Writing on my forehead by Nafisa Haji

Haji, Nafisa. Writing on my forehead. New York : William Morrow & Co, 2009.

This book explores the collision of culture and religion; tradition versus modernity portrayed through the lives of individuals.  A tale of forbidden love woven through a dysfunctional family over multiple generations.

Saira Qader, is a young American woman whose parents are immigrants from a traditional Indo-Pakistani ethnicity and now living in Los Angeles. Unlike her sister, Ameena, who happily agrees to an arranged marriage with a handsome doctor, Saira—like her great aunt before her—has different aspirations.   She is inspired by her cousin Mohsin's photography and stories of their half-uncle's exploits; she goes to college and studies journalism.  Her career takes off and after five years, the twin towers tragedy strikes and forces Saira to take stock – to examine her place in the family.

Author Haji, very deftly positions her heroine as a witness to her family’s history.  The grandmother who soldiered on and kept the family together,  inspite of the grandfather’s philandering ways to the gay cousin, who comes out of the closet and thus alienates himself from his family.

Nafisa Haji was born and mostly raised in Los Angeles.  Her family migrated from Bombay to Karachi in 1947 during Partition, when the Indian subcontinent was divided into two countires.  She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley majoring in American History and later obtained her doctorate in education from the University of California, Los Angeles.  she serves on the borad of Freedom Forward, an organisation working to ensure the alignment of American ideals of freedon with the reality with American foreign policy.