My day in New York

It is almost 11 pm and I'm munching on soft baked chocolate chunk cookies, thinking about the day. I did not sleep well, last night, tired after the flight from Haiti, and disturbed by the constant background noise. I had forgotten how noisy New York is. This morning, I was tired, and nervous, well, more like borderline frantic, actually. Of course, I didn't need to be...

I walked the streets of Manhattan for more than two hours, reacquainting myself with the city before I reached the 192 Bookstore in Chelsea. It is a lovely bookstore with a very good selection of books. Dimitrea soon showed up with her two adorable daughters, and then, more people arrived. I read the book and Dimitrea talked about her process as an artist and an illustrator. It was very interesting, and everyone was so nice, and not even bothered by my accent.

I ran back to my room to shower and, most importantly, to change shoes ! My feet were killing me. And I took the subway to Utica Avenue and the Brownstone Bookstore on Lewis Avenue, in Brooklyn. There again, a lovely place, with a nice, cosy feeling to it. 

There again, the response was lovely. People seem to really appreciate the story, they love the illustrations, and I even got to meet the models that Dimitrea used to create several characters in the book. I'm feeling very happy and content, tonight.

                                Posing with Dimitrea

                                  

               This handsome young boy was the model for Amadi.

A Second Reading, in Brooklyn, this time.

July 30 will be an exciting - and busy - day. I mentioned the reading at 192 Books in Chelsea, but I will be giving another one in Brooklyn, at Brownstone Books, in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, at 7 PM. For those who live in Brooklyn, my old beloved borough, or those who can't make it in Manhattan, in the afternoon... As for the other reading in Manhattan, the illustrator of Amadi's Snowman, Dimitrea Tokunbo, will be there with me.

The 14th of July in France !

It's been a while since I spent the 14th of July in France. This is our National Day. Parisians stormed La Bastille, in 1789, and it became a highly symbolic event in the calendar of the French Revolution.

As a child, we'd often stay up late to watch the fireworks and sometimes dance at the balls, if we happened to be holidaying in some village. As I mentioned this to my daughters, the other day, the older one decided she wanted to see the fireworks and to dance as well. Any excuse to stay up late, really. I didn't know where the fireworks would happen, but I found out, and at 9 PM, I packed the kids into the car and drove the 7 kms to the town of Apt. There was quite a crowd in the big square where we watched the sprays of colors light up the sky. I was so happy to hear the girls going "Ho!" and "W0w!" and to share that very French moment with them. My patriotic bursts are rare enough for me to be able to boast about them, I think.

After the fireworks, a band started playing Seventies Rock, and we stayed a little while. My older daughter was obviously fascinated, more by the action than the music, I think, as it wasn't very good at all, quite frankly. But the little one was getting tired, and I suggested we go. We started walking in the direction of our parking space, but upon crossing a street, I heard Latin music, and immediately, my ears pricked up. A small band was playing in front of a pub. There were tables outside, and the area was packed (the crowd was almost as thick as in the big square.) We stopped and listened to the band who played Cumbia, from Colombia, and it felt wonderful to hear good music, and to see the people around us appreciate it and dance to it. 

Why do I report this here? Well, it just stroke me as interesting that on such a "French" day, people gathered spontaneously around musicians from a distant country, singing in another language, playing different rhythms. It made me smile, and it made me happy. It may not be much, but somehow, I find it revealing. I do not believe such a thing would have been possible when I was a child. Not because people would not have appreciated or enjoyed the music, but because the opening, the opportunity, simply weren't there. Now, it seems almost natural. So, that was our 14th of July in France. Lovely fireworks, and then, the joyous rhythms of La Cumbia. A multicultural moment, just the way I love it.

My first reading in New York City

I will be reading Amadi's Snowman at 192 books in Manhattan, on July 30, at 2 PM.

The bookstore is located on Tenth Avenue, at 21th Street, in Chelsea.

Dimitrea Tokunbo, the illustrator, will be there as well. 

If you are in New York at that time, please, come and say hello.

Why do I write?

I certainly didn't know it when I took the leap and decided to "try my luck" at getting published, but isn't this one perfectly lovely reason?

