Genres have a history and impose a historical character upon the writer. What is interesting in the poem involves a certain kind of dramatization of the self that you don't have to engage in in the essay. In fact, the… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
I could say that in the essay, as it has developed historically, success is determined by the writer's ability to express, through an individual voice, a collective experience - you are speaking individually but you are representing collectively. — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
You probably have to split yourself in various ways just in order to survive, and to think of yourself as a multitude. — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
You don't think of yourself as your external representation, or even your national origin or anything like that. You don't reduce yourself to that.… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
Historically, there are hierarchies of purity. Certain aspects of poetry are very, very pure. The lyric poem can't be anything but the lyric poem. — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
Language itself is a mask. It's the first mask in the series of invented selves - they've come right out of language. The way… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
I would say that when I write prose I'm a more socially responsible person. I'm much more a citizen of the world. But the… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
These new theories of the universe, that there are multiple universes just bubbling up constantly - it's all pretty wild. — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
Society imposes an identity on you because of the way you look. Your struggle as a self has to do with an identity being… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
When you're an immigrant, you're at the bottom of the ladder. You might not be at the bottom of the ladder economically. Those contradictions… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
“Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
All ideas about identity, of course, fit perfectly into the social media wonderland we live in. They seem to really connect. There's a science-fiction… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
We live in a trans period. Contemporary issues of sexuality, for example - the exciting aspects of them - have to do with transgenderedness.… — Vijay Seshadri Copy Share Image
