Author(s)
Series
Season
Subject(s)

Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY Awards) gold medalist

Khabaar is a food memoir and personal narrative that braids the global journeys of South Asian food through immigration, migration, and indenture. Focusing on chefs, home cooks, and food stall owners, the book questions what it means to belong and what does belonging in a new place look like in the foods carried over from the old country? These questions are integral to the author鈥檚 own immigrant journey to America as a daughter of Indian refugees (from what鈥檚 now Bangladesh to India during the 1947 Partition of India); as a woman of color in science; as a woman who left an abusive marriage; and as a woman who keeps her parents鈥 memory alive through her Bengali food.

鈥淚 have been an enthusiastic follower of Madhushree Ghosh, and have great admiration for her literary talent. But I was not prepared for this new, very powerful, and entrancing work. I highly recommend it. It鈥檚 unforgettable.鈥濃擫uis Alberto Urrea, author, The House of Broken Angels

鈥淎 seemingly effortlessly wise collection of essays that shows again and again the ways writing about food involves more than a story, a political history, or a family legacy, as Ghosh takes the food essay into entirely new directions. The result is a brilliant book about the past and the present that also feels like the future of the form.鈥濃擜lexander Chee, author, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays

鈥泪苍 Khabaar, Madhushree Ghosh shares her unforgettable story deftly and beautifully, as only a gifted storyteller can. Like the foods that shape and inform Ghosh鈥檚 memories and reflections, her intimate, powerful prose is meant to be savored. This memoir, at once global in scope and deeply intimate, is a treasure.鈥濃擠eesha Philyaw, author, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

鈥淎s thought-provoking as it is delicious, joyful, and a delight to read.鈥濃擲onia Faleiro, author, The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing

鈥淲ildly original. With her scientific sensibility, chef鈥檚 palate, and poet鈥檚 heart, Madhushree Ghosh has given us a singular and spectacular read.鈥濃擬ira Jacob, author, Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

鈥淢adhushree Ghosh seamlessly blends stories of food and family, longing and grief, to reveal the power of food to connect us鈥攖o the past, to one another, to our appetites and desires, to that which we wish to say when language fails. A book to read with all your senses, Khabaar will break your heart and make it swell.鈥濃擫acy M. Johnson, author, The Reckonings: Essays 

Khabaar crackles with energy and passion. This book engages the reader on many levels: it awakens the senses, heightens awareness of racial and gender disparity, and perhaps above all is a powerful love story between its author and her family and country of origin. Ghosh has written a book that educates as it entertains, which is no easy feat. I am enriched for having read it.鈥濃擠ani Shapiro, author, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

鈥淢adhushree Ghosh is a talented and exciting voice in the literary field. I鈥檓 looking forward to reading everything that she writes now and in the future. This is one writer to watch.鈥濃擭ayomi Munaweera, author, What Lies Between Us

鈥淕hosh writes especially well through her memories, from tender (as a child shopping for goat with her father in a bustling Delhi market) to terrifying (desperately escaping a hotel room she was accidentally locked in before a job presentation). . . . A likable food memoir from a self-aware and culturally astute author.鈥濃Kirkus Reviews

鈥淓qual parts memoir, political commentary, and cookbook, this collection of essays braids food and memory and loss into a single compelling strand. . . . This book is deliciously engaging.鈥濃Los Angeles Review of Books

Khabaar is both a personal and collective voice that weaves meaning through its use of culinary images. . . . Ghosh explores what food means to life, to survival, to emotions and certainly to being alive. . . . she invites readers to consider how [recipes] start conversations, as food creates one鈥檚 family, especially 鈥榳hen the family one was born into is gone鈥. . . . her personal narrative follows the genre that Krishnendu Ray and Anita Mannur have explored, finding the deshi heart in the immigrant kitchen.鈥濃South Asia Research

 IPPY Gold Medal Award, Autobiography/Memoir II (Coming of Age/Family Legacy/Travel)

Paperback

ISBN-13
9781609388232
Retail price
$19.95

eBook, Perpetual

ISBN-13
9781609388249
Retail price
$19.95

Publication Details

Publication Details

Publication Date
04/04/2022
Pages
212
Trim size
6 x 8
Art
11 color photos, 3 b&w photos
Edition
1st