Please, meet Alice, in Moldavia. I'm just thinking I'd love to collect pictures of children from all around the world, reading my book, and with such concentration, too.  Thank you, Alice. I'm so happy that you liked it.

Where have I been?

I cannot believe it's been a month since my last post. The last weeks in India where totally crazy. I worked on my website, tried to prepare for our continent-hopping summer vacation and the fact that we'd be gone for two months, and the usual last days school activities, etc. When I left for France, I was tired, and stressed out about the fact that the website was not entirely done. It is now up and running, but still needs some fine-tuning. Still, if anyone would like to visit it and give me feed-back about it, please, don't hesitate.

www.katianovetsaintlot.com

On a much, much sadder note, my husband was supposed to join us in France, tomorrow, but he had to fly to Haiti as the cancer that his indomitable father had been mocking for the past ten years had finally caught up with him. My father-in-law waited for his son to arrive, and died a few hours later, peacefully, at the end of a life he lived with true joy and generosity. Hundreds of people from all classes and walks of life attended his funeral, many of them waiting on line for hours so they could pay him their last respects. Adieu, Papa André. Wherever you are, now, I know you're the life of the party.

  

My first interview ever.

Well, I was just given my first interview ever. I mean, not an interview of someone else where I thought up the questions, no, no, an interview where little me actually answers the questions asked by the person doing the interview!

Annette Gulati is a writer - her stories are appearing in Highlights for Children, and just wait, because I can bet you that I'll soon have the opportunity of posting an interview of her in this blog, too - who left a comment on my blog, last year, and we then met each other in Uma's online class. She writes about the many tribulations of the The Writing Wild Life, in her blog, and you'll find the interview by clicking on this link :

http://thewritingwildlife.blogspot.com/2008/06/author-interview-with-katia-novet-saint.html

Thanks so much, Annette. You just made me feel almost famous, for a few minutes. I think I could get used to this :))

The book is now officially out !

Hurray ! Everyone listen very carefully, as this is Ifeanyi Amadi talking, well, writing. My dear authorly mother is out there living her life, and I couldn't resist sneaking in to shout out the news to the whole world. It is my story, after all.

Finally, today is the big day ! The book is out. Go and get it. Come on! Well, no, wait until you finish reading this post, and then, do rush to the nearest bookstore to buy Amadi's Snowman, yes?

You'll see that the cover of the book is gorgeous. I really love the way Dimitrea, my second mother the artist, worked with colors. It's sunny and warm, just like back home. And the way she painted that snowman up in the sky is so much like what I imagined when I tried to make sense of things, in my very unique way. I'm not saying anything more, because, well, because you have to buy the book, of course! How else will you find out what that snowman is doing up in that Nigerian sky, and what he means to me in the story ?

Oups ! Mom just arrived and caught me at the computer. She doesn't mind. She's smiling. She even asked me to say thank you to all who where involved in the creation of the book : the publisher, Jennifer Bunting, the editor, Audrey Maynard, and her assistant, Karen, the lovely publicist at Tilbury Publishers, Sarah McGinnis, and of course, Dimitrea Tokunbo, for bringing the book to life with her colorful art. She also said to not forget the people to whom the book is dedicated : her husband, Michel, with very special thanks to her friend back in Enugu, Theresa Madubuko, who read several millions drafts and answered just as many questions, and Uma Krishnaswami, who is her favorite teacher in the whole writers' universe.

I'm glad to report that she ended this sloppy thank you moment with a big kiss to me, because after all, if it weren't for me, there would never have been a story in the first place, and no story, no book.

Now, it is my turn to thank my authorly mother for making me famous. Imagine, me, Ifeanyi Amadi, hero of a book that will hopefully be read by many children all over the US, and I hope, back home, and who knows, maybe even all over the world. Isn't that something? Of course, as a pretty exceptional Igbo man of Nigeria, I deserve nothing less, but no matter. I'm totally thrilled to have my own book, and so, I say : "Dalu, mama imela." It means "thank you, Mother, well done," in my Igbo language.

