Customer Reviews

The Writing on My Forehead LP: A Novel

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A brilliant first novel by Ms. Haji, and from the first chapters is much more than a story about mother-daughter relationships (although that theme, too, weaves through the book). It's a masterful tale of culture--a family's history as it unfolds parallel to modern history--and how individual choices affect so many.

"The Writing on My Forehead" is filled with colorful, believable characters who, combined, provide the reader with a compelling look into the lives of those we might not have understood before. Each character (as seen through the eyes of delightful Saira) is like a puzzle piece in a much larger picture of her life. Through her family members, we come to understand her own unfolding story... why she makes some of the choices (and mistakes) along the way. Not unlike every family, everywhere. Many family members in the book, especially Big Nanima, were people I would have loved to share a cup of tea with. It's a book I couldn't put down until reaching the final page, and is a novel I'll remember for many years.

"The Writing on My Forehead" is not light reading. There are terms and Urdu words which may be unfamiliar to the reader (as they were to me), and as I read, I found myself wishing there'd been a glossary added. That is the only criticism I have of the book, and only because it took several chapters to keep unfamiliar terms and words straight.

In summary, and without giving away any of the story, this reader is grateful to Ms. Haji for such a vibrant, compelling visit into a culture and people I hadn't known... and yet are so familiar in many ways. The author has reinforced my belief that regardless of where we come from, we're more alike than we are different. There are universal truths in the human experience--joys and sorrows, arguments and laughter, births and deaths, complicated relationships, and yes... family secrets. I highly recommend reading this wonderful novel. In fact, I've asked each of my sons to read it and the 16 year old is already enjoying it!

A fascinating glimpse into an Indo Pakistani world where family and culture are embedded into the main character's life, no matter how she tries to distance herself.

The Indo Pakistani family relationship rules shape the lives and decisions of all the characters, even those who think they are rebelling. Family love is paradoxical - all encompassing, all inclusive while at the same time extremely smothering, a la "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan. And yet many readers will also recognize that the love of the extended family is something that brings great joy and comfort in a society like the US which values the individual so highly.


The writing starts off choppy for the first few chapters but bear with the writer, she finds her voice and her flow after a bit. And what really makes this book is that there are several twists that are completely surprising and unexpected that will drive you to finish it.

I was initially drawn to this book because I enjoy reading and exploring cultures different from my own. I could absolutely relate to the clash between the social traditions of 2 different cultures. This is a novel about an Indian family from the perspective of Saira who is considered the young rebel. She was raised in the United States along with her sister, Ameena. While Saira resists her family's social traditions, Ameena remains a contrasting figure in that she does everything that is expected of her. Turmoil in the family leads Saira to contemplate a role that is traditional of her Indian culture. Through old letters and stories in flashback form, Saira gains a greater understanding of her family (who she has mostly failed to appreciate up to this point). These family members are colorful characters leading what they consider ordinary lives at critical moments in history. The author does a great job in detailing their lives to add an entirely different dimension to the novel. I got used to this pace where I was learning about the family in the same way Saira was. This is why I was a little surprised that the end of the novel felt somewhat rushed. However, I am pleased that the author was able to maintain multiple storylines within the same book. It's been a good nighttime read for me.

I loved this book and I am not easily impressed or one to gush. As a second generation British Pakistani so much of this book resonated with me. It's rare to find a book where you can relate to the story on such a personal level. I was moved to tears on several occasions. The story line is entertaining and the book is not one you can easily put down. The writing style is beautiful through-out and I would like to thank the author for writing this. It was one of the best reads I have had in a long time and I read a lot of literature by South-Asian authors. Nafisa Haji has topped Mohsin Hamid and perhaps even Khaled Hosseini. Thank you Nafisa Haji, please write more. You were clearly born to do it.

