SALTAF 2009
“The Hemingses of Monticello”
Gordon Reed writes & teaches law
She felt that history should be able to record both Jefferson’s enormous contributions, and the lives and voices of the blacks who were part of his life and that society.
-New York Law School web site
I heard about the author of this book, Annette Gordon-Reed, on the radio last year, and recently heard her speak on Book TV (CSPAN). It took her 10 years to research/write The Hemingses of Monticello, her latest book. Not only is she a bestselling author/historian, she teaches law at NYU. Gordon-Reed also co-wrote Vernon Jordan’s memoir, Vernon Can Read!
Gordon-Reed, who grew up in Texas (“where race was always a factor”), became interested in Thomas Jefferson as a young girl. In the late 1970s, a book came out that revealed the nature of Jefferson’s long-term relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. In their teens, Sally and her older brother (James) traveled to France with Jefferson. Since Jefferson was fond of fine food, he had James trained as a professional chef in Paris. Interestingly, the Hemings siblings were technically free during this time in France; they earned wages and could move around to some extent.
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
This book also won the Pulitzer Prize in History.
When DNA evidence corroborated the long-standing rumor of a relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, the news made headlines around the world. It should not have. What makes the Jefferson-Hemings story noteworthy is the family connection they shared. Sally was not just an enslaved woman; she was the half-sister of Jefferson’s dead wife.
-Slate.com
Gordon-Reed notes that several of the Hemingses were literate. This book is based partly on information gleaned from letters, including those between Jefferson and James Hemings.
Gordon-Reed's first book
Books I just heard about!
In Hanuman’s Hands – Cheeni Rao
A memoir of addiction and recovery by an American desi, Srinivas Cheeni Rao. He is the son of immigrants from India to Chicago; but the idea of Indian culture his parents brought from 1960s India “did not translate well to the US.” Rao admits that his parents provided him with “the best of everything,” but he turned to violence/arson, drugs, and even dealing.
Dropping out of (an elite New England) university, Rao descends to the streets. He cuts himself off from contact with family and friends. Stories and visions of Hanuman help him during his painful recovery. Rao, who believes that Hanuman saved his life, returned to college and graduated from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.
More from the publisher:
http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/28037/Cheeni_Rao/index.aspx
The author speaks about his life/book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTzYHwK8wlA
Like a Diamond in the Sky – Shazia Omar
This is a new novel (released in August) by a young Bangladeshi woman. (It is available in India now.) The main character (a bright young man from an upper-middle class family) struggles with heroine addiction, as well as daily life in modern Dhaka (where glaring inequality, political unstability, and youthful disillusionment are found around every corner).
About the book:
http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/Bookdetail.aspx?bookId=3640
Shazia Omar on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shazia-Omar/128483243893
The Wish Maker – Ali Sethi
I think by and large people in Pakistan are not oriented toward the West. But that doesn’t mean they are oriented toward the Taliban instead. People may use Western technology and prefer to obtain Western degrees whenever they can, and they may even watch American TV and listen to American songs, but the social infrastructure of Pakistan is still the one that was set up by the military (with Saudi and American funding) in the 1980s, encouraging a socially conservative Muslim identity. We have more outlets now for expression (more radio and TV channels, for example) but the beliefs people have are still the ones they were given all those years ago.
-Ali Sethi, when asked about who is gaining the people’s sympathies in modern-day Pakistan, extremists or the West
This is the first novel by 25 y.o. Ali Sethi (who attended university in the US); it focuses on two middle-class cousins (a boy and girl) growing up in 1990s Lahore, Pakistan. They experience family life (run by strong women), American TV, Bollywood, and political unrest. Eventually, the cousins have to go their separate ways because of life’s circumstances. Aside from the narrator, the story is told mainly from the perspective of women.