So, please, if you live in the US, run to the nearest book stores - no, scratch that, run to ALL the book stores in your vicinity, and also those not in your immediate vicinity, and look for my book, and make sure you turn the cover so it faces all the prospective buyers who happen to walk by the shelves. And if you don't live in the US, the book is available for order on amazon.com and barnes and noble.com.

You can leave comments on this blog for me, if you'd like. I promise to reply.

P.S. Watch this space in the coming months. Mother the author is preparing a virtual book launch on this very blog. It should take place sometime at the end of October and there will be interviews, virtual school events, a tour of other blogs, AND books will be given away ! Hurray!

My Global Bookshelf : The Expat Arc, by Danielle Barkhouse

Today, I want to talk about another book by a fellow blogger and expatriate.

Before India, Danielle Barkhouse was a trailing spouse in the US and in the UK. Upon hearing the news that her husband’s work was taking them to Chennai, formerly known as Madras, in Southern India, she started writing a blog which she refers to as her "free therapy" outlet. It begins before she leaves the US, and continues throughout the whole first year of the family's life in India (and the family includes a much-loved golden retriever,) allowing the reader a glimpse into the various stages of culture shock. She has now published the blog content, after some editing, and the book is titled: The Expat Arc. An expat's journey over culture shock.

Danielle Barkhouse is a Canadian with a no-non-sense, down-to-earth approach to life - now that I think about it, I realize that most Canadians I know seem to share that quality. She has a good, often very funny voice, spunky and full of personality, and most of all, I found her to be unwaveringly and refreshingly honest, and that is the thing that impresses me the most about her blog, and now, her book.

As an expat who’s lived outside of her birth country practically half her life -yuck, imagine being old enough to be able to say something like that! - I’m quite familiar with said stages of culture shock (they have been assimilated to the stages of grief), even though I only recently acquired the vocabulary and knowledge to recognize the symptoms for what they are. I’ve also witnessed other people experiencing them. I don’t believe it is ever easy to analyze one’s emotions with the clarity and honesty that Danie Barkhouse displays throughout her book. It is often more convenient to either shut out the world just outside the door and become totally negative about it, or to fall into the other extreme, which is to make the conscious decision that you will like it, whether you really do or not. Danie candidly admits to having fallen into the first negative category while living in England, and recognizes what a waste of time and energy it is and decides she will not experience India in the same way. And she doesn’t.

“The difference between me and most other people is that I say the stuff most people think but don’t say aloud,” she declares, at some stage. To illustrate that point, here is her undiluted take about the way political correctness is transforming Christmas in the US:

"The day that we left Chennai, JB walked through the factory and about 60 people wished him a Merry Christmas. Or, as they say, Happy Christmas. We’ve received cards and gifts from many non-Christmas-celebrating people. We're talking about Indian Hindus. As we journeyed through the Dubai airport, we were in awe of the Christmas decorations. It was so beautiful. When we were there in November, several people had wished us a Merry Christmas. We're talking about Middle Eastern Muslims." She goes on to describe their arrival in New York, a primarily Christian country, where only two people wish them "Happy holidays." And she adds: "What the heck is our problem? We're so concerned about being "politically correct" that we've become anti-Christmas. [...] I've got to tell you, in case you’re missing the tone here, I'm beyond appalled. I resent America placing a big fat censorship on Christmas. [...] I have every respect for other cultures and faiths. We can have it all. I wonder what Hindus in Asia and Muslims in the Middle East would think if they knew the controversy over Christmas in America."

How is that for going straight to the point? It is entirely true that most people, in India, acknowledge, and even celebrate each other's religious holidays with a true spirit of tolerance. And there should indeed be room for everyone to freely celebrate their faith.

Another post is aptly titled “Miss Communications,” and I could have written it myself.

“You can't stick a girl in India with no way of communicating with the outside world. […] People have been relocating to and living in other countries all around the world for many years. How on earth did they survive before the Internet?”

Well, they survived the way we all do when we have to - and of course, they couldn't pine after our ultra fast ways of doing things, nowadays, since these didn't exist. But for having experienced it, I can tell you that it's enough to drive any girl outside of the boundaries of sanity.