Saria Qader and her older sister Ameena are second generation Muslim-Americans, but they couldn't be more different. Ameena is the beauty, Saria is the brains. Ameena will mend her will to tradition, Saria will not. The girls are growing up in America, but the traditions and culture of their parents have followed them. Ameena agrees to an arranged marriage with a handsome doctor, but Saria wants to go to college.

When she was fourteen she found out her grandmother's secret. Saria had always believed her grandfather was dead, but it wasn't. He'd left his arranged marriage and took up with another. Not everybody in her family was a slave to tradition. Saria wouldn't be either. And she isn't. She goes to college, becomes an international journalist, but when Ameena is murdered after 9/11 she questions the choices she's made.

In the end the ties that bind are family. But sometimes we have to lose them to discover how important that are. Sometimes we can get them back, sometimes we cannot. How Saria handles the conflict is what make this story so wonderful. It's a story about mothers and daughters, about sisters, about family. About the struggles and trials of second generation Americans who have one foot in America and one foot in a culture they never really knew.

The Writing on My Forehead is part of the growing genre about the immigrant experience in the US. It is the story of Saira Qader and her family, spanning 20 years and three continents. Saira's parents are Indian Moslems with their "global network" of family ties in England and Pakistan as well as the US. Saira's mother, Shabana, is very traditional, banning anything shorter than the knee after 12, eschewing Western-style dancing, performing in school plays. Any deviation from her view as appropriate male/female interaction leads Shabana to brand her daughter a "whore" who is ruining her chances on the Pakistani marriage market. Saira is rather rebellious (at least compared to the constraints imposed by her mother, but not in American terms) but her sister is the perfect Indo-Pakistani daughter in Shabana Qader's eyes, beautiful, fair skinned, amenable to an arranged marriage at 19, polite to her elders, with the goal to be a wife and mother first and foremost.

The novel centers around the fissure between tradition and modernity or maintaining ties to the past versus adopting Western culture. Somehow, the novel does not become a cliche although those themes are rather common. Ms. Haji avoids cliche, I think, through excellent writing and fascinating characters. She seems to really "get" the first generation English (Saira's twin cousins are very interesting) and American children of Indo-Pakistani immigrants. She captures the East meets West rebellion quite well and somehow avoids the happy, Bend it Like Bekham ending that one would expect from this genre. Ms. Haji also avoids a morality play kind of ending in which Saira is judged for her rebellion from traditional mores. Further, she avoids an ending where Shabana Qader all of a sudden adopts modernity. This is not to say that the characters don't evolve - they do - but they evolve in a way that makes sense for the personalities that Ms. Haji skillfully develops. This is a great book - I liked it as much as Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and highly recommend it.

"The Writing on My Forehead" is an impressive debut novel by Nafisa Haji, a second-generation American of Indo-Pakistani descent. The author, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, now lives in northern California with her husband and son. She has given us a female-oriented tale of family dynamics, as they pinch our toes, support us, and set us free.

In a story that has resonance for many, if not most, second-generation immigrants, as they struggle between the call of home, and the need to adapt to their new country, Haji tells the story of Saira Qader (which sure sounds semi-autobiographical, as they say, to me), a Muslim-American who has been born and raised in LA as the child of Indo-Pakistani immigrants. Saira loves her parents, particularly her Mum, but the girl is willful and intelligent, and her wealthy family's overprotective traditions chafe at her as she struggles for independence and a career of her own. So, Saira will explore her family background on several continents, meet relatives she loves and abhors, and discover her family is divided by secrets withheld and lies told as much as by the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent that created the separate states of India and Pakistan, Hindu and Moslem. The girl is determined to become a journalist, and will do so. Then comes 9/11/01, the tragic destruction of the World Trade Center by Moslem extremists, and her life and family will be sorely affected.