The author’s official web site:
I’m currently reading…
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
Shamsie’s complex fifth novel, spanning the years between August 1945 and September 2001, is a story of two inextricably connected and politically impacted families. Berliner Konrad Weiss and Hiroko Tanaka, his translator, meet in Nagasaki and plan to marry. But after he is incinerated by the bomb and she is left permanently scarred, Hiroko journeys to Delhi, home of Konrad’s half-sister, Elizabeth Burton, and her British husband, James. Hiroko bonds with James’ assistant, Sajjad. With Partition between India and Pakistan looming, the Burtons return to England, where their son Henry is in boarding school. Hiroko and Sajjad marry, but they’re not allowed back into India, since Sajjad is a Muslim who “chose to leave.” Shamsie takes up their story 35 years later in Karachi, where they have one son, Raza, after bomb-related miscarriages. Henry appears, searching for his past, and offers to assist with Raza’s education; by 2001, they’re working together for the CIA in the U.S. Shamsie offers a moving look at the “complicated shared history” of these two families, an increasingly common facet of globalization.
-Written by Deborah Donovan of Booklist
About Kamila Shamsie (a Pakistani novelist/journalist based in London):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamila_Shamsie
A video interview with the author:
“Family Planning” by Karan Mahajan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmA0YGdwnEE
Interview w/ the author at Sepia Mutiny blog:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005757.html
The author’s official web site:
“Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton
I recently listened to this short novel on iTunes under Lit2Go, a free podcast from the University of South Florida. The reader spoke very clearly, used different accents/tones for requisite characters, and put feeling into her work. Ethan Frome is a haunting story about a poor, quiet, and lonely farmer who gets a short glimpse at happiness. There is a 1993 film based on this story starring Liam Neeson.
The narrator of the story (a young man who has gotten a job in Starkfield, MA) wonders what could have happened to the gray, middle-aged man with a “careless powerful look… in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain.” This man is Ethan Frome, “a striking ruin of a man” in his rural town. People look on him and his family as tragic figures. The Frome farm looks desolate, cheerless, and its inhabitants keep distant from their neighbors. However, it was not always this way.
The story of how Ethan became lame unfolds slowly in the novel. We learn that he had dreams and ambitions to become an engineer, but had to leave college to take care of his ailing parents. After his father’s death, Ethan cared for his mother, as well as the family farm. There was only one relative available to help w/ these tasks- his cousin Zenobia (called Zeena), who came from another town. She was older than Ethan, came from a good family, and had some education. Ethan was so grateful to have someone to talk to, as his once chatty mother had become nearly silent in her illness. When his mother finally died, Ethan hastily married Zeena because he feared loneliness.
Though Zeena was talkative and hardworking when Ethan’s mother was ill, she eventually succumbed to her own “troubles.” She became pale, thin, and whiny. After a few years, a young cousin of Zeena’s, Mattie Silver, came to help on the Frome farm. (She had no where else to go.) But Mattie wasn’t one for hard work, being petite and delicate.
Ethan didn’t mind picking up the slack around the house, b/c he enjoyed having Mattie around. She had a pretty face, dark soft hair, and a sweet temper. After she had lived w/ Ethan and Zeena for one year, a young man in the town, Dennis Edy (the shopkeeper’s son), began paying attention toward Mattie. Ethan felt jealous of the (little) time Mattie spent w/ Dennis and the other young people in town. The presence of Mattie in his life made everything else beareable.
Slowly, you realize that Ethan is deeply in love w/ Mattie. But what can he do about it? And how does Mattie feel about him? Wharton uses simple, clear language befitting the characters in this book. She describes the natural environment using beautiful metaphors and similes. But what struck me the most was the way she described the thoughts and feelings of Ethan. You’ll get involved in his story and feel for his predicament.
Related Links:
Vijay Prashad: “The Darker Nations”
Vijay Prashad at Busboys & Poets (14th & V, DC); he was inspired to write this book after attending The World Conference Against Racism.
The Third World was a project, not a place. That’s the premise of Vijay Prashad’s newest book, a fascinating reconstruction of the movement of the world’s poor countries to establish an alternative global order during the era of the Cold War.
I recently read “Moth Smoke” by Mohsin Hamid
I read this quick-moving novel earlier this month. It’s easy to read, has some VERY colorful characters, and thought-provoking events. My younger brother (in college) even thought it looked interesting! I think he may read it, too.