Now, one may argue that Danie’s experience is that of the corporate expatriate, and not all expats work for corporations which provide their staff and their family with cultural trainings, shipment entitlements every three or four months, etc, etc. So, when she touches the potentially sensitive subject of the differences between expats (“There seems to be a growing attitude among expats of whether you're 'expat enough.' Twelve years as an expat is 'less expat' than 25 years with the kids being born all around the world. You might also be 'more expat' than someone else if your posts have been tougher. A post in India would make us 'more expat' than our England or US posts? Seriously. Expat is expat. You're still away from home”) she might find that some people want to push the discussion a little further. And "some people" is going to be me, for now.

First of all, there are those who don’t even know what “home” means, anymore. They may belong to a family with the father being from one place, the mother from another – or even two, as in my own case – with kids born in yet another place, or more, and so, where is home? For me, home is where my bubble, containing my daughters, my husband, and my books are. It’s not a country. I’m tremendously helped in that by the fact that my mother, who left Franco’s Spain in her mid-twenties to go in search of a better, freer future in France, always told us kids as we grew up: “My country is the country that feeds me, the country that allows me to work and where I can eat and not starve.”

Secondly, being an expatriate in a place where you find practically everything, where there are no power supply or communication problems to speak of is not the same as being in a place where you have to deal with this kind of problem practically on a daily basis; there may be power cuts, and the Internet may not work from time to time in India, especially when it rains, but as someone who spent over three years in Nigeria, where I routinely had to go entire weeks without phone or the Internet, I have found India to be quite all right in that regard. And I’m not even mentioning security problems, again like the ones we had in Nigeria, where the UNICEF office could be attacked by men holding Kalashnikovs, one of them beating an office driver so he would hand over the 4x4 car keys, and my husband, who was the primary target of one of the mentioned Kalashnikovs shouting at them to just take the bloody car and leave the driver alone (which they did, thank Goodness!), and yours truly only a few feet behind said husband. Now, this may be a rather dramatic example, but I’ve gathered so many others from other expats having lived in difficult places, not always that spectacular, yet harrowing enough to render life very difficult indeed. Of course, some might respond that UN people know what they're getting themselves into when they choose such career. Maybe. Their families don't always, though. And so, I would argue (gently) with Danie that in light of all that, well, perhaps it is easier to understand why some people may feel that they're "a little more expats" than others. I don't believe it is ever done in a spirit of spiteful competition, but rather coming from a place of experience where you can't help but compare situations and draw obvious conclusions. The reason I mention this is that I do, at times, get a bit annoyed at some expats when I hear them complaining endlessly about not finding a particular brand of cereals, or some such.

That said, I want to add that going through the stages of culture shock means that people may find their buttons pushed where, in any other circumstances - like back home where they don't have to adjust to so many new things and ways of doing them - they would have remained pretty much unruffled. Expats recently landed in a new place need to keep that reality in mind, and cut themselves some slack. It takes time - anywhere from a few months to a whole year. And this is where having a book like Danie's can prove invaluable, if only to provide reassurance that it is all normal.

In another insightful post, the author ponders the opinion that "living in India reveals your true character." And she goes on to say, with her usual honesty, that she's not so sure she likes what India is revealing about her own character. I would venture to add that getting out of one's comfort zone to go and live in another country, whether that new country is a hard duty station or not, is likely to help a person build their character, as long as they're willing to take a hard look at their own self. And Danie certainly is.

I totally recommend this book to any expatriate preparing to move to India, but not only. Anyone about to relocate in a new country, especially for the first time, anyone interested in the subjects of life in India, life abroad and culture shock, will find it instructive and interesting. Not to mention that you’ll get to laugh very often.

The gems one comes across in Hyderabad bookstores !

A while back, I wrote a post about the bookstore experience in Hyderabad.

Today, I had one hour to kill between two appointments, and, of course, I hit the nearest bookstore. I went there with no particular need or want. Just happy to browse. And it strikes me that this is probably the best way to approach life in India. Have no expectation. Go with the flow. And it is most likely that surprises will await you around some corner.

So, what did I find ?

I Heart You, You Haunt me, by Lisa Schroeder.

