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{{short description|Indo-Canadian professor and writer (born 1938)}}
{{Infobox writer
| embed =
| name = Uma Parameswaran
| image =
| image_size =
| image_upright =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1938}}
| birth_place = [[Madras]], [[Madras Presidency]], [[British India]] (now [[Chennai]], [[Tamil Nadu]], India)
| occupation = Professor, writer, editor
| education = [[Jabalpur University]] (B.A.) [[Nagpur University]] (M.A.) [[Indiana University Bloomington]] (M.A.)
| alma_mater = [[Michigan State University]] (Ph.D.)
| movement = South Asian Canadian Literature
| notable_works =
| website = 
}}

'''Uma Parameswaran''' (born 1938) is an [[Indian people|Indo]]-Canadian writer, scholar, and literary critic. Her writing includes works of fiction and poetry, as well as plays and nonfiction. She is a retired professor of English at the [[University of Winnipeg]].

==Early life and education==
Parameswaran was born in 1938 in [[Madras]], [[Madras Presidency]], [[British Raj|British India]] (now [[Chennai]], [[Tamil Nadu]], India).<ref name="2007 Gale profile">{{cite news |title=Uma Parameswaran |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1000144287/BIC |access-date=27 September 2022 |work=Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors |date=November 1, 2007|via=Gale}}</ref> She was raised in a [[Tamils|Tamil]] home<ref name="Kumar 2013"/> in [[Jabalpur]], a city in [[Central Provinces and Berar]] (present-day [[Madhya Pradesh]]).<ref name="TMU profile" />

She completed her B.A. at [[Jabalpur University]] and a master's degree in journalism at [[Nagpur University]].<ref name="2007 Gale profile"/> With a [[Fulbright Program|Fulbright]] grant, she completed a master's degree in creative writing at [[Indiana University Bloomington]].<ref name="2007 Gale profile"/><ref name="Thomas 2009"/> In 1972, she completed a doctorate in English at [[Michigan State University]].<ref name="2007 Gale profile"/><ref name="Thomas 2009">{{cite web |last1=Thomas |first1=Sonja Maria |title=Uma Parameswaran |url=https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/166297/Parameswaran,%20Uma.pdf |website=Voices from the Gaps |publisher=University of Minnesota |access-date=27 September 2022 |date=2009}}</ref>

==Career==
Parameswaran has written fiction, poetry, drama and literary criticism.<ref name="Rao 2002">{{cite journal |last1=Rao |first1=Susheela N. |title=Uma Parameswaran: What Was Always Hers / The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice |journal=[[World Literature Today]] |date=Winter 2002 |volume=76 |issue=1 |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A86170556/BIC |access-date=27 September 2022|via=Gale}}</ref> Her poetry includes the 1973 collection ''Cyclic Hope, Cyclic Pain'', published by the [[Writers Workshop (publisher)|Writers Workshop]] in Calcutta, the 1988 collection ''Trishanku'', and the 2002 collection ''Sisters at the Well''.<ref name="Perry 2003">{{cite journal |last1=Perry |first1=John Oliver |title=Uma Parameswaran. Sisters at the Well |journal=[[World Literature Today]] |date=April 2003 |volume=77 |issue=1 |doi=10.2307/40157831 |jstor=40157831 |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A107397413/BIC |access-date=27 September 2022|via=Gale|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

She wrote the play ''Sons Must Die'' in 1962, and her other plays include ''Meera'' (1971), ''Sita's Promise'' (1981), ''Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees'' (1987) and ''Dear Deedi, My Sister'' (1989), which were collected in ''Sons Must Die and Other Plays'' in 1998 as part of the South Asian Canadian Literature Series (SACLIT) that Parameswaran created and edited.<ref name="Thomas 2009" /><ref>{{cite journal|first=Susheela N. |last1=Rao |title=Sons Must Die and Other Plays |journal=[[World Literature Today]] |date=Spring 1999 |volume=73 |issue=2 |doi=10.2307/40154771 |jstor=40154771 |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A55074352/BIC |access-date=27 September 2022|via=Gale|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Uma Parameswaran's Series on South Asian Canadian Literature (SACLIT) |url=https://ion.uwinnipeg.ca/~parmswrn/saclit.html |website=Uma Parameswaran |publisher=[[University of Winnipeg]] |access-date=29 September 2022}}</ref>

