Customer Reviews

We Are Not in Pakistan

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This is a brand new collection of short stories written by a woman who knows what it's like to live in many cultures, all at once. It's easy to get lofty when you speak of Baldwin's writing -- after all, she won a Commonwealth Writer's Prize (Canada and Caribbean) for her novel, What the Body Remembers, and was a finalist for a Giller Prize for Tiger Claw. And there's the political aspect -- the way she illuminates cultures that are becoming more complex, more hybrid, more important. But what I like best is the way she tells stories. She allows us to slide into the daily -- sometimes rowdy; sometimes ridiculous; sometimes poignant -- lives of those who are like us and those who are "other." From Fletcher the dog to "This Raghead," we are, first and foremost, entertained. Then, when we stop and think about it, we realize we also learned a thing or two.