I was totally flabbergasted. There was only one copy, and of course, it was seating on a shelf with no obvious order or reason that I could figure out, but boy, that made my day! Lisa and I belonged to the same critique group, a while back, and her novel was on the list of books I meant to acquire while in the US this coming summer. I no longer have to wait to read it.

I got scolded for taking this picture, by the way ! Go figure :)


Second surprise : I've been looking for Barack Obama's "Dreams from my Father" for a while. I actually asked my husband to try and get it for me in one of the usually well-stocked bookstores of Khan Market, in Delhi. No chance. Well, I didn't need to go that far. Not only did I find it, but the book was even in the biography section ! I didn't take a picture, but I have it, it's right here on my desk. Yippee !

In the end, I left the bookstores with ten books ! All is well in the world, AND in India :)

He's on top of it, and so am I... not ??

I found this You Tube video on Through The Tollbooth and I just had to post it here, because this sounds and feels soooo familiar, at the moment. I've had Steve Weber's Plug Your Book on my desk for months, I've even read parts of it, and underlined or highlighted entire sections. I went ahead, opened accounts on Facebook and MySpace, even managed to build a nice looking page on MySpace, but that's about it. I've been saying for months that I'm going to build a website, and, well, I have not. And all these widgets, avatars, and what not. I mean, how much time does a writer have to spend on that stuff? But then, when does said writer have any time left to actually write ??? Of course, this is an old dilemma, I'm sure. It just happens to be new to me :) Anyway, since I've been reviewing a few books, lately, and I was mentioning The Shrinking Violet Promotions blog the other day, this little video is totally "dans l'air du temps" - read timely.

My Global Bookshelf : "Losing Kei" by Suzanne Kamata

One of the beauties of blogging is that you get to "meet" interesting people you'd probably never run into otherwise. Suzanne Kamata is an expatriate writer whose blog, Gaijin Mama, allows its readers a glimpse into the life of an American mother and wife bringing up twins on an island in rural Japan. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, and she is the editor of the anthologies, The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan, and Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with special needs.

In her first novel, Losing Kei, published by Leapfrog Press, Suzanne Kamata tells the story of Jill Parker, an American artist who marries a Japanese man. Unfortunately, try as she may to meet the demands of Japanese traditional society, and in spite of the birth of a beautiful son, Kei, she ends up divorcing. Thus begins her struggle to remain in her son's life, as Japanese divorce law does not recognize shared custody and the parent not granted custody is expected to disappear entirely from the life of the child.

The novel's protagonist is a complex, multidimensional character; she can move the reader to tears, one moment - especially when she expresses her passion for her son - and slightly irritate, the following. In fact, I could never quite decide whether I liked her or not. When I asked the author how she felt about her character, she replied that Jill Parker is "passionate, but imperfect. I wanted to create a character who got into trouble on her own, and then found a way to redeem herself. I didn't want her to be simply a victim. She's young and impulsive at the start of events, but she eventually gets her act together."

The book is much more than a fascinating introduction to Japanese culture. It is the journey to maturity of a sensitive, not quite "finished" young woman through an harrowing experience. Something that Jill realizes herself toward the end of the story: "I was born into a middle class family, in a prosperous, peaceful country. There was no obvious war to protest, no important cause that caught my attention. But I had wanted to suffer. I was so young then. Look what happened to me. I no longer had to borrow misery. I'd created it all by myself."

In spite of my reservations about Jill Parker, or maybe because of them, I enjoyed reading Losing Kei. It is a sensitive work, elegantly written, and always respectful of the culture it depicts.

Suzanne Kamata was kind enough to answer a few questions.

How did the inspiration for "Losing Kei" come to you?

I first read an article 10-15 years ago about expatriate parents who'd lost custody of their children to their Japanese ex-spouses and who were then denied access to their children. One of the parents interviewed was a woman journalist who, apparently, lost custody because she was a working woman. Her ex and his new wife gradually turned her son against her, so that he no longer wanted to have anything to do with his mother. I thought that this would be an interesting subject to explore in fiction. In Japan there is no such thing as joint custody, and this sort of thing actually happens quite a bit - to Japanese as well as foreigners.

What would you say has changed you about living in Japan?

