Dying in a Strange Country

Fiction. Asian American Studies. The stories in Pakistan-born Tahira Naqvi's second collection have a life in the South Asian diaspora of North America. Told in multiple voices -- aging aunts, mothers, cousins, the environment of the motherland itself -- they all manage still to converge upon the world of the immigrant in meaningful ways. A writer and prolific translator, Tahira Naqvi is also the author of Attar of Roses and Other Stories of Pakistan. ** Call to check inventory before ordering.

The linked stories in the collection have a life in the Pakistan community of North America. Set primarily among a large extended famiy from a beloved Lahore, at the center of which is the young and sensitive Conneticut housewife Zenab, the several voices of the stories all converge upon the shaky, though no less exciting and wonderful world of the immigrant. That world is evolving, at times amid protest - as when an aged aunt asks of a suitor, But is he circumcised? - and at times in surprising ways but always relentlessly. Guilt walks hand in hand with nostalgia, and desire to stay never completely overcomes that longing to return. But ultimately, as Zenab says, All is not lost, is it?