I saw the author, Mohsin Hamid, in 2007 at a Barnes & Noble event in Union Square in NYC. Hamid is short, lightly buit, dresses like an academic, and has a an interesting accent (since he has lived/worked in Pakistan, US, and Britain). He spoke for a while and signed copies of his 2nd novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (TRF). I got a hardcover copy b/c he was a GREAT speaker.
Mohsin Hamid
Moth Smoke (MS) is Hamid’s debut novel, but it wasn’t as popular as TRF. It was reissued recently b/c he’s getting a LOT of press coverage. (One of the book clubs under DC Meetup read the book in May!) Unlike the main character in TRF, the troubled young man in MS (Daru, age 28) didn’t go to an Ivy or work in NYC. But his best friend (Ozi) did. Ozi was from a very wealthy, well-connected family; Daru was middle-class.
Daru was smarter than MANY of his ”batch” (boys from his grad yr in HS), but he had to stay in Karachi for college. He also distinguished himself as a boxer, thanks in part to his uncle. Daru and Ozi grew up almost like brothers b/c Daru’s father saved the life of Ozi’s father during the war between Pakistan and Bangladesh. Daru’s own dad died in a prison in Bangladesh. Ozi’s father provided Daru w/ guidance, kindness, and money (when needed).
At 18, Ozi went off to the US to study (the elite kids KNEW they’d either go to England or US). He met a beautiful, ambitious, Pakistani young lady named Mumtaz. They gave up their wild partying ways, fell in love, and married rather young. The pair lived/worked for a few yrs in NYC. Ozi and Mumtaz missed home, so they went back to Karachi. Daru feels a strong connection to Mumtaz from their first meeting (like moths feels towards flames).
We meet Daru as he gets fired from his corporate job. But Ozi seems changed, seeking out new friends. Eventually, Daru falls into hard drugs and crime. But what led this to happen? Are (some of) the actions he takes understandable? Read and judge for yourself!
I saw these at Kramerbooks last month…
FICTION BOOKS:
The Age of Shiva
The second novel from Manil Suri (The Death of Vishnu) follows Meera Sawhney from her unhappy 1950s marriage to aspiring singer Dev Arora through to her own son’s coming-of-age. After an impulsive act forces Meera’s marriage at 17, her complex, controlling father decries her tying herself (and, by extension, her family) to the provincial, lower-class Aroras. Meera soon finds herself pulled in different directions by her in-laws’ religious orthodoxy, her father’s progressivism (which doesn’t run deep), her husband’s self-pitying alcoholism and her own resentment. She finds salvation in the birth of a son, Ashvin; mother love, which Suri describes in intensely physical terms, gives her life passion and purpose, and overwhelms her adult relationships. But as India modernizes, Meera senses that Ashvin, and she herself, must live their own lives. Suri renders Meera’s perspective marvelously, especially in small particulars (such as Meera’s deliberations around the cutting of Ashvin’s hair) and in the perils and conflicts Meera faces in her relationships with men. He also takes a close look at Hindu practices and charts the rise of religious nationalism in the years following Gandhi’s death. Suri’s vivid portrait of a woman in post-independence India engages timeless themes of self-determination.
- From Publishers Weekly
Manil Suri came to the US as a college student; he is a citizen of India and the US. He is a tenured professor in Mathematics at University of Maryland Baltimore County; Suri has a PhD from Carnegie Mellon. The author lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Manil Suri’s official web site:
http://www.manilsuri.com/index.htm
The author reads from the book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB-vFrmQ7mw
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
This is the debut novel from award-winning Ethiopian-American Dinaw Mengestu (barely into his thirties). He came to the US w/ his parents are a toddler. He was raised in suburban Chicago. Mengestu has a BA from Georgetown and an MFA from Columbia; he currently lives in Brooklyn.
