Silas House

Neela Vaswani

A twelve-year-old Indian immigrant in New York City and a Kentucky coal miner's son become pen pals, and eventually best friends, through a series of revealing letters exploring such topics as environmental activism, immigration, and racism.

Same Sun Here

Malala Yousafzai

My Story of Standing Up for Girls' Rights

Malala Lib/E

Short fiction that leaps across borders and boundaries: “Fierce and bold . . . beautiful” (Sena Jeter Naslund). In whirling, catch-me-if-you-can prose, Where the Long Grass Bends tells stories that subvert conventional narrative by employing Indian lore, Gaelic fable, and historical legend. Spare, fierce, and unpredictable, these tales from an American Book Award winner “play with the notion of culture and homeland from a variety of perpectives” (Kirkus Reviews). “Vaswani shows impressive range and a striking command of poetic imagery in this debut collection, which features 13 stories dealing mostly with the Indian and Asian immigrant experience. ‘Sita and Mrs. Durber’ describes a British art teacher’s struggles to deal with a formidably talented Malaysian kindergartener, whose brilliant drawings reveal uncomfortable truths. ‘Five Objects in Queens,’ in which an Indian family uses familiar references from their homeland to help them acclimate to life in New York, falls closer to the terrain carved out by writers like Bharati Mukherjee.” —Publishers Weekly

Stories

Where the Long Grass Bends

American Book Award Winner: A “mesmerizing” memoir about identity from the daughter of an Irish-Catholic mother and a Sindhi-Indian father (Chandra Prasad, editor of Mixed). A ForeWord Book of the Year You Have Given Me a Country is an emotionally powerful exploration of blurred borders, identity, and what it means to be multicultural. Combining memoir, history, and fiction, the book follows the paths of the author’s Irish-Catholic mother and Sindhi-Indian father on their journey toward each other and the biracial child they create. It is a book that weaves two varied, yet ultimately universal backgrounds into a unique creation that spans continents, generations, languages, and histories, and, ultimately, it is a story about family. “Vaswani takes her place among the other great innovators of form—Aleksandar Hemon, Maxine Hong Kingston, Michael Ondaatje—who write eloquently and ardently about the land of in-between.” —Maud Casey, author of Genealogy “A confident writer whose unflinching eye shows the reader the beauty grounded in the mundane.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Vaswani’s voice is witty, sharp, innovative, unique.” —Chitra Banerjee

You Have Given Me a Country

In this extraordinary novel in letters, an Indian immigrant girl in New York City and a Kentucky coal miner's son find strength and perspective by sharing their true selves across the miles. Meena and River have a lot in common: fathers forced to work away from home to make ends meet, grandmothers who mean the world to them, and faithful dogs. But Meena is an Indian immigrant girl living in New York City’s Chinatown, while River is a Kentucky coal miner’s son. As Meena’s family studies for citizenship exams and River’s town faces devastating mountaintop removal, this unlikely pair become pen pals, sharing thoughts and, as their camaraderie deepens, discovering common ground in their disparate experiences. With honesty and humor, Meena and River bridge the miles between them, creating a friendship that inspires bravery and defeats cultural misconceptions. Narrated in two voices, each voice distinctly articulated by a separate gifted author, this chronicle of two lives powerfully conveys the great value of being and having a friend and the joys of opening our lives to others who live beneath the same sun.

Neela Vaswani

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