I have become comfortable with being an outsider. And I suppose I have learned to appreciate a certain amount of frugality. Living in the U.S. is very comfortable - entire houses are heated, so you can go from room to room without being cold. Here, we heat one room at a time in winter, but it's more ecological, less wasteful.

How about becoming a mother in Japan? Do you find that you have assimilated aspects of your host country's culture, or do both cultures, the American and the Japanese, remain separate?

When I first came here, I said that I would never sleep with my children, and I thought that the idea of fathers bathing with their little daughters was perverse, but we slept with our kids till they were about four, and my husband has taken a bath with them until recently.
In some respects, I remain American. The Japanese tend to stick to traditional gender roles, but I encourage my son to help in the kitchen and read books that might be considered girly, and I like it that my daughter is proud of her biceps.

Thank you, Suzanne, and best of luck to "Losing Kei."

The Princess Problem : there may be ways of circumventing it ?

For all the parents like me, out there, sick and tired of the whole Pink Princess thing - as if pink Barbies weren't enough - there is a good article on Anti-Racist Parents titled : "The Princess Problem : There is more than one way of being pretty" that shoots a much-deserved cyber bullet into the infuriating brainwashing that our children are exposed to, thanks to the mass-marketing of white dolls or white movie characters always getting the "enviable" part of the princess heroine.

The other day, only, I was reading Snow White to my daughters for the first time ever, it seems, and I started jumping words and whole sentences when I saw that Snow White was born with a skin white as snow, which of course made her the most beautiful girl. Problem is : my older daughter can now read, and what worked when she was little, not longer does now. She noticed something amiss, looked at the book, and caught me red-handed. I told her I was annoyed to see white people constantly portrayed as being the most beautiful, because it's an old lie, and everyone is tired of it, and if some are not, they definitely ought to be. I never know whether my reaction is a good one, when this kind of thing happens. I guess honesty is always right, and even if I don't convince them, right now, some nuggets of those conversation will hopefully remain lodged somewhere in their psyche. My youngest daughter has taken to saying all the time that she loves her Scandinavian friend's hair because it's smooth and platinum blond. I simply respond that her hair is different but just as beautiful.

To go back to the whole princess thing, it's hard, because I remember being fascinated with princesses, as a child. And living in a totally white world, I never even thought that princesses could or should be anything but white. So, there are two problems in one, really. First, princesses don't have to be all light-skinned and blond. And second, what's so enviable about the princess waiting helplessly for the prince to rescue her?

Anyway, that article mentions several titles of books that show princess heroines with brown skin. AND there is apparently a book that also discusses the whole Princess thing by asking a sound and much- needed question : "What does a princess do?" Indeed.

I can't wait to be in the US, this coming summer, so I can check these books out and buy a few. And they just reduced the baggage allowance on transcontinental airplane journeys. OK, that's totally off-topic.

To end on another off-topic, it is HOT in Hyderabad !

"Get off the bus!"

Two evenings ago, my husband brought me an envelope sent through the UN pouch, and I discovered an advance copy of Kimberly Willis Holt's last novel, to be published in August. I mentioned it before on this blog : Piper Reed, The Great Gypsy.

This is the second book in the series, and Kimberly signed it for me and my "Gypsies." I was totally thrilled and touched. What a lovely surprise ! I started reading it to my almost 8-year-old daughter, last night, and then finished reading it on my own.

Piper has a great voice, a really fun personality, and this totally childlike way of bringing everything back to her. Kimberly also has a great way of describing family dynamics, especially between siblings, and the dialogs are funny and very lively. It's the kind of book that one reads fast. Then, when it's over, you sigh happily and close the back cover with a smile on your face.

As an expat often on the move, I also empathized with Piper wondering "where is home?" And I loved her answer at the end of the book : " .... I decided I'd changed my mind about home. Home was not Pensacola, San Diego, Guam, or any of the other places we might have lived. In fact, home wasn't a particular place at all. Home was my family. Even if they didn't get my jokes sometimes."

As for those who don't know Piper well, yet, "Get Off the Bus" is her favorite expression and usually means that she's excited, happy or generally bowled over.

Thank you so much, Kimberly.

