The Divided Selves - The Poet Activist of Partition

Prof Priya Satia

Priya Satia is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History and Professor of History at Stanford University, where she teaches modern British and British empire history. Award-winning author of three books, her latest book, Time's Monster: How History Makes History (2020), was named one of BBC History Magazine and the New Statesman's best books of 2020. Prof. Satia also writes frequently for popular media, such as Time, The Nation, Washington Post, The New Republic, and Slate.com.

Prof Priya Satia, from Stanford University, joins the UKPHA Bookclub to describe the alternative futures anticolonial thinkers continued to imagine as the new border was drawn, especially through the poetic idioms of Urdu and Punjabi. Through the work and thought of leftist poet-activists of this time, we can trace the notions of divided selfhood that Partition created. This story helps us understand how Indians and Pakistanis dealt with the trauma and burdens created by Partition and offers the possibility of nurturing alternative understandings of its meaning going forward.

Buy 'Time's Monster: History, Conscience and Britain's Empire' here >>