Meatless Days ANNOTATION
A remarkable writer offers a remarkable look at the violent history of Pakistan's independence with the author's most intimate memories--of her Welsh mother, an English teacher of spare, abstracted eloquence; of her Pakistani father, a prominent and frequently jailed political journalist; of her tenacious grandmother; and of the friends who accompany her own passage to the West. A profoundly moving literary work.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Nine autobiographical tales that move easily back and forth among Pakistan, Britain, and the United States. . . . She forays lightly into Pakistani history, and deeply into the history of her family and friends. . . . The Suleri women at home in Pakistan make this book sing."-- Daniel Wolfe, New York Times Book Review
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Suleri's memoir of postcolonial Pakistan focuses on language as a means to personal and cultural self-definition. ``In interpreting an intricate past so resourcefully, Suleri . . . expands the usual boundaries of autobiography to include philosophical, literary, historical and linguistic issues in an elegantly unified document,'' said PW. (June)
Library Journal
This is an intriguing, yet unsatisfying book. Intriguing because the author weaves the private history of her family into the public and political history of her homeland, Pakistan. Unsatisfying, in that neither tale seems complete. The author's personal joys and losses play against the violence of a country as it fights for and wins its independence. That independence was central to the family seems both obvious and abstract. Though the family's existence was in many ways defined by events, it seems oddly disassociated from these events. Still, the book is engaging. It is mainly through family relationships, especially those of the women, that the two stories are joined. This is a very personal autobiography. -- Frada L. Mozenter, Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte Lib.
Booknews
Integrates available knowledge about the essential large data bases in criminological research. Contributors discuss theoretical issues of crime measurement, analyze the National Crime Survey, examine surveys and censuses for prisons and jails, explore the use of archival data, and discuss implications for policy in the criminal justice arena. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. An autobiographical sequence of meditations on one family's experience with the turmoil of Pakistan and events leading to the author's move to the US. Suleri (English, Yale) recounts memories of her Pakistani father, a prominent political journalist. No bibliography. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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