A blog for the introvert writer thrown into the promotion game

I just discovered a blog - thank you, Anastasia Suen - that was meant for me : Shrinking Violet Promotions.

This blog is for the introverted writer, and as the quote from Ursula Le Guin says in their sidebar : "Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts. We are being taught to be ashamed of not being 'outgoing'. But a writer's job is ingoing."

I'm in the process of discovering all the posts, but for anyone who might be interested, they are running a contest with a 1000 dollars grant for a SCBWI member to attend the Los Angeles conference in August. Good luck !

Happy 1st of May

In France, we have a tradition of offering Muguet - Lily of the Valley - on the first of May. It is supposed to bring good luck for the year.

When I was a child, we would buy little bunches of muguet from young people selling them pretty much everywhere in the streets. The flower is pretty and smells heavenly.

I was talking about this tradition with my daughter, today, and feeling a little sad, because even though I could show her le muguet on the Internet, I couldn't bring to her the experience of smelling its fragrance. Maybe some day we'll be in France on the 1st of May. Or maybe I should buy some seeds and try and plant them so that we can grow them wherever we are.

This is a rare moment of nostalgia on my part. After all, our wanderings have allowed us to assimilate so many different traditions to our family culture, I can certainly let go of one. No big deal.

Still, I'm wishing Good luck and happiness to all who happen to read this post. Happy May 1st, everyone. May your wishes come true :)

The book is here !

Last night, my husband brought home the DHL box sent by the printer in South Korea. I just had to record the event for the blog.



Yours truly, still looking as if she doesn't quite believe it.

Of course, I had to show it to my favorite fan in the whole world. Luckily, my daughter was not yet asleep. For months, she's been asking me : "when will you get the book?" And to my diverse answers, she always gave a sigh and added one of her favorite expressions : "I can't wait."



Another month, and it should be in bookstores !

A celebration of fusion

The previous post made me think about the word "fusion" and what it means.

I love it. I'm actually annoyed that I didn't think of it when I was trying to come up with a name for this blog. I'm not good with titles, and scribbling being such a huge part of what I am, I went for that. Besides, I kind of jumped into this blogging thing without a clear idea of where it would go. Now, a year later, I think that "Fusion Katia" would have sounded pretty good, too, and it would have been true as well. Maybe something to think about.

I first came across the term "fusion" - as it is used more and more, to indicate a mingling of cultures and expressions of cultures - when we moved to India and I went to a restaurant that offered a Fusion menu. Now, in India, the concept of fusion food remains a little tricky and will often be used to describe Western dishes prepared with an Indian twist ( read, a copious amount of chili - among other spices - thrown in, because in the mind of most Indians, especially in the south, eating food without LOTS of chili remains a concept they cannot really wrap their minds around. Same as totally dry food. To be good, a dish must be hot and swimming in sauce, which is called curry, here), and that "Indian twist" can make it hard to catch the dishes' original flavor. But that's only fair. After all, we ARE in India.

The concept of fusion doesn't apply to food, only, but to fashion, to art, music, etc. Maybe it is quite big, here, because India, before it became a nation, was composed of so many princely states, with numerous languages, cultures, and religions living side by side. There was always some sort of fusion, here and there. It is so much easier to become tolerant and open to others' ways of doing and thinking things when cohabiting with diverse ways of life. What is racism and xenophobia, after all, if not a fear of the different, of the unknown?

I always keep a very mundane example in my mind when dealing with a new, strange situation : the first time I ate Japanese food. It was in Paris, and I was in my early twenties. I shared a "chambre de bonne" with a friend - an 8 m² room with a shower in a cubicle and a toilet on the landing, at the top of an old bourgeois building. We dreamed of traveling far, but not having any money, we could only treat ourselves to a foreign restaurant once in a while ; discovering foods from far-away countries was our way of sampling another culture. When we went to that Japanese restaurant, I ordered Sushis, and when I tried the pickled ginger, I almost spit it out. I was totally unprepared for such a strong taste, and I remember that I gave all my ginger to my friend. I couldn't eat it. Nowadays, if I don't eat ginger once in a while, I crave it. I love the stuff. I make sandwiches with pickled ginger, and I use it a lot when I cook. My point ? I rejected the taste of ginger because it was so totally foreign to what I'd been used to. Thankfully, I did not give up on ginger and Japanese food ranks very high on my personal chart of favorite cuisines, if not at the very top.

