Diaspora

Flimsy personalities and plot

~ The Village Bride of Beverley Hills, by Kavita Daswani ~ The Village Bride of Beverly Hills operates on the pleasant conceit that in the cut-throat world of Hollywood journalism, nice girls finish first. And more, even a girl whose...

3 January 2019
Susan

Diaspora Fiction South Asian

Identity, Choices and Friendship

~ Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, by Meera Syal ~ Is there anything Meera Syal can’t do? She wrote and starred in a phenomenally successful TV serial. She writes screenplays for plays and film. She acts and sings....

2 January 2019
Susan

Diaspora Nonfiction South Asian

Community Secrets

~ Breaking the Silence: Domestic Violence in the South Asian American Community. Edited by Sandhya Nankani ~ Domestic violence is a dirty secret in the South Asian-American community but in the last decade or so it has become less hidden....

31 December 2018
Susan

Diaspora Fiction South Asian

Duty vs. individualism in a Muslim-American family

~ The Writing on my Forehead, by Nafisa Haji ~ Haji’s first novel has a beautifully evocative title; the first chapter tells of the protagonist’s childhood memories of her mother tracing Quranic verses on her forehead with a finger, to...

19 December 2018
Lisa

Diaspora Fiction

Culture Clash Cliches

~ The Bride Wore Red, by Robbie Clipper Sethi ~ The author is an American woman who married a Sikh man, and the book is a collection of short stories about American women who married Sikh men. Most first-time authors...