kareenbeanreads's review
I tried my best to get into this supposed memoir, but it felt more like a textbook or an essay. While I appreciate learning more about the historical aspects of where Zaidi lived, I wish there were more personal anecdotes rather than a listing of facts. I had high hopes for this one, as I greatly enjoy memoirs, but the narration style was not for me and I ended up not finishing the book.
A huge thank you to Netgalley and Cambridge University Press for the gifted ebook!
A huge thank you to Netgalley and Cambridge University Press for the gifted ebook!
meghnaroy's review against another edition
4.0
I came to know about this book through an email from Wolfson College which I was allotted when Cambridge offered me a place at their MPhil Sociology programme. Annie Zaidi happens to be a visiting fellow at Wolfson. I almost immediately downloaded the book from the CUP website, and started reading it. I have come across many reviews of this book where readers have felt like this is a misnomer of a memoir, but I disagree with that view. This is a memoir by all means. Calling it anything else is denying the author of her perspective. One must remember that many of the "facts" that Zaidi has presented in the book on various social issues are highly contested. These cannot be taken for granted in contemporary India. Hence, it is important to grant these realities to her vantage point. If it was not for the intersection of roles where the author places herself, she would not have been able to produce this work. I also jokingly feel like this is book is a nice way to trick a person who is otherwise interested in memoir into reading social anthropology. The book is richly sourced insofar as Zaidi has made good use of anthropological accounts by the likes of Jonathan Parry. Being a journalist, she has seen India closely, and used trustworthy news sources to make her point. She seems to have touched upon all major issues that currently plague India. She finds a smart way to illustrate how intertwined they are with her own experience. This is what makes the work a good example of the sociological imagination - the author blends personal biography and social history very well. She defines home from birth to death and through everything in between. I believe this is also an exercise in feminism where the author manages to show how the personal is political. As a student of sociology/social anthropology, I have been familiar with many of the facts and arguments presented, but it was still worth a read. I adore the use of poetry. As the granddaughter of Partition survivors, the bits about Partition did make me emotional. I appreciate the fact that she, unlike many intellectuals in this country, is on the right side of the Assam NRC debate. Further, one must remember the context in which this book was published - as the winner of the Nine-Dots Prize, Zaidi really makes a good attempt to reveal to the world how she sees her "home" India.
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