“Only Sow Words”: Cheran’s A Second Sunrise as Postcolonial Autobiography

Abstract

The article discusses the poetry anthology A Second Sunrise (2012) by exiled Tamil poet Cheran as a form of postcolonial autobiography. The anthology arguably constitutes a narrative of the poet’s own life, reading also as a form of communal autobiography representative of the (diasporic) Lankan Tamil community. Cheran’s life and oeuvre are styled around a consistent bond with the place of origin and, although physically estranged since he went on exile, Cheran has never ceased treading it imaginatively in terms of both poetic endeavour and political activism. The sense of community and the connection to the land thus inform A Second Sunrise and conceptually and thematically link the whole collection of poems. Using a set of propositions from the broad area of life writing theory, this reading intends to demonstrate that the anthology, while emphasizing a necessary sense continuity for the exilic self, throws light on the multiple possibilities of identity reconfigurations in traumatic contexts.

Keywords

• postcolonial autobiography
• lankan tamils
• cheran
• poetry and war
• poetry as autobiography
• life writing