Professor Minoli Salgado
Professor of International Writing
My profile
Biography
I joined Manchester Met in 2020 having taught postcolonial literature at the University of Sussex for many years where I was Professor of English and Co-Director of the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies. At ManMet, I have established and currently lead the Centre for Migration and Postcolonial Studies (MAPS) and Postcolonial Studies MA specialism in English Studies. My research has a literary focus on postmodernist texts, a theoretical orientation towards biopolitics, trauma studies and post-structuralist readings of migration, and a regional connection to South and South East Asia where I was born and raised. It is underscored by an interest in the mediation of time, place and memory in diasporic literature, silenced stories from the Global South and in the challenges of writing them.
My current research focuses on terror, testimony and exile and explores the way witness narratives serve to mediate concepts of self and survival in three contexts of exceptional violence: the Cambodian genocide, the Sri Lankan civil war and honour-based violence from diasporised sites. This research was supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2018-2020).
I have twice been awarded Leverhulme Research Fellowships, gained an AHRC Research Grant, won the first SI Leeds Literary Prize and been nominated for the DSC Prize in South Asian Literature, the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and was selected as the Olympic Poet for Sri Lanka in 2012. Editorial boards that I serve on include the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Journal of Caribbean Literature and Wasafiri.
My publications include the critical monograph, Writing Sri Lanka: Literature, Resistance and the Politics of Place (Routledge, 2007), two books of fiction, A Little Dust on the Eyes (Peepal Tree, 2014) and Broken Jaw (87 Press, 2019) and a book of narrative non-fiction, Twelve Cries from Home: In Search of Sri Lanka’s Disappeared (Repeater Books, 2022).
Academic and professional qualifications
BA Hons (Sussex); PGCE (Manchester); MA, PhD (Warwick)
Personal website address
Research outputs
Postcolonial literature and theory; migrant and diasporic writing; witness literature; cultural theory; testimony and trauma studies; South Asian literature in English; Salman Rushdie; Michael Ondaatje.
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Salgado, M. (2022) Twelve Cries from Home In Search of Sri Lanka's Disappeared. Repeater Books.
Salgado, M. (2019) Broken jaw. London: The 87 Press.
Salgado, M. (2014) A little dust on the eyes. Peepal Tree Press.
Salgado, M. (2006) Writing Sri Lanka: Literature, Resistance and the Politics of Place.
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Chapters in books
Salgado, M. (2023) 'The Farewell Party.' The Unheard Stories. pp. 95-100.
Salgado, M. (2023) 'Poetry: 'Blood Witness' and 'Telegraph'.' Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala & English Poetry from Sri Lanka & its Diasporas. Bloodaxe Books, pp. 297-298.
Salgado, M. (2022) 'Sri Lankan literature and territoriality: the politics of literary criticism.' In Anwar, W., Yousaf, N. (ed.) Transcultural Humanities in South Asia Critical Essays on Literature and Culture. Routledge, pp. 95-106.
Salgado, M. (2021) 'Punyakante Wijenaike: Spectral Spaces.' In Gupto, A. (ed.) Literary Theory and Criticism Recent Writings from South Asia. Routledge Chapman & Hall,
Salgado, M. (2018) 'The dictionary of national humiliation.' In Lee, M.A., Penn, A. (ed.) The Radiance of the Short Story: Fiction from Around the Globe. Lisbon: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, pp. 569-571.
Salgado, M. (2015) 'Exchanges.' True Tales from the Old Hill. Frogmore Press,
Salgado, M. (2013) ''Breaking News'.' Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing. pp. 60-61.
Salgado, M. (2012) 'Patriot Games.' In Astley, N., Selby, A. (ed.) The world record: international voices from Southbank Centre’s poetry parnassuss. London: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, pp. 249-249.
Salgado, M. (2012) 'Stories of Sri Lanka.' In Lee, M.A. (ed.) Bridges: a global anthology of short stories. Temenos Publishing, pp. 418-421.
Salgado, M. (2012) ''Watermark', 'Butterfly, Almost'.' Asia Literary Review. pp. 159-160.
Salgado, M. (2007) 'The politics of the palimpsest in the moor’s last sigh.' The Cambridge Companion to Salman Rushdie. pp. 153-168.
