Meena Alexander has called herself a “woman cracked by multiple migrations.” Born in India, raised in Sudan, educated in England, and currently a resident of New York City, she has drawn on experiences of trauma, exile, conflicting identity, and the customs of four continents to produce eight books of poetry, a memoir, ...

Alexander explores themes of memory, migration, Diaspora and displacement in her diasporic work.

She was appointed Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College in 1999. Some of her best known poetry collections include Illiterate Heart (2002). She also wrote the collection Raw Silk (2004), which includes a set of poems that relate to the September 11 attacks and the time afterwards.