Books like The Girl from Foreign by Sadia Shepard

Sadia Shepard grew up in a lively household just outside Boston, where her white Protestant father and Muslim Pakistani mother celebrated their diverse cultures together. Yet a hidden chapter of her heritage waited to be revealed: her maternal grandmother, once a Muslim of Pakistani descent, had been born Rachel Jacobs, a descendant of the Bene Israel, a tiny Jewish community in India who trace their lineage to the lost tribes of Israel. With a promise to fill in her family’s fractured mosaic, Sadia is awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and travels to Bombay. There she documents a dwindling Jewish community and, in the process, confronts her complex identity that straddles three faiths and three continents. Through intimate interviews, photo documentation, and a careful excavation of family history, the memoir weaves together themes of hidden marriage, the legacy of Partition, and the personal quest for belonging, offering a poetic look at how one person navigates multiple cultural and religious identities.

First publish date: 2008