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The Stories We Tell; The Stories That Get Published

Anita Felliceli asks where are the stories about desi lives in America ? Why are so many stories still about the immigrant lives of parents in which the characters often go ‘back home’? What about the homes here?

I believe there are many authors writing these stories but that they are probably not getting published (my own experience). Publishers still want a single story, and are not willing to take too many chances.

Felliceli’s essay  is a important read in an ongoing conversation.

“Early Indian American writers were mostly not writing about second-generation children of programmers, engineers and doctors, or about motel owners or taxi cab drivers or small business owners. They were writing about the upper echelon of educated first generation Indians in America. What links their books is nostalgia and love for India, their own wistful version of what India was.

But why are our lives here less interesting than the lives our parents left behind? The value of any story should be more in how it’s told than in its plot, so there isn’t any reason to think that the lives of Indian Americans should be intrinsically less interesting than the lives of Indians in India.”

read rest here 

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