''What Was Always Hers'', published in 1999, was her first collection of prose fiction, consisting of four short stories and a novella.<ref name="Keahey 2000">{{cite journal |last1=Keahey |first1=Debbie |title=What Was Always Hers by Uma Parameswaran |journal=[[Herizons]] |date=Summer 2000 |volume=14 |issue=1|id={{ProQuest| }}}}</ref> In 2001, her novella ''The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice'' was published.<ref name="Rao 2002"/> She has also written three novels: ''Mangoes on the Maple Tree'', published in 2002,<ref name="Gerein 2003">{{cite journal |last1=Gerein |first1=James |title=Mangoes on the Maple Tree |journal=[[World Literature Today]] |date=July 2003 |volume=77 |issue=2 |page=91|doi=10.2307/40158030 |jstor=40158030 }}</ref> ''Cycle of the Moon'', published in 2010,<ref name="Johnston 2010">{{cite news |last1=Johnston |first1=Faith |title=Convincing novel has many set pieces that are pitch perfect |work=[[Winnipeg Free Press]] |date=27 November 2010|id={{ProQuest| }}}}</ref> and ''Maru and the Maple Leaf'', published in 2016.<ref name="Ghai 2019" />

Her work includes biographies of [[CV Raman]]<ref name="Shoba 2011">{{cite news |last1=Shoba |first1=V |title=Raman Effect Minimal |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/web/raman-effect-minimal/ |access-date=27 September 2022 |work=[[The Indian Express]] |date=December 3, 2011}}</ref> and his wife, Lady [[Lokosundarai Raman]].<ref name="Ravi 2014">{{cite news |last1=Ravi |first1=Bhama Devi |title=The Raman wife effect: lively recollections |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/the-raman-wife-effect-lively-recollections/article6234660.ece |access-date=27 September 2022 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=July 21, 2014}}</ref>

She was also a professor of English at the [[University of Winnipeg]].<ref name="Thomas 2009" />

==Critical reception==
===Fiction===
In a review of the collection ''What Was Always Hers'', Debbie Keahey writes for ''[[Herizons]]'', "Parameswaran's writing is at its strongest in describing women's relationships with their children and spouses, and the combination of tenderness and misunderstanding often involved."<ref name="Keahey 2000" /> In a review for ''[[World Literature Today]]'', James Gerein describes the novel ''Mangoes on the Maple Tree'' as "largely a success, for it gives us a glimpse into the lives of a recent immigrant family and how they feel about their new home as well as the tensions among themselves."<ref name="Gerein 2003" /> In a review of the novel ''Maru and the Maple Leaf'', Nilambri Ghai writes in ''Montreal Serai'', "Parameswaran is very skilled in exploring centuries of relationships and bringing them together to a place in time that transcends a linear, chronological sequence of events."<ref name="Ghai 2019">{{cite news |last1=Ghai |first1=Nilambri |title=A review of Maru and the Maple Leaf |url=https://montrealserai.com/article/a-review-of-maru-and-the-maple-leaf/ |access-date=29 September 2022 |work=Montreal Serai |date=February 25, 2019}}</ref>

