PANJIM: Decades after impoverished Goans first scoured the world, a new book traces some of the most fascinating stories of the Diaspora, scattered across the continents.

Selma Carvalho's 'Into the Diaspora Wilderness' is to be released on August 29 at 11 a.m. at the Ravindra Bhavan, Margao. The London-based author will be down for the launch, which is open to the public.
Widely noticed before its launch, the 282-page book has earned praise both among Goan communities and literary reviewers.
Carvalho's work in digging up and finding personal stories, library archives and interesting photographs to craft the book written in a non-academic, light-reading style has earned favourable compliments, something that gives "the diaspora form and meaning" and a work that makes the "history of Goa richer for it".
Noted litterateur Dr Maria Aurora Couto described it as "a sensitive and courageous exploration of the Goan Diaspora across centuries" and "the voice of an insider, writing with elegance, poise and grace."
Interestingly, Carvalho's focuses on Goan migration to the English-speaking world - East Africa, the Gulf, UK and North America.
She writes: "Unlike the European explorer who was funded by scientific societies, governments or benevolent benefactors, the Goan's foray into new lands was driven by sheer necessity and his own gumption."
Hailing from Nuvem, Salcette the author argues that "the genesis of the wider Diaspora belongs to that much caricatured and ignored Goan, the ‘tarvotti’, or seaman."
Carvalho's story begins with her own family story that of her mother sailing on S S Dwarka from Mumbai to the Arabian Gulf in 1968.
It goes on to paint a word picture of episodes that touched the lives of overseas Goans, like the sinking of the M V Dara in Dubai, building up of community institutions there, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, early days in Uganda, the mass expulsion of Goans from Malawi over a trivial incident, anti-colonial campaigners in London, and recent migration to Swindon and the US.
Spending long hours at the British Library, the London-based author whose husband Savio is an IT techie in the UK dug up some unusual realities about the British attitude to colonial Goa, race relations, and even the English explorer Richard Burton's Goan assistants.
Its launch at a recent London community event was well received, and its publishers called it a book of relevance to the Goan Diaspora, whose role is only belatedly being adequately recognised back home. The launch is in association with the Ravindra Bhavan, Margao.