Off The Map

This is a unique exploration of globalisation. Part history, part autobiography, and part fiction, it weaves together the history of the last 300 years of Western imperialism, the author's own story of sexual abuse in the 1950s, and a present-day horseback ride through the recently colonised Chicano world of New Mexico. The author takes us with her as she travels 'off the map' through the ancestral lands of her friend and travelling companion Snowflake Martinez, describing the Chicano people's struggle to survive the onslaught of a globalised world, and the ways in which that struggle has been replicated countless times. In a different voice, she reveals scenes from her childhood, her grandparents adorning themselves with artefacts symbolic of the British Empire, and her medical doctor father raping both her and her brother for twelve years. The political is deeply personal. And hope, according to Glendinning, resides in our creating new maps that chart worlds fashioned by love and respect for community, place and nature.