Susheela Rao writes in ''World Literature Today'' that ''The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice'' "is the common tale of an Indian girl, naive and accustomed to living in a joint family, now exposed to a foreign culture and environment" and in the novella, "Parameswaran skillfully depicts the condition of such women."<ref name="Rao 2002" /> In ''[[Canadian Literature (journal)|Canadian Literature]]'', Kuldip Gill writes, "Adaptation to a new country doesn't just produce a hybrid life, but rather a [[double consciousness]], and a very deeply felt change of identity. Parameswaran could have shown us more depth in the crisis felt by [the protagonist] Namita, caught in an unjust world."<ref name="Gill 2005">{{cite journal|url=https://canlit.ca/article/three-narrative-strains/ |last1=Gill |first1=Kuldip |title=Three Narrative Strains |journal=[[Canadian Literature (journal)|Canadian Literature]] |date=Autumn 2005 |issue=186 |pages=158–160|access-date=30 September 2022}}</ref> Wendy Robbins writes in ''Herizons'' that ''The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice'' "belongs to the genres of engagé literature, roman à thèse and feminist fiction" and "Parameswaran demonstrates that new social paradigms are possible and reminds us that feminists, despite the hype, have an extraordinary sense of humour."<ref name="Robbins 2002">{{cite journal |last1=Robbins |first1=Wendy |title=The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice by Uma Parameswaran |journal=[[Herizons]] |date=Summer 2002 |volume=16 |issue=1|id={{ProQuest| }}}}</ref>

===Poetry===
In a review of the poetry collection ''Sisters at the Well'', John Oliver Perry writes in ''[[World Literature Today]]'', "As in ''Trishanku'', the main persona here clearly presents experiences, attitudes, and issues of a civically and academically active Indian-born woman happily married to an Indian man, attempting to accommodate to Canadian – more specifically Manitoban – life culturally and climatically, and raising their child to have some honest feelings like their own about India and about their probably always less than fully accepted, racially marked place in Canadian multicultural society."<ref name="Perry 2003" /> In ''Negotiation of Home and Homelessness: The Immigrant in Uma Parameswaran's Poetry'' in the ''South Asian Review'', Minakshi Kaushik writes, "Against theories that see immigration as an eagerness to get assimilated, Paramswaran's poetry develops immigration as an experience that undergoes painful phases of nostalgia, alienation from Canadian culture, and the desire for grounding the self as subject in the erstwhile unfamiliar soil."<ref name="Kaushik 2016">{{cite journal |last1=Kaushik |first1=Minakshi |title=Negotiation of Home and Homelessness: The Immigrant in Uma Parameswaran's Poetry |journal=South Asian Review |date=2016 |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=117–130 |doi=10.1080/02759527.2016.11933048 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02759527.2016.11933048 |access-date=30 September 2022 |publisher=Taylor & Francis|s2cid=149391454 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

===Plays===
In a review of ''Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees'' for ''[[Canadian Literature (journal)|Canadian Literature]]'' Alan Filewood writes, "When first published in 1987 (some years in fact after it was written), Parameswaran's play was a groundbreaking and effective dramatic slice of life about an immigrant family in Winnipeg [...] it was the emergence of South Asian voices in Canadian drama that was significant. The canon shifted."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Filewood |first1=Alan |title=Factored Dramaturgies |journal=[[Canadian Literature (journal)|Canadian Literature]] |date=Summer 2010 |issue=205 |pages=127–129 |url=https://canlit.ca/article/factored-dramaturgies/ |access-date=30 September 2022}}</ref> In a review of ''Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees'' for ''Canadian Review of Materials'', Harriet Zaidman writes, "Despite the specific references the characters make to India and their heritage, plus some references to dated events and expressions that are no longer in common usage, the challenges these characters face apply to every group that has immigrated to this country in the past and at the present time" and that the play "would be an effective catalyst for discussion in today's high schools which are full of youth from every continent."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zaidman |first1=Harriet |title=Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees |journal=Canadian Review of Materials |date=October 26, 2007 |volume=14 |issue=5|id={{ProQuest| }}}}</ref>

