The Face of the Other

Clara A.B. Joseph was born in India and lives in Calgary, Canada with her husband, Varghese Thekkevallyara. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as the Toronto Review, Mother Earth International, Prosopisia: An International Journal of Poetry & Creative Writing, Canadian Women’s Studies, the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, and Transnational Literature.

She is the author of several academic articles and book chapters. Her book, The Agent in the Margin: Nayantara Sahgal’s Gandhian Fiction (Wilfred Laurier UP, 2008), was nominated by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction Prize. It also won a national Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, Canada.

Her edited books include, Global Fissures: Postcolonial Fusions (Rodopi, 2006), Theology and Literature: Rethinking Reader Responsibility (Palgrave Macmillan 2006), and special issues of the journal World Literature Written in English – “The Postcolonial and Globalisation” (2002) and “Rethinking the Postcolonial and Globalisation” (2002).  

The Face of the Other is Clara Joseph’s first book of poetry. It takes inspiration from the works of the Jewish-French master philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, especially his ethical project of the responsibility of the self when encountering the other person.

She has a PhD in English from York University and is an associate professor of English and an adjunct associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary.