Description: Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals of Excellence
The conditions of travel have long been dictated by the color of passports and the color of skin. The color of one's skin and passport have long dictated the conditions of travel. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Habib threads the history of travel with her personal story as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom roundtrips are an annual fact of life. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this insightful debut parses who gets to travel, and who gets to write about the experience. Threaded through the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, trains, the idea of wanderlust itself. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism--but as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.Brief description: A storyteller at heart, Deepa Samuel enjoys travel, ethnic cuisine, and delving into other cultures. At home, when she's not parked in her cozy chair with a cup of Earl Grey (naturally, with real sugar and milk) and a good book, Deepa is content spending time with her family and friends. What better way to spend time with people than to create memories over personal stories. Whether it's catching up at the latest new Mediterranean restaurant, or cooking up a feast at home with loved ones, laughter (and, perhaps a glass of wine) are simply all she really needs.
Review Quotes:
"[An] irreverent, wide-ranging account...to examine who is able to travel and how the pastime has shaped our world."
-- "New York Times Book Review"