In a ''Language in India'' review, Lidwina. E. Pereira describes ''Sita's Promise'' as "a play which links epic India with modern Canada through myth and dance" and "elucidates upon the celebration of Indian art traditions and familiarizing its richness to the children born in Canada and other Canadians."<ref name="Pereira 2019">{{cite journal |last1=Pereira |first1=Lidwina. E. |title=Between Two Cultures: Uma Parameswaran's Sita's Promise |journal=Language in India |date=March 2019 |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=82–85 |issn=1930-2940}}</ref> According to R. Vedavalli, in ''Critical Essays on Canadian Literature'', "The promise of Sita, "I through my people, shall surely come again and we shall build our temple and sing our songs with all the children to all the different countries who make this their home" symbolizes Uma Parameswaran's vision of Canada, as a mosaic of cultures."<ref>{{cite book |author1=R. Vedavalli |editor1-last=Balachandran |editor1-first=K. |title=Critical Essays on Canadian Literature |date=December 31, 2002 |publisher=Sarup & Sons |isbn=9788176253741 |pages=131–138 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TB_-DMAdMPQC |access-date=30 August 2022 |chapter=Sending Roots: A Study of Uma Parameswaran's Sita's Promise and Rootless but Green are the Boulevard Trees}}</ref>

===Nonfiction===
In a review of ''Kamala Markandaya'', B. Hariharan writes in ''[[World Literature Today]]'', "In an astute manner, the critic speaks of three distinct kinds of readers and their readings of Markandaya: Indians who have settled abroad, Indians living in India, and non-Indians. The division appears to be too neat, but she sticks to her "metacriticism," which is quite illuminating."<ref name="Hariharan 2000">{{cite journal |last1=Hariharan |first1=B. |title=Kamala Markandaya |journal=[[World Literature Today]] |date=Summer 2000 |volume=74 |issue=3 |doi=10.2307/40155863 |jstor=40155863 |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A68364362/BIC |access-date=27 September 2022|via=Gale|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In a review of ''Quilting a New Canon: Stitching Women's Words'' in the ''[[NWSA Journal]]'', Shelley Lucas writes of the essay collection edited and introduced by Parameswaran that "each of the essays represents at least one of the three types of processes Parameswaran deems necessary for revising a canon: retrieving, recording, and re-reading" and the book offers "a sample of how feminists are interacting with communities, and, as a result, are revising the canons of other disciplines."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lucas |first1=Shelley |title=Reviewed Works: Quilting a New Canon: Stitching Women's Words by Uma Parameswaran; Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism by Robyn R. Warhol, Diane Price Herndl |journal=[[NWSA Journal]] |date=Summer 1999 |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=199–201 |jstor=4316668 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316668 |access-date=30 August 2022}}</ref>

==Selected works==
===Fiction, poetry, and plays===
* ''Cyclic Hope, Cyclic Pain'', [[Writers Workshop (publisher)|Writers Workshop]] (Calcutta, India), 1973. {{OCLC|1529139}}
* ''Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees'', TSAR (Toronto, Canada), 1987, {{ISBN|9780920661031}}, 2007, {{ISBN|9781894770354}}.
* ''Trishanku'', TSAR (Toronto, Canada), 1988, {{ISBN|9780920661048}}.
* ''The Door I Shut Behind Me: Selected Fiction, Poetry and Drama'', Affiliated East-West Press (Madras, India), 1990, {{ISBN|9788185336350}}, (includes "The Door I Shut Behind Me"; "Trishanku"; "Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees")
* (Editor) ''SACLIT: An Introduction to South Asian-Canadian Literature''. EastWest Books, (Madras, India), 1996.
* ''SACLIT Drama: Plays by South Asian Canadians'', IBH Prakashana (Bangalore, India), 1996, {{OCLC|37580056}}, (includes "Meera"; "Sita's Promise"; "Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees").
* ''Sons Must Die and Other Plays'', Prestige Books ([[New Delhi]], India), 1998, {{ISBN|9788175510203}}, (includes "Sons Must Die"; "Meera"; "Sita's Promise"; "Dear Deedi, my Sister"; "Rootless But Green Are the Boulevard Trees").
* ''Trishanku and Other Writings'', Prestige Books (New Delhi, India), 1998.
* ''What Was Always Hers'', Broken Jaw Press (Fredericton, Canada), 1999, {{ISBN|9781896647128}}.
* ''The Sweet Smell of Mother's Milk-Wet Bodice'', Broken Jaw Press (Fredericton, Canada), 2001, {{ISBN|9781896647722}}, 2006, {{ISBN|9780973382174}}.
* ''Mangoes on the Maple Tree'', Broken Jaw Press (Fredericton, Canada), 2002, {{ISBN|9781896647791}}.
* ''Sisters at the Well'', Indialog (New Delhi, India), 2002. {{ISBN|9788187981145}}
* ''Sons Must Die'', Alexander Street Press (Alexandria, United States), 2003, {{OCLC|137351205}}.
* ''Sita's Promise'', Alexander Street Press (Alexandria, United States), 2004, {{OCLC|181089504}}.
* ''Riding High with Krishna and a Baseball Bat'', iUniverse (Lincoln, NE), 2006.
* ''The Forever Banyan Tree'', Larkuma (Winnipeg, Canada), 2007.
* ''Fighter Pilots Never Die'', Larkuma (Winnipeg, Canada), 2007.
* ''A Cycle of the Moon: a novel'', [[TSAR Publications]], (Toronto, Canada), 2010, {{ISBN|9781894770620}}.
* ''Maru and the Maple Leaf'', Larkuma (Winnipeg, Canada), 2016