Haji does very well at creating a personal world and a global one, and showing how they connect. She writes well, nice descriptions, good dialog. The first-time author is able to build her tale to a powerful conclusion, as her character Saira finds that family traditions have their uses, after all; they are sometimes preferable to trying to reinvent the wheel. However, Haji's inexperience as an author did have some negative impacts, I felt, particularly on her conclusion. She has first to resort to a rather melodramatic "deus ex machina"to get her characters positioned as she wants them; and will then trot out a "surprise twist" of an ending that has been used in three different women's books that I have read recently. Nevertheless, I liked Haji's first effort very well.

The Writing on my Forehead, by Nafisa Haji, is a good debut novel from a talented writer. It tells the interesting story of an Indo-Pakistani Muslim family that immigrates to Los Angeles, and is torn between two cultures and two generations, the parents born in India, and their two daughters born in the US. The book provides valuable insights into both the Indian and Muslim cultures and the tensions that exist in any immigrant family which is trying to cope with reconciling and accommodating the values of modern America with those brought with them from abroad. Some of the characters are affecting. Yet, the plot suffers from some highly dramatic events, which appear to me as artifices, rather than as natural plot progressions. The narrative drags at times, especially at the beginning. To me, The Writing on my Forehead would be an especially good read for young adult readers, who will find it easy going and, perhaps, insightful. The two main protagonists are teenagers.

Living in California, young Saira Qader is the daughter of traditional and conservative Muslim parents. However, she was brought up in America and tends to think like an American and what American teenager isn't a bit rebellious.

Saira goes to Pakistan without her mother and sister when she is fourteen to attend a family wedding. During the trip she finds out her grandfather isn't dead as she been told. He actually left her grandmother and is living with a second family in England. The marriage between her grandparents had been arranged.

She returns home to a sister who has agreed to an arranged marriage, but after what Saira has seen coupled with her rebellious nature, she knows this isn't the route she wants to take. Instead she wants to go to college just like her American friends and she does, where she participates in several unMuslim like activities, like drugs, drink and sex.

She winds up as a successful journalist, traveling the world with her photographer cousin, whose lifestyle would shock any conservative Muslim. But after the Twin Towers fall her sister is murdered because she was wearing a hijab and this causes Saria to reevaluate her life and her relationship with her family.

Saria's story held me captive. I'm always interested in cultures different than mine, especially when I can learn about them in a well told story and this story is well told. I don't know about all the choices Saria made, but most of them I could well imagining a girl in her position making. I can imagine how hard it would be for a second generation American balancing family and success. Free will, they say God gave it to us, but fate and culture play a strong roll and when you're trying to balance all three, well it's not always possible, but you'll enjoy reading this story and learning how Saria deals with the conflict between her will and her culture.

Nafisa Haji's The Writing on My Forehead: A Novel (P.S.) transports readers into another culture and the struggles that members find themselves in as the world around them evolves, causing clashes between modernity and the past. Told from the point of view of Saira, readers are taken on a very personal journey into the past, uncovering the deep secrets of Saira's grandmother and grandfather as well as her own parents. The dynamic between Saira and her sister is only partially shown, with the point of view of Ameena silent. From fate to choices, each character must follow their path to the end -- no matter what it holds for them.

Saira grows into an independent woman who is running from her culture and tradition to find herself grasping for it in the darkest moments of her life. As an American with a strong Pakistani-Indian heritage and a mother reminiscent of Mrs. Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, it is no wonder that she rebels against tradition and culture to become a traveling journalist.

Haji's prose is eloquent and engages not only the readers' sensibilities and emotions, but their inquisitive nature as family secrets are unraveled. Saira is a complex character who searches for a center, an axis on which she can revolve and become grounded. While she is connected to family, like Mohsin and Big Nanima, throughout her life because they are in effect the outsiders of a culture she rejects, she continues to struggle with her other relations -- her sister, Ameena, her mother and her father -- because they represent to her a culture she finds limiting. The Writing on My Forehead: A Novel (P.S.) provides a variety of topics for discussion from political imperialism and its consequences to the tension between the modern world and tradition and the modern dilemmas facing adolescents striking out on their own to the loss of family -- making this an excellent book club selection that will inspire debate and introspection.