Daughter of the Ganges: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Asha Miro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 20, 2006

A moving and emotional story about one girl's adoption

While growing up in an Indian orphanage, Asha Miró dreamed of someday being adopted. Her wish finally came true, but only at the misfortune of another. When Asha was six, a Catalan family was in the process of adopting twins but one of the children suddenly fell ill and died. This twist of fate led the family to adopt Asha instead. Leaving a life of poverty behind, Asha was given a second chance.

Twenty-one years later, Asha takes a heart-wrenching trip back to India to uncover her native roots. Full of unexpected encounters, this adventure informs and touches Asha beyond her expectations. She visits her old orphanage, speaks with her former caretakers, explores the land that she might not have ever left, and comes to form a more solid identity. Yet one trip is not enough. Eight years later she returns. This time she journeys to the small rural village where she was born. As well as uncovering the details behind her adoption, she finds the only living member of her immediate Indian family: a sister she never knew she had.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This memoir is an assemblage of two books chronicling Miró's first trips back to her native land of India since being adopted in Barcelona at the age of six in 1974. Miró (who works on cultural documentaries) begins with her only memory of India" a Christian orphanage in Bombay"interspersed with her adoptive mother's journal entries. In India, she struggles with stories that reinforce her history of being abandoned by her father, as well as the stunning news that she has siblings. The second book tells of her subsequent return to India to film a documentary about her story. Retracing the steps of her first trip, Miró finds that not all the stories she first heard were true. The woman documented as her mother is not her mother after all, and her father didn't simply abandon her as she'd been led to believe. These discoveries encourage Miró to become a public speaker on adoption, yet the voice of this section lacks the intimate tone of the first. Regardless, Miró's moving attempt to create a personal history from two distant worlds and a few scattered facts will enlighten readers about the emotional journey many adopted children undertake when searching into their past. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–Born in India, the author was adopted in 1974 at age six by a Catalan couple. She grew up to become a professional musician like them, but longed to know more about India and her past. Part One describes her return there 20 years later, to a work camp assisting the Bombay poor. Miró experienced a new culture and struggled to reconcile her Indian and European selves while she searched for facts about her first six years. Forming a counterpoint to this often-troubled quest are excerpts from a diary, lovingly written by her adoptive mother, about the girl's life in Spain. At the orphanage, Miró found a nun who remembered her, but of her birth parents she would only say that she was a Daughter of the Ganges. Though a spiritually gratifying concept (the sacred waters gave birth to India), the author pressed on in Western fashion, locating official records of her birth but finally reaching a dead end. After this first essay had become famous, she returned with a documentary film crew to retrace her steps. Part Two describes her second trip and how she delved deeper and located her extended birth family. This complex, nuanced, and thought-provoking personal journey is related in deceptively simple prose. Some readers might wish for a map, but the black-and-white photos are well chosen and revealing. A unique memoir with wide appeal.–Christine C. Menefee, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Atria (June 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743286723
• ISBN-13: 978-0743286725
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,439,256 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:

5.0 out of 5 stars A journey into the past and a search for one's birth identity, December 21, 2007

By 

Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Daughter of the Ganges: The Story of One Girl's Adoption and Her Return Journey to India (Paperback)

This is a book about trying to find out about oneself, and Asha Miro is the young woman who is trying to piece together her fragmented past, from her life in India until she was six until the day she returned to India from Spain, in the hope of finding out more about her adoption, her birth family and why they had given her up.

This book is actually two books in one, the first being Daughter of the Ganges, which tells of Asha's initial journey back to India to find trace back the steps to her life in a Catholic orphanage, to the second book, Two Faces of the Moon, where she finds a sister she never knew exisited and realises that she has a whole "other" life that needs to be explored in detail.

Both books are fascinating, in the first book Asha paints a dour if not too unhappy picture of her life in an Indian orphanage which was run by Catholic nuns, who did their best with little they had for the girls in their charge. The seocond book deals with possible inaccuracies of the first book, Asha has memories of living in a two tiered institution, part orphanage, part school in which rich girls slept on beds and the orphans slept on the floor. However this was denied by some of the nuns, but Asha has clear memories that she does not doubt so we never know who was right and who was wrong but she handles this situation really well and slowly we move toward the meeting of Asha and her sister, also called Asha and the truth about her life before Spain is delicately told, by nuns, friends, and family members.

A wonderful book that is far from being sentimental, Asha has no illusions about her life, she is European and cannot give up the trappings of her westernised life but she promises herself she will not forget where she has come from and I would like to think that she keeps that promise, not just for herself but for the faily who lost her and then found her again after so many years.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Warm Reading About Adoption, August 29, 2007

By 

J. Hardy (Bermuda) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Daughter of the Ganges: The Story of One Girl's Adoption and Her Return Journey to India (Paperback)

With the proliferation of books about adoption and adoptees on the market Asha Miro's story of retracing her roots in India will seem familiar.

However, what was truly wonderful about this book was Asha's gentle touch. Bitterness does not overtake this book.
There is so much love in this book. Usually, nuns in orphanages are portrayed as mean and cruel. Not so in this book. Instead, you find a group of women doing the best they can for Indian orphans with extremely limited resources. Usually, parents who give their children up in other countries are portrayed at best as pitiful and at worst as little more than savages. Definitely not so with this book.
Asha meets up with her biological family. It is a joyful reunion. By the time she finishes reconstructing why her family gave her up, and also her biological sister's life, her family feels about as exotic as people down the street.
And you understand why they did it. You're rather left with the feeling that you would have done the same in that situation.
I found Asha's portrait of her biological sister fascinating, and I kept thinking about it afterward.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bestseller in Spain, April 10, 2006

By 

Kim (08003 Barcelona, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Daughter of the Ganges: A Memoir (Hardcover)

This is lovely book about a woman now in her late 30's, adopted at the age of 6 by a Catalan couple, searching for her birth family in India. Very sensitively written, with great respect both for her adoptive parents (entries from her adoptive mother's journal form a part of the book) and her birth parents, about whom she discovers a great deal. A must for all adoptive families and recommended for anyone interested in Indian culture. This book was a huge bestseller in Spain and documentaries and a followup book have also been written by Ms. Miro. I have not read the English version; I hope it does the book justice.