Book Launch of Zilka Joseph's Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israeli Woman

On January 3, 2025, the Department of English, Loreto College, Kolkata organised the book launch of Zilka Joseph's Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman. Conducted in a hybrid mode, the event was attended by the UG and PG students of the college, faculty of the Department of English, family members and friends of the author, as well as retired professors of the college and guests.

After the inaugural speech, Sr. Dr. A. Nirmala, Teacher-in-Charge of Loreto College, along with Ms. Zilka Joseph and Dr. Julie Banerjee Mehta, released Ms. Joseph's book, Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman.

Thereafter, Dr. Mehta guided the flow of the conversation. Weaving in Proust, whose words in Remembrance of Things Past remain as metaphors for memory recalled, Ms. Mehta foregrounded the indelible relationship between food and the diasporic person. Ms. Joseph's words underscored how, to the diasporic person, who is ever homeless and always looking for a way to return, food becomes equivalent to family and is intertwined with their history.

Navigating the poetics of the book, the conversation was engulfed by discourses on food, vernacular, and history. Ms. Joseph's evocative verses guided the listeners' minds through the tides of time. Rich in content and structurally experimental, this confluence of the personal and the historical became Ms. Joseph’s way of capturing the existence and journey of her people.

The comments from students and guests brought forth the intertextuality and the narrative of journey present in Ms. Joseph's work. By the end, malida, the sweet dish made for Shabbath, swirled in the audience’s mouths, as did Ms. Joseph's poetry in their minds.