Leaving India

My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents

Nonfiction, History, Asian, India, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Emigration & Immigration, Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Author: Minal Hajratwala ISBN: 9780547345413
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publication: March 18, 2009
Imprint: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Language: English
Author: Minal Hajratwala
ISBN: 9780547345413
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication: March 18, 2009
Imprint: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Language: English

The PEN Award–winning chronicle of the Indian diaspora told through the stories of the author’s own family.

In this “rich, entertaining and illuminating story,” Minal Hajratwala mixes history, memoir, and reportage to explore the collisions of choice and history that led her family to emigrate from India (San Francisco Chronicle). “Meticulously researched and evocatively written” (The Washington Post), Leaving India looks for answers to the eternal questions that faced not only Hajratwala’s own Indian family but all immigrants, everywhere: Where did we come from? Why did we leave? What did we give up and gain in the process?
 
Beginning with her great-grandfather Motiram’s original flight from British-occupied India to Fiji, where he rose from tailor to department store mogul, Hajratwala follows her ancestors across the twentieth-century to explain how they came to be spread across five continents and nine countries. As she delves into the relationship between personal choice and the great historical forces—British colonialism, apartheid, Gandhi’s salt march, and American immigration policy—that helped shape her family’s experiences, Hajratwala brings to light for the very first time the story of the Indian diaspora.
 
A luminous narrative from “a fine daughter of the continent, bringing insight, intelligence and compassion to the lives and sojourns of her far-flung kin,” Leaving India offers a deeply intimate look at what it means to call more than one part of the world home (Alice Walker).

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The PEN Award–winning chronicle of the Indian diaspora told through the stories of the author’s own family.

In this “rich, entertaining and illuminating story,” Minal Hajratwala mixes history, memoir, and reportage to explore the collisions of choice and history that led her family to emigrate from India (San Francisco Chronicle). “Meticulously researched and evocatively written” (The Washington Post), Leaving India looks for answers to the eternal questions that faced not only Hajratwala’s own Indian family but all immigrants, everywhere: Where did we come from? Why did we leave? What did we give up and gain in the process?
 
Beginning with her great-grandfather Motiram’s original flight from British-occupied India to Fiji, where he rose from tailor to department store mogul, Hajratwala follows her ancestors across the twentieth-century to explain how they came to be spread across five continents and nine countries. As she delves into the relationship between personal choice and the great historical forces—British colonialism, apartheid, Gandhi’s salt march, and American immigration policy—that helped shape her family’s experiences, Hajratwala brings to light for the very first time the story of the Indian diaspora.
 
A luminous narrative from “a fine daughter of the continent, bringing insight, intelligence and compassion to the lives and sojourns of her far-flung kin,” Leaving India offers a deeply intimate look at what it means to call more than one part of the world home (Alice Walker).

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