Letters to My Mother

About the Book: 

They forego promotion and pay packets.
They stay at home. They are night watchers
Who feed and rock and calm to sleep
They tie their precious gifts to their back
Or stagger in tired pride, pushing our future
They are the bravest soldiers – marching on. – Mothers All

How does our relationship with our mothers shape the people we become? Does the experience of motherhood change us?

Bashabi Fraser commemorates her mother and the conversations they would have together. Exploring themes of motherhood, empowerment, love and loss, the acclaimed poet draws on her Indian and British life experience, engaging with hard-hitting current issues such as climate change, war and the prevalence of violence against women worldwide.

A son questions his mother’s love after she has learned about his violent deeds. The biblical Eve is shown as a liberator. A daughter of India demands justice from her society. Fraser’s poetry is powerful and passionate as she contemplates the experience of motherhood and celebrates the life of her own mother and that of other mothers.

Reviews: 

There is a wonderful conversational ease in the writing, with mother and child sharing their feelings about music, art, love and politics, but the poems are always delicately and lyrically crafted. STEPHEN REGAN, Professor of Poetry at the University of Durham

About the Author:

BASHABI FRASER is a critic, poet, editor, children’s writer and translator. She was born in West Bengal in India. Bashabi divides her life between the two countries she loves most – India and Britain. Professor of English Literature at Edinburgh Napier University, she is the winner of Rabindra Bharati Society Honour 2014, Women Empowered: Art and Culture Award 2010 and IAS Prize for Literary Services in Scotland 2009. She has written for many publications, has three other collections of poems in print and has been included in a number of anthologies. Bashabi has also written children’s stories as well as a shadow puppet play and a book on the Bengal Partition and is also a classical Indian dancer and choreographer. She now lives in Edinburgh with her husband and has one daughter.