Back to fusion. Extensive exposure to other ways of doing things is bound to attract some sort of fusion effect. While reading William Dalrymple's "White Mughals", set in Hyderabad, I was fascinated to learn that first the Portuguese, as early as 1510, after the conquest of Goa, and later the British who came to live in India, from the 17th until the beginning of the 19th Century, were very quick to mingle and adopt the local ways : they happily wore light cotton pyjama kurtas, smoked the hookah, ate Indian food, and married local women, had biracial children, etc, etc. The whole divisive, straight-laced attitude came later, with the Victorian era.

A quote from the book: "The success of the East India Company in its formative years depended as much on contacts across the lines of race and religion as it did on any commercial acumen, and to varying extents the traders, soldiers, diplomats and even the clergymen who ventured eastwards had little choice but to embrace the Mughal India. Nor should this tendency surprise us: from the wider perspective of world history, what is much odder and much more inexplicable is the tendency of the late-nineteenth century British to travel to, and rule over, nearly a quarter of the globe, and yet remain resolutely untouched by virtually all the cultures with which they came into contact."

Of course, wherever extremism and fanaticism raise their ugly heads, fusion has a hard time striving, and unfortunately, these scourges are here as much as anywhere else, in spite of India's long multicultural history. No matter. Fusion is out there, and I want to believe that it's there more and more, in spite of everything. And we ought to encourage it, and celebrate it everywhere we witness it.

Fusion stories

The month of May will be Asian Pacific Heritage Month, and Fusion Stories is a Web site created by 10 Asian authors to showcase teens contemporary novels that move beyond the traditional tales set in Asia or the stories about immigrating to America.

I now have a whole new bunch of books on my "to read... sooner than later" list.

Quoted from the website : "As Newbery winner Linda Sue Park told author Cynthia Leitich Smith (Tantalize) during an on-line chat: “At last it seems we’re getting ready to go to stories where a person’s ethnicity is a part but not the sum of them.”"

Hurray to that !

Last book I read : Naming Maya, by Uma Krishnaswami

PaperTigers chose Uma Krishnaswami's novel, Naming Maya, as their Tiger's Choice, this month. After reading the conversation on their blog, I decided to read the book again. I'm glad to report that I enjoyed it even more the second time.

Naming Maya tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who must go to Chennai with her mother, who's decided to sell her father's house. Over the course of the summer in the land of her parents, now divorced, Maya comes to terms with many issues in her life even as she learns more about her family, and her split cultural identity.

The first time I read the book, I'd only been in India for a few months. Now that I've made my home here for almost 4 years, some details of the book spoke to me in a way they did not before. "What will four people say?" worries a character in the book. I laughed out at that one. I didn't know that it was told in that particular way. How vivid, colorful and true! I've come to learn that indeed, as Lakshmi Auntie mentions in the book, Indians are very much brought up to mind what any four people around might say. They're not the only society to be like that, mind you, far from it; but it's definitely strong, here.

I adored the character of Kamala Mami, the old, loving housekeeper who's also the keeper of the family's history.

There are many layers to this book : communication between mother and daughter - the question on PaperTigers was to know whether this would be a good mother-daughter book club, and I definitely think it would be - with the weight of things never said permeating everything between them; Maya learning to feel her way in this place that's so much part of what she is and feels familiar with in a deep, instinctive way, and yet, is not home in the sense that New Jersey, where she was born and brought up, is ; and the wonderful symbol of the Two-Gift (Maya and her best friend in New Jersey always buy each other two identical gifts ; they give the other one, and keep one for themselves, so they have twin collections) which comes full circle when Kamala Mami gives her her own Two-Gift. And, of course, there is the language, rich, full of sensory details, the description of Chennai's city life, the neighbors with the husband always speaking about the weather, and the wife always complaining about the house-help, the tantalizing descriptions of all the Indian dishes cooked by Kamala Mami, etc.

Thanks to PaperTigers for launching this conversation and giving me the opportunity to read this book again.