Title: The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Home
Author: Sadia Shepard
Published: July 31, 2008
Country Published: England
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
ISBN-10: 159420151X
ISBN-13: 978-1594201516
Description:
In this elegantly crafted memoir, the author sets out to fulfill her grandmother’s dying wish that she learn about her heritage. Her grandmother grew up among the Bene Israel, a small Jewish community in India; when she married a Muslim, she left Judaism and, eventually, India, and adopted the name Rahat Siddiqi. Shepard herself is the product of a mixed marriage: her mother is Pakistani and Muslim, her father American and Christian. After receiving a Fulbright, she left her life in the U.S. to document the remaining Indian Jews, whose numbers have steadily dwindled as many emigrate to Israel. Shepard’s eagerness to maintain narrative tension leads to occasional artificiality, but her writing is vivid and her meditations on heritage and grief are moving.
Location URL: http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Foreign-Shipwrecked-Ancestors-Forgotten/dp/159420151X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1316363376&sr=8-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=a059d5fe-20&linkId=b483d3e0e5bd1e3db318bde3aced7e53
