Leaving places and returning to them in memory is the theme of Alexander's autobiography and memoir Fault Lines which was published in 1993. Fault Lines is the term used by geologists to describe cracks in the earth - Alexander uses it to visualise the uprooting she has faced all her life:
"Right from when I was very young and lived in Allahabad I remember seeing cracks in the earth which were left there in the aftermath of a very little earthquake, and I had to jump over them. And I've always felt that because of all the movement and these migrations I don't have a simple shining geography and how can you be a writer if you just don't have one loved place? And so I thought, well, I'm really a writer of faults, someone whose life has been broken up into many pieces and that's all right- that's also a life. So I guess that's why I called it Fault Lines - to convey the broken up pieces of my geography."
The Bird's Bright Ring (poems) (1976),Calcutta: Writer's Workshop Fault Lines: A Memoir (1993), The Feminist Press Manhattan Music (1997), Mercury House
a woman cracked by multiple migrations
