Literary Safari

Dali spent his summers here as a child and bought a home in this small, Mediterranean village in Catalonia’s Costa Brava. He lived here with his wife until the 1990s. Picasso painted here. So did Matisse, Duchamps, and Max Ernst. The cobble stone winding streets are filled with art galleries and ceramic shops where artisans ply their wares in a most leisurely manner, hunched over tables on which sit their paint brushes, half-filled wine glasses, trays of tapas, and paintbrushes.

It’s off season so the streets are empty of most tourists and we have the pleasure of seeing school children walk home hand in hand with their parents, Arab women pushing strollers down steep hills, and construction workers sturdying up the walls of the bay before the beginning of the summer season.

Yesterday evening, we tried to visit the Museo de Cadaques. After a long uphill climb and rocky downhill descent, we arrived at the front door to find it locked. I peered in through the window and saw a TV screen showing a movie of people making chocolate. “Ah, the museum must be open,” I said. “They’re screening a movie.” I knocked on the door several times until a large elderly woman with silver hair, dressed in widow’s black opened the door. In Catalan, she informed me in exasperation that this was her house, not the museum!

We moved on, in search of a bench from which we could watch the sun set over the bay.  It’s good to have nothing to do except watch the sun set.

I wrote last week about a young adult novel that grapples with the impact of 9/11 on the Sikh community. Today, I bring you a review of a new novel published as part of the Modern History Press’s”Reflections of America” series.  Drop a note in the comments section for a chance to win a free copy of this book.

We have read numerous stories in the mainstream media about the widows of 9/11. Not so many about the Muslim victims. In her novel Saffron Dreams, Austin-based Pakistani-American author Shaila Abdullah fills a void in that literature by providing the perspective of a pregnant Pakistani woman, Arissa, who loses her husband–a writer with a masters in literature who worked as a waiter in the Windows on the World restaurant–on September 11.

Inspired by the true story of Baraheen Ashrafi, a Bangladeshi woman who was widowed two days before the birth of her second child, Abdullah’s novel follows her main character on her five-year journey through the five stages of grief as she reconstructs her life in a world that views her as a perpetrator of the violence, not as a victim. Upon discovering her husband’s unfinished novel manuscript, she takes it into her hands and decides to try to complete it — an act of courage that allows her to connect with her deceased partner and acts as the impetus for her healing process.

I read this novel just after I’d wrapped my writing of a curriculum guide for an oral history of Muslim youth in New York City, This Is Where I Need To Be, which was published by Teachers College’s Student Press Initiative. It would make a wonderful read for both a young adult and adult audience interested in further exploring the ways in which America’s Muslim population experienced 9/11. Intertwined with flashbacks to Arissa’s childhood in Pakistan, this novel provides a valuable insight into secular, upper middle class Pakistani society. A much-needed perspective in the void of the American Muslim experience, it is an unflinching and moving look at the societal pressures of widowhood, the role that art can play in the healing process, and the impact of media bias and stereotyping on the Muslim American community in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Read a brief excerpt from the novel here. Below the fold is a brief Q&A with the author.

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Soon after 9/11, a friend of mine told me that her college roommate’s home had been visited by the local police in their town in upstate New York. The police wanted to search the home of this family because they’d heard they had a picture of Osama Bin Laden hanging in their living room. The cops were mistaken. This was the home of a pious Sikh family and the picture was of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion.

I’ve often thought about this story. There are so many more like it — incidents of mistaken identities, faulty detentions, stereotyping, and violent acts in the wake of September 11th. We’ve read about them in the press and slowly, literature is beginning to tackle this dark period of recent American history as well; a time that unfolded in what Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic artist, Art Spiegelman, described so aptly as “in the shadow of no towers.”

A few years ago, Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos was one of the first young adult offerings to address the challenge of growing up South Asian and Muslim in an America altered by 9/11. First time novelist Nisha Meminger takes on a similar theme in her new YA novel Shine, Coconut Moon, just published by Simon & Schuster.

When her turbaned uncle appears at the doorstep of her suburban NJ home just four days after the 9/11 attacks, 16 year old Samar is caught off guard. Raised in a single-parent household by an Indian-American mother who cut off ties with her Sikh family many years before, Samar has no connection to her cultural roots and traditions. She is skeptical of this man, Uncle Sandeep, who claims to want to reconnect with his estranged sister because “we’re living in different times now … and I want to be close to the ones I love. The world is in turmoil—we’re at war. Anything could happen at any moment.”

As Samar gets to know her uncle, she begins to learn about Sikhism and gets to know her grandparents. She even visits a gurdwara, Sikh temple, for the first time in her life. This prompts her to start questioning her mother’s decision to raise her to think of herself “like everyone else.” She begins to question her identity; wondering whether she is a coconut — someone who is brown on the outside and white on the inside—someone who may physically appear to be Indian but doesn’t know who she really is. At the same time, she is shocked and saddened by a series of troubling events in her community that affect her personally: her uncle is attacked by a bunch of teenage boys who goad him to “Go back home, Osama!” and the local gurdwara is set on fire.

In his compelling Guardian article “The End of Innocence” Pankaj Mishra writes, “‘Post-9/11’ fiction often seems to use the attacks and their aftermath too cheaply, as background for books that would have been written anyway.” Shine, Coconut Moon does not fall into this category. Most definitively shaped by the effect of 9/11 on minority immigrant communities, this is an ambitious coming of age novel for young adults that seeks to demonstrate the effects of fear mongering on the lives of ordinary minority teens who saw themselves as American before 9/11.

Below the fold is an excerpt from the novel, as well as a Q&A with, Neesha Meminger where she talks about her novel writing process and the real-life incidents that inspired it. And, for those in the NYC area, there is a book launch party and reading this Saturday, March 14th at 7 pm at Bluestockings Bookstore. (more…)

I know that writing in my journal after a difficult, traumatic, painful, confusing, or frightening experience always makes me feel better. I emerge from my time of writing slightly more at ease with life’s uncertainties and though I’m not naive enough to think all is well, I do experience a certain sensation of feeling lighter, as if a bit of the load has been lifted.

Researchers have been studying the impact of writing on health for several decades.  James Pennebaker, from the department of psychology at the University of Texas, has written several journal articles and books showing how basic cognitive and linguistic processes during writing predict better health through longterm improvements in moods and even, healthier blood work. [Check out one of his papers here.] Part of his conclusion was that the ideal writing time was 15 minutes of so.

Now, a new study “Effects of (Very) Brief Writing on Health” from the Universiy of Missouri shows that a minimal amount of two minutes a day of writing can attain similar results.

Participants wrote about either a personal trauma, a positive life experience, or a control topic for 2 minutes each day for 2 days. Emotion word usage in the essays was examined and physical health complaints were measured 4–6 weeks after the last writing session. Trauma and positive experience essays
contained more emotional content than the control essays and such content was of a similar percentage to that demonstrated by past research. Both the trauma and the positive experience conditions reported fewer health complaints at follow-up than the control condition.

The study concluded that “it might be enough to take (literally) just a couple minutes to reflect on important life experiences to garner the health benefits of writing.”

Two minutes. It takes two minutes sometimes to check my email on my iPhone, to load a webpage, to wait for the elevator, to pay for a gallon of milk at the corner store, to cross a busy street … Next time I say that I don’t have time to write in my journal, I hope I’ll remember that!

This post comes your way courtesy of the good folks at VSL Science.