Winner, CBC Canadian Literary Award and Friends of American Writers Award
The new reader's guide edition of Shauna Singh Baldwin's literary debut features the fifteen stories from the original collection, an interview with the author, an original afterword, and her suggested reading list. When Shauna Singh Baldwin's debut collection was first published in 1996, it took readers by storm. Reviewers discovered a new voice; listeners tuned in to the stories on CBC Radio. Since then, Baldwin has written two award-winning novels and, in 2007, a second story collection, We Are Not in Pakistan. Dramatizing the lives of Indian women from 1919 to the present, from India to North America, Shauna Singh Baldwin travels from the intimate sphere of family to the wasteland of office and university.
"Both sweet and sour... a fascinating collection, rich in cultural insight."
"The entry of a promising writer into the expanding world of Indian fiction in English."
"The vicious circle of Indian women attempting to balance traditional roles with views and lifestyles outside their inherited gender and homeland."
"Baldwin's prose is precise, nuanced, and sensual. She threads her stories with ravishing glints of colour, that explode against the pallid landscape of Canada."
"Baldwin's skill is revealed as she takes up small, ordinary incidents and weaves them into beautiful, interesting stories. The language in her book is simple and effective. With her subtle, incremental touches, her characters become alive and their life situations reveal new aspects of their lives."
"Each of these superb short stories shuttles between the intricate threads of family, the rich, sturdy fabric of ancient Indian tradition, and the somewhat more ready-to-wear culture of North America."