Beloved Strangers
A Memoir
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
A bright new voice from Bangladesh, in the literary tradition of Reading Lolita in Tehran and Burnt Shadows, on finding home and self.
One of Maria Chaudhuri's early memories growing up in Dhaka was planning to run away with her friend Nadia. Home was not an especially unhappy place, but in Maria's family, joy was ephemeral. With a mother who yearned for the mountains and the solitariness and freedom to pursue her own dreams and career, and a charismatic but distant father who found it difficult to express emotion, they were never able to hold on to happiness for very long.
Maria studied the Holy Book and said her daily prayers, yet struggled to reconcile her inner self with her faith and her family. She dreamed, like her mother, of unstitching the seam of her life. Her neighbor, Bablu, both excited and repulsed Maria by showing her a yellowing pornographic magazine, but Mala, a girl her own age who came to work in their house, with her wise eyes and wicked smile, made Maria dizzy with longing. When she moved to New England to attend college at eighteen Maria faced new opportunities and challenges, including meeting Yameen, a man who lived in Jersey City and wooed her, but was not what he seemed…
From Dhaka to Jersey City, Beloved Strangers is a candid and moving account of growing up and a meditation on why people leave their homes and why they sometimes find it difficult to return. This unforgettable memoir will resonate with anyone carving out a place for herself in the world, straddling two cultures while trying to find a place to belong.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chaudhuri left Bangladesh when she was 18, intent upon pursuing her education in the U.S., and the reader follows willingly. Chaudhuri's deeply intimate and skillfully drawn memoir delves into her search for finding her place in the world whether she's dissecting her not so happy childhood in Bangladesh; attempting to understand God, play music, learn classical Indian dance; or analyzing her unglamorous life in an American city "whose spirit bears no buoyancy." Chaudhuri presents searing portraits of her cool and distant mother and father and their disappointing reactions to her attempts to garner their affections. She charts the dissolution of her misguided first marriage and bittersweet return to Dhaka, the city of her childhood and her family. "Though we both know that we will never live in the Big House as a family, the mere fact that it is there, solid space that encases the vision of a beloved home, provides more comfort than I had ever admitted."
