Review: Even this page is white by Vivek Shraya

Hey,

Yes I’m truly back with another book related review on this page. This one is actually an old one which I received from a good friend for my 22nd birthday but never got the chance to read it till recently. I’d be lying if I said that my books don’t pile up weekly on my to-do reading list. What can I say, I like my books and hoarding them is part of the lifestyle (my fellow book lovers understand what I mean). And there’s no better way of introducing this book than through an good old fashioned review post.

Get to know the author:

• Shraya is a Canadian writer, musician and visual artist
• She works as an assistant professor in the creative writing programme at University of Calgary
• Her book history: God Loves Hair (2010), She of the Mountains (2014), The Boy & the Bindi (2016), Even This Page is White (2016), I’m Afraid of Men (2018) and Death Threat (2019)
• Known for her artistic body to merge her variety of talents together into one through words
• Bestselling novel was her work from last year I’m Afraid of Men

The book review:

In this blog post, I’ll be reviewing Vivek Shraya’s published poetry called Even This Page is White (2016). Her poetry work not only breaks the barriers which limit those of people of colour but she interrogates it with raw truths of living in a White man’s domain. The contents of the poetry book is split into 5 headings: white dreams, whitespeak, how to talk to a white person, the origins of skin and brown dreams.

because what are words

without dreams

and what is a dream

if it is not white?

She discusses both mental and physical racism on her body. This attack from others is a form of ethnocentrism (evaluation another culture according to preconceptions originating from own); Shraya’s difference leads her to be judged by people who are consciously/unconsciously attached to power. Shraya highlights the fact that people are “uneducated when it comes to just about anything outside of the white gaze”. Fear of understanding beyond colour is what excludes individuals from gaining true knowledge on people of colour.

Another level of creativity which I liked about the poetry book was the overall layout. All the pages were displayed differently and paralleled the author’s own level of personalities. Of course that could just be my own take on it but whatever. The words in brown dreams section are my favourite ones due to its deep interrogation and quite familiar to myself as a reader.

And that’s the end of today’s post everyone. I hope you enjoyed the little review of Even This Page is White by Vivek Shraya. Till next time!

Yours Truly,

Melanin Talks x

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