===Nonfiction===
* ''A Study of Representative Indo-English Novelists'', Vikas Publishing House (New Delhi, India), 1976, {{ISBN|9780706904109}}.
* (Editor) ''The Commonwealth in Canada: Proceedings of the Second Triennial Conference of CACLALS'', [[University of Winnipeg]], 1–4 October 1981, [[Writers Workshop (publisher)|Writers Workshop]] (Calcutta, India), 1983.
* ''The Perforated Sheet: Essays on Salman Rushdie's Art'', Affiliated East-West Press (New Delhi, India), 1988, {{ISBN|9788185095936}}.
* (Editor) ''Quilting a New Canon: Stitching Women's Words'', Sister Vision (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996, {{ISBN|9781896705064}}.
* ''Kamala Markandaya'', Rawat Publications (Jaipur, India), 2000, {{OCLC|43853159}}.
* ''Salman Rushdie's Early Fiction'', Rawat Publications (Jaipur, India), 2007, {{ISBN|9788131600726}}
* ''Writing the Diaspora: Essays on Cul[t]ure and Identity'', Rawat Publications (Jaipur, India), 2007. {{ISBN|9788131600733}}

==Honors and awards==
* 2000 Canadian Authors' Association Jubilee Award for short fiction (''What Was Always Hers'')<ref name="TMU profile">{{cite web |title=Uma Parameswaran |url=https://library.torontomu.ca/asianheritage/authors/parameswaran/ |website=Asian Heritage in Canada |publisher=Toronto Metropolitan University Libraries |access-date=27 September 2022}}</ref>
* 2010 nomination for Canadian Book of the Year award (''A Cycle of the Moon'')<ref name="Kumar 2013">{{cite news |last1=Kumar |first1=Anu |title=So far, yet so near |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/so-far-yet-so-near/article4679641.ece |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=May 4, 2013}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Parameswaran moved to [[Winnipeg]] in 1966, after she married.<ref name="Kumar 2013"/><ref name="TMU profile" /> She has one daughter.<ref name="2007 Gale profile" />

Parameswaran is related to both [[C. V. Raman|CV Raman]]<ref name="Shoba 2011"/> and [[Subramaniam Chandrasekhar]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://ion.uwinnipeg.ca/~parmswrn/ Uma Parameswaran, Professor of English, University of Winnipeg] (University of Winnipeg, 17 March 2004)

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parameswaran, Uma}}
[[Category:1938 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century Canadian women writers]]
[[Category:21st-century Canadian women writers]]
[[Category:Canadian people of Tamil descent]]
[[Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni]]
[[Category:Michigan State University alumni]]
[[Category:Canadian women poets]]
[[Category:Canadian women short story writers]]
[[Category:Canadian women novelists]]
[[Category:Canadian women academics]]
[[Category:Academic staff of University of Winnipeg]]
[[Category:Poets from Manitoba]]

Uma Parameswaran - Revision history

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