Eunice de Souza Biography
Eunice de Souza is a contemporary Indian English language poet, literary critic and novelist. Among her notable books of poetry is Women in Dutch painting (1988).
Early Life and Education
Eunice de Souza was born and grew up in Pune, in a Goan Catholic family. She studied English literature with an MA from the Marquette University in Wisconsin, and a PhD from the University of Mumbai. She taught English at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, and was Head of the Department until her recent retirement. She was involved in the well known literary festival Ithaka organized at the college.
She has also been involved in theater, both as actress and director. She began writing novels with Dangerlok in 2001. She has also written four children's books.
She hints at an ancestral Portuguese conversion in the poem de Souza Prabhu:
No, I'm not going to
delve deep down and discover
I'm really de Souza Prabhu
even if Prabhu was no fool
and got the best of both worlds.
(Catholic Brahmin!
I can hear his fat chuckle still.)
Aside from poetry and fiction, de Souza has edited numerous anthologies and collections and writes a weekly column for the Mumbai Mirror. She currently lives in Mumbai.
In every Catholic home there's a picture
of Christ holding his bleeding heart
in his hand.
I used to think, ugh.
...
Poems have order, sanity
aesthetic distance from debris.
...
My cousin Elena
is to be married
The formalities
have been completed:
her family history examined
for T.B. and madness
her father declared solvent
her eyes examined for squints
her teeth for cavities
her stools for the possible
non-Brahmin worm.
She's not quite tall enough
and not quite full enough
(children will take care of that)
Her complexion it was decided
would compensate, being just about
the right shade
of rightness
to do justice to
Francisco X. Noronha Prabhu
good son of Mother Church.
...
Keep cats
if you want to learn to cope with
the otherness of lovers.
Otherness is not always neglect -
Cats return to their litter trays
when they need to.
Don't cuss out of the window
at their enemies.
That stare of perpetual surprise
in those great green eyes
will teach you
to die alone.
...
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