Using post-Apartheid South Africa as a point from which to reflect on Canada and beyond, Letter Out : Letter In is a poetry collection of social commentary, political-economic analysis, and philosophical meditation. Historic and persisting structures of racism, sexism and economic inequality are explored, but also the nature of gender and ethnic divisions within and among oppressed groups. Moving from critique, Letter Out : Letter In further proposes love as an alternative to the binary of competition/solidarity so prevalent in Western thought. The Sufi notion of love is defined and redefined at recurring moments in the collection, making use of poetic subtlety to offer a new vision in a fractured world. The book is structured in four parts: Letter to South Africa, in which the poet explores her homeland; Letter to Canada, in which she explores her adopted country; Letter to All, in which she attempts to understand the bigger picture of racial and gender issues as well as political ones; and Letter-out : Letter-in, in which she attempts to reconcile all these matters and focus on a positive outcome: love.

Salimah Valiani is a poet, an activist and a researcher. She has lived and worked on four continents, reflecting a history of migration in the recent and far past of her Shia Muslim community. Valiani has published widely in a range of milieux. Her analytical work in social and economic policy has appeared in institutional publications of the various organizations with which she has worked, particularly in Canada, India, and South Africa. Her poems have been published in feminist publications, literary journals, and political magazines. In 2005 her first collection of poetry, breathing for breadth, was published. Her poetry has also appeared in Sarah Husain’s politically-timely anthology, Voices of Resistance – Muslim Women Speak-out on War, Faith and Sexuality.

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