An American Brat by Bapsi Sidhwa

Description

As An American Brat opens in Pakistan, the extended family of sixteen-year-old Feroza Ginwalla, a lively and temperamental young girl, agonize over the decision to send Feroza to America for a three-month holiday? This act of apparent audacity arises from concern over Feroza’s conservative attitudes which stem from Pakistan’s rising tide of fundamentalism. Feroza’s chaperone in America, an uncle only six years her senior, is her guide, friend, and the bane of her existence. Her relationships and adventures shape her alternately hilarious and terrifying perceptions of America. Feroza’s family in Pakistan, meanwhile, are in delicious turmoil over the possibility that American ways will ruin her. In the tradition of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and Gish Jen’s Typical American, An American Brat brings insight while entertaining readers with an enormously satisfying story and characters. Sidhwa allows us to see Americans from the point of view of newcomers – an occasionally unsettling perspective – while gently illuminating the potentially destructive influence of fundamentalism on a culture and individuals.

Author Biography

Born in Karachi and brought up in Lahore, Bapsi Sidhwa, a graduate of Kinnaird College for Women, now lives in Houston. Sidhwa held a Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe, and received the prestigious Lila Wallace Readers Digest Writers Award. She has taught at Columbia University, the University of Houston, Mount Holyoke College and Southampton University. She has been awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest national honour in the arts.