Salgado, M. (2005) 'Sinhala Only.' In Poddar, P., Johnson, D. (ed.) A historical companion to post-colonial literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 437-438.
Salgado, M. (2005) 'Writing home.' In Lee, M.A. (ed.) Writers on writing: the art of the short story. Westport, Conn: Praeger, pp. 27-31.
Salgado, M. (2004) 'Nayantara Sahgal with Minoli Salgado.' Writing across worlds: contemporary writers talk. London ; New York: Routledge, pp. 136-147.
Salgado, M. (2003) 'Nonlinear dynamics and the diasporic imagination.' In Fludernik, M. (ed.) Diaspora and multiculturalism: common traditions and new developments. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, pp. 183-198.
Salgado, M. (2001) 'Complexity and the Migrant Writer: Chaotics in Michael Ondaatje’s Fiction.' In Hale, N., Khair, T. (ed.) Unhinging Hinglish: the languages and politics of fiction in English from the Indian subcontinent. Copenhagen: Copenhagan: Museum Tusculanum Press, pp. 89-105.
Salgado, M. (2001) 'Anita Desai.' In Fallon, E., Feddersen, R.C., Kurtzleben, J., Lee, M.A., Rochette-Crawley, S. (ed.) A reader’s companion to the short story in English. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, pp. 133-142.
Salgado, M. (2000) 'Migration and mutability: The twice born fiction of Salman Rushdie.' British Culture of the Post-War: An Introduction to Literature and Society 1945-1999. pp. 31-49.
Salgado, M. (1997) 'Interview with Kirin Narayan/Minoli Salgado.' Speaking of the Short Story Interviews with Contemporary Writers. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi,
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Journal articles
Salgado, M. (2022) 'Sri Lanka's Dream Village.' The New Humanist, 137(4) pp. 18-21.
Salgado, M. (2020) 'Vadivel's Body.' Oxford Literary Review, 42(2) pp. 274-278.
Salgado, M. (2020) 'Shattered Selves and Border Witnessing: Globalising Trauma Studies in Cambodian Survivor Narratives.' Textual Practice, 35(2) pp. 171-190.
Salgado, M. (2016) '“Can only the dead speak?” terror, trauma, and the witness traveller.' Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 52(3) pp. 467-483.
Salgado, M. (2015) 'Autobiographies of time and place.' Wasafiri, 30(1) pp. 51-56.
Salgado, M. (2012) 'Rebirth of a nation or ’The incomparable toothbrush’: the origin story and narrative regeneration in Sri Lanka.' South Asian Review, 33pp. 239-256.
Salgado, M. (2012) 'Vanishing points/visible fictions: the textual politics of terror.' Textual Practice, 27(2) pp. 207-223.
Salgado, M. (2011) 'The new cartographies of re-orientalism.' Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 46(2) pp. 199-218.
Salgado, M. (2005) 'The Waves: Releasing Marius.' Wasafiri, 20(45) pp. 19-21.
Salgado, M. (2004) 'Writing Sri Lanka, reading resistance: Shyam Selvadurai’s funny boy and A. Sivanandan’s When Memory Dies.' Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 39pp. 5-18.
Salgado, M. (2004) 'Heart.' Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing, pp. 42-45.
Salgado, M. (2001) 'Poems: 'A Walk in the Dark', 'Skateboard King'.' Wasafiri, 16(33) pp. 62-62.
Salgado, M. (2000) 'Tribal stories, scribal worlds: Mahasweta Devi and the unreliable translator.' Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 35pp. 131-145.
Salgado, M. (1996) 'When seeing is not believing: epiphany in Anita Desai’s ’Games at Twilight’.' Journal of Modern Literature, 20pp. 103-108.
Salgado, M. (1996) 'Myths of the nation and female (self)sacrifice in Nayantara Sahgal's narratives.' Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 31(2) pp. 61-73.
Salgado, M. (1994) '‘My continuing character is India’.' Wasafiri, 10(20) pp. 44-48.
SALGADO, M. (1993) 'REVIEWS.' History Workshop Journal, 36(1) pp. 253-255.
Salgado, M. (1993) 'Getting to no.' Wasafiri, 8pp. 30-32.
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Other
Salgado, M., Salgado, K.M. (1991) Towards a definition of Indian literary feminism : an analysis of the novels of Kamala Markandaya, Nayantara Sahgal and Anita Desai.