

This is a complex and important piece of history, well told. Nora Kramer, founder of Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Campĭecades later, Hazel Kahan makes a highly evocative pilgrimage back to a very different Pakistan from the emerging country she left in 1971. As readers, we are the beneficiaries of her willingness to reflect on struggles that many might rather avoid, helping us to discover how international persecution and internment shape personal and familial lives, and how false preconceptions and stereotypes can be. In this fascinating memoir, we learn about the full, rich, interesting lives of Hazel Kahan and her incredible family. –Tom Scovel, author of The Year China Changed Despite the book’s title, the reader will decide whether Pakistan was ever truly her “home.” What a story!

–Joseph Mackin, author of the novel Pretend All Your Lifeīecause my special empathy with Hazel Kahan’s narrative comes from also being interned during WWII, growing up neither European nor Asian in China, and revisiting my Asian roots much later in life, I find the account of her return to Lahore enchanting. The life explored here - tenderly considered - offers proof that humanity may yet defeat the inhumane. Yet for all that goes wrong - is wrong - light emerges, manifest in language, letters and longing, in love and dignity among the ruins. Kahan’s beautiful, noble quest gives the reader a vertiginous sense of life’s fragility - of just how swiftly all that one relies upon can be shattered by prejudice and political upheaval. For more information, please contact me or check this page which will be updated as soon as there’s something new to say!
