An American Brat [Hardcover]

Bapsi Sidhwa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993

Feroza Ginwalla, a pampered, protected 16-year-old Pakistani girl, is sent to America by her parents, who are alarmed by the fundamentalism overtaking Pakistan — and their daughter. Hoping that a few months with her uncle, an MIT grad student, will soften the girl’s rigid thinking, they get more than they bargained for: Feroza, enthralled by American culture and her new freedom, insists on staying. A bargain is struck, allowing Feroza to attend college with the understanding that she will return home and marry well. As a student in a small western town, Feroza’s perceptions of America, her homeland, and herself begin to alter. When she falls in love with and wants to marry a Jewish American, her family is aghast. Feroza realizes just how far she has come — and wonders how much further she can go. This delightful coming-of-age novel is both remarkably funny and a remarkably acute portrayal of America as seen through the eyes of a perceptive young immigrant.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Again demonstrating her remarkable ability to convey adolescent emotions, Sidhwa paints an entertaining, often hilarious portrait of 16-year-old Feroza Ginwalla's adventures in the U.S. Feroza's parents (members of the family readers will remember from The Crow Eaters ) send her here from an increasingly fundamentalist Pakistan in 1978, hoping exposure to worldly ways will soften the girl's conservative attitudes. Feroza's uncle Manek, a student at MIT, guides her through a breathtaking carnival of glossy magazines, designer jeans and deodorants. Although shy, Feroza is temperamental, strong-willed and eager to learn. She enrolls in a small Idaho college; her extracurricular education includes learning how to cope with decrepit apartments, furniture from the Salvation Army, a libidinous roommate, a friend who steals from her to support his drug habit, bland cooking and street language. When a romance with an American man misfires, Feroza realizes that she alone can heal herself and that she has grown to love her new country despite its flaws. Not just another immigrant's tale, this chronicle of a strong, intensely alive young woman's emotional growth is gripping.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Young Pakistani Feroza Ginwalla is the charming protagonist of this entertaining and enlightening coming-of-age novel by Sidhwa ( The Crow Eaters , LJ 5/15/92). Concerned about the extreme conservatism spreading throughout Pakistan, Feroza's parents send her away from their close-knit community to spend a few months with her uncle, a student at MIT. Soon enamored of all things American, Feroza persuades her family to let her stay long enough to attend college, with the understanding that she will return to Pakistan to find a suitable husband. It is only when she falls in love and wants to marry an American that Feroza realizes the extent of her break with Pakistan and her family's values. Sidhwa's portrayal of American culture through a Third World student's eyes is humorous and affecting; her depiction of Pakistani culture being infiltrated by religious fundamentalism is illuminating. Recommended.
- Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 317 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; 1st edition (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915943735
• ISBN-13: 978-0915943739
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,091,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cultural shock and awe, October 20, 2005

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An American Brat (Hardcover)

Sidhwa's story opens in the author's birthplace, Pakistan, where Muslim fundamentalism has swayed 16-year-old Feroza Ginwalla, a lively, headstrong child who berates her mother for showing her arms and refuses to answer the telephone - even though the Ginwalla family is Zoroastrian, or Parsee, not Muslim.

Her mother, Zareen, decides to remove Feroza from these influences and sends her to visit her young uncle, Manek, a student in America.

Feroza's arrival in New York, from her humiliating ordeal at Customs, to the whirlwind tour of museums, towering buildings and glittering Fifth Avenue shop windows, to the bag ladies, derelicts and predatory young men, is a starkly humorous study of extremes.

Before leaving New York Feroza ventures out alone. The reader's sense of danger to this ebullient neophyte diminishes as she successfully negotiates the streets and shops and returns to the YMCA building where she and her uncle are staying. Only to be trapped in the fire stairs 22 stories up. As she loses her bearings, finds every door locked and begins to hear stealthy noises, Feroza succumbs to abject panic.

Chastened by this experience, Feroza wastes most of her visa watching television and eating delicacies like Vienna sausages out of cans. It's Manek who decides she, too, should study in America. To escape his bossiness, Feroza decides on Twin Falls, Idaho.

Feroza's initiation into things American accelerates under the tutelage of Jo, her roomate, who Feroza categorizes as "a 'juvenile delinquent,' a Western, and more specifically, American phenomenon." Jo drinks, curses, shoplifts and picks up men.

Slowly Feroza sorts through American customs, adopting those that suit her, and recognizing Jo's self-destructive behavior and becoming protective of her.
Then she falls in love with an American. At home in Pakistan all hell breaks loose. A Parsee girl who marries out of her religion is ex-communicated (not so, a Parsee man). Although determined not to, it seems Feroza must choose.

Sidwha's ("Cracking India") style is humorous and turbulent. While sometimes the story seems to digress from its focus - delving more deeply than necessary into Jo's and Manek's lives - vivid details illuminate an appealing heroine's unusual coming of age.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Brat - Fast Moving and Gripping, Worth Applaud!, July 22, 2001

By 

Uzair Qadeer (Pa, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An American Brat (Paperback)

Bapsi Sidhwa has now become one of the best writers in English language from Pakitsan. Her books have been loved in Great Britain and United States. "An American Brat" is just another one of her classics. Starting in Lahore: One of the most historic and beautiful cities of South Asia the book moves to United States. The story revolves around a Parsee religion girl and her life. The story highlights the political instability in Pakistan and takes place in the time when Bhutto govt. was overthrown by martial law that imposed Islam on every citizen. To avoid another religion's effects on the girl she was sent to America... and as its said "Someone somewhere is made for you," the girl finds her soulmate in America and gets married to a non-parsee boy and the news becomes a shock for the family in Pakistan because unlike America, religion is an issue in South Asia... The book is just stunning and i highly recomend you to read it... to see, how a simple girl moves to "gimme coke" from "May I have a Coca-Cola?"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book of conflicting logic for all involved, February 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: An American Brat (Hardcover)

I loved all of the characters but was never sure where we were going with Manek (Mike). I wish I had know that there was a glossary at the end before I finished the book. I think the characters were built on the previous book so now I'll go back and read that one. I want more by this author - great. And were are the Parcees from?