Diaspora literature is extremely intriguing for its portrayal of the experience of adapting to new countries, as well as new societies, cultures and languages. The books in this list stand out because of the way in which women writers have attempted to capture the diasporic experiences of the woman in particular. The dissonance between their traditions and their need to assimilate in a seemingly ‘modern’ society has led to a kaleidoscope of experiences. The women writers of the books in this list have sought to capture the experience and the story of the immigrant or migrant woman, and the themes of love, loss, identity, family, sisterhood and gender discrimination they’ve faced in their home and/or host land.
01
Disoriental
Negar Djavadi, Tina Kover (Tr.)
Disoriental tells the story of Kimiâ Sadr who, as a 10-year-old, flees from Iran with her mother and sisters to join her father in France. Now 25, her life is consumed by the stories of her ancestors and her own memories. These include generations of Sadrs, her great-grandfather and his harem of 52 wives, and her own parents who are opponents to each new Iranian regime. Kimiâ’s memories and her familial history are punctuated with Iranian history, politics and culture, as she and her family move and adapt to different cultures and countries in this book. As Kimiâ moves from Paris to Brussels and then Berlin in an attempt to find an escape through the world of punk, it is her ‘disorientalisation’ and struggle to find consonance between her life as a punk-rock aficionado and family traditions that lend the story its soul.
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02
Funny In Farsi: A Memoir Of Growing Up Iranian In America
Firoozeh Dumas
In 1972, seven-year-old Firoozeh Dumas and her family move from Iran to Southern California, just before the Iranian Revolution. This memoir describes their move with no prior knowledge of the U.S.A. and Firoozeh’s life over the next several decades. Funny In Farsi is a heart-warming account of her adjustment to a different culture, her interactions with her extended family who also moved to the U.S.A., her engineer father who is a dreamer, her elegant mother who never completely mastered the English language, and the multiple identities Firoozeh undertakes to fit into various places and settings. Packed with laughter and learnt lessons, this is a story of discovery, identity and family love that promises to be an unforgettable and charming read.
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03
Olive Witch: A Memoir
Abeer Y. Hoque
Born in Bangladesh, Abeer Hoque is raised in Nigeria in the 1970s till she turns 13. She then moves to Pittsburgh with her family where she finds it difficult to find her identity as a young American woman. She is eventually committed to a psychiatric ward when the academic pressure, spiralling depression and her increasing disassociation with her family make her life in a new country unbearable. Her move to her homeland Bangladesh proves to be equally challenging, causing Hoque to question whether she can ever truly find home. Each chapter begins with a verse and the temperature, giving this honest memoir a lyrical quality as the author addresses the psychological impact of moving to another country.
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04
Salt Houses
Hala Alyan
Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses illuminates the heartache and permanent unsettledness experienced by refugees all over the world by highlighting one devastating truth: you can’t go home again. Salma reads her daughter Alia’s future in the dregs of a coffee cup on the eve of her wedding. Salma’s predictions soon come true when Alia’s brother disappears during the Six-Day War of 1967, and she and her family are forced to move to Kuwait City from Nabulus, where they reluctantly build a new life together. Through Alia, Alyan highlights the inner turmoil faced by refugees as they are torn between the need to remember and learning to forget. Alia’s children later scatter to Beirut, Paris and Boston, layering this heartfelt, powerful and lyrical portrait of Palestinian diaspora with multiple voices.
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05
Digging To America
Anne Tyler
Two families expectantly await the arrival of their adopted baby girls from Korea at a Baltimore airport in 1997. The Donaldsons form an all-American welcome entourage, while the Yazdans, who are first generation Iranian-Americans, wait quietly on the side, accompanied by Maryam who is Sami Yazdan’s regally-reserved Iranian-born mother. Though the Donaldsons attempt to preserve their daughter Jin-Ho’s Korean roots as she grows up, the Yazdans, who have felt like outsiders throughout, attempt to ‘Americanise’ their daughter by changing her Korean name to Susan so she doesn’t feel the same way. In the meanwhile, Maryam never truly feels at home no matter where she might be. Anne Tyler highlights the complex nature of assimilation and identity formation through these two girls and a grandmother, and how it affects not only them, but also their near and dear ones.
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06
An American Brat
Bapsi Sidhwa
Feroza Ginwalla, a Parsi, grows up in Pakistan in the 1970s amid increasing religious fundamentalism. Her family decides to send her to America for a three-month holiday for a change in scenery and influence. Once there, an enthralled Feroza enrols in a college in Idaho after striking a deal with her family. She is allowed to study there, as long as she returns to Pakistan and marries a man of their liking. Feroza, however, falls in love with a young Jewish American man who she wishes to marry, as well as the American culture and way of life. Her family is aghast, and they fear that her American ways might ruin her. A coming-of-age tale, this story highlights the negotiations a young immigrant woman raised in a fundamentalist Pakistan has to make in order to fulfil the desires of her small-town family, as well as her own as a woman in a Western town.
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07
Mulberry And Peach
Hualing Nieh
Mulberry And Peach tells the story of Mulberry, a Chinese woman who has lived through many years of political unrest during the Japanese invasion of China, the Communist-Nationalist Civil War, Taiwan’s White Terror, and the Vietnam War. Mulberry settles in the United Sates after fleeing from all the turmoil. Mulberry develops a dual personality to resolve the conflicts between her new and old life. Peach, her second personality, is sexually uninhibited and fears nothing. They help her cope with the dissonance in her desire to cling to her roots in China, as well as experience and embrace life in America. Mulberry And Peach is a must-read portrait of the pain of cultural dislocation and the resultant psychological disorientation that is rarely sufficiently addressed.
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08
Henna House
Nomi Eve
In Yemen, in 1920, Adela Damari’s Jewish parents seek a husband for her as their increasingly failing health threatens to leave their daughter an orphan, and of being adopted and converted by the local Muslim community. As the prospect of finding a partner grows increasingly unlikely, she meets members of her extended family and is introduced to the art of henna. Later, betrayed by a trusted friend, she is transported to Israel with her family and other Yemenite Jews as a part of Operation On Wings Of Eagles. Henna House tells the story of a young immigrant girl who finds refuge through the women in her life, and the application of henna, as she and her family flee from one country to another.
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A lover of various kinds of artistic output and practitioner of a few herself, Eleanor Pinto is currently pursuing her Master's degree in English and draws her inspiration from artists ranging from Chopin and Beethoven to Dali and Kahlo. She believes that she lives in a world where the lines between the literary and the real world are blurred. And that, for Eleanor, contains endless possibilities.
You can read her articles here.
