I. Fault Lines

When the time came for her to learn, all the knowledge from her past lives returned to her, as wild geese in autumn to the Ganga River.

Kalidasa, Kumarasambhava 1:30

To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks