful book of poems, Out of Syllabus, combines rational ordering with the "unreason" of striking figures of speech. The rational ordering lies in the naming of sections as items in a comprehensive syllabus: "History", "Chemistry", "Physics" and so on. The striking figures of speech are everywhere in these poems. They give "out" in the book's title a negative as well as a positive meaning. These metaphors are often coupled to what they figure by way of a key word in Out of Syllabus "is." But you must read these powerful and challenging poems for yourself, dear reader, to get a feeling for what they are like and for what they mean as unique poetic experiences.' --J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, University of California at Irvine

Out of Syllabus: Poems

Poetry

Speaking Tiger Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roy, Sumana. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Roy, Sumana

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roy, Sumana. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

How I Became a Tree

Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries

How I Became a Tree

Out of Syllabus: Poems