Barely suppressed despair and black wit infuse this beautifully observed debut from Ethiopian émigré Mengestu. Set over eight months in a gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood in the 1970s, it captures an uptick in Ethiopian grocery store owner Sepha Stephanos’s long-deferred hopes, as Judith, a white academic, fixes up the four-story house next to his apartment building, treats him to dinner and lets him steal a kiss. Just as unexpected is Sepha’s friendship with Judith’s biracial 11-year-old daughter, Naomi (one of the book’s most vivid characters), over a copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Mengestu adds chiaroscuro with the story of Stephanos’s 17-year exile from his family and country following his father’s murder by revolutionary soldiers. After long days in the dusty, barely profitable shop, Sepha’s two friends, Joseph from Congo and Kenneth from Kenya, joke with Sepha about African dictators and gently mock his romantic aspirations, while the neighborhood’s loaded racial politics hang over Sepha and Judith’s burgeoning relationship like a sword of Damocles.
-An excerpt from Publishers Weekly
Dinaw Mengestu reads from the book:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18932579
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvWtGC6UEBM
NONFICTION BOOKS:
My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me
In her moving debut memoir, a young journalist recounts her time as a translator for the detainees of notorious Guantánamo Bay prison. As a law student and American-born daughter of Pashtun (ethnic Afghan) immigrants, Khan seeks a translator position at one of the private law firms that represent the Guantanamo inmates, some of whom spend years in prison before offered a “fair” trial-or even access to counsel. Shockingly, many of the detainees Khan encounters are average citizens placed in prison due to unfortunate circumstances, the blind aggression of modern anti-terror tactics and the incompetence of its enforcers; one detainee, elderly stroke patient Nusrat, was detained after questioning the authorities regarding the arrest of his son (accused of having ties with al-Qaeda). Revealing near-universal abuse, both mental and physical, inflicted on the prisoners, Khan’s account is plenty powerful-and that’s before she travels alone to war-torn Afghanistan in order to prove her clients’ innocence. Khan also divulges her poignant reunions with several prisoners following their release, a bittersweet breath of fresh air amid a nightmarish, eye-opening and important account.
- From Publishers Weekly
The author’s official web site: http://www.mahvishkhan.com/
Marrying Anita
In 2005, young Indian-American journalist Anita Jain wrote an article (Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than Craigslist?) in New York Magazine that caused a lot of discussion. Her Indian-born parents were worried that Anita was still single in her 30s, though she was a successful and independent-minded journalist. Anita, who was tired of bad dates, decided to take a chance on the arranged dating process (with some help from her dad- he helped her sort through the biodatas). Eventually she traveled to India in search of her Mr. Right. But the old country wasn’t always as ”simple” and “traditional” as Anita expected!
Marrying Anita follows Anita Jain, a 30-something New Yorker frustrated with Western dating norms, on her journey to Delhi to find a husband using somewhat more traditional methods.
There, in Delhi, she discovers a vibrant cosmopolitan New India, where more than half the country is below 30. The book chronicles her life in this New India, where instead of a marriage arranged by aunties, she finds herself among a generation that enjoys bar-hopping not to mention bed-hopping, rock bands and Westernized dating.
She meets people in India who live very traditional lives alongside single and divorced women, gay men and others, who instead of leading marginal existences, are very much part of the rising, prosperous new India.
- An excerpt from the author’s web site: http://anitajain.net/
A book review and Q & A with Anita Jain:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005327.html
From a reading by Jhumpa Lahiri…
Books are my religion…and yet I dare to write them.
-Jhumpa Lahiri
Best-selling desi American author, Jhumpa Lahiri, was interviewed recently at The New School by (my novelist friend) Sugi! Sugi’s book is titled Love Marriage; her full name is Vasugi Ganeshananthan (see my list of bogs for more info). Since I was in NYC at the time, I went to the event. Some people in the audience got to ask Ms. Lahiri their questions, too.
There were many SAWCC (South Asian Women’s Collective) members present. I used to go to their monthly meetings; I’m not an artist, but appreciate art.
I learned that Ms. Lahiri is currently reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens. (I picked up a copy just last month- what a cool coincidence!) The author is working on a novel next.
