具体描述
In this beautifully crafted memoir, a young half-Muslim, half-Christian woman travels to India to connect with a tiny Jewish community and unlock her family’s secret history.
Sadia Shepard grew up in a joyful, chaotic home just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, where cultures intertwined, her father a white Protestant from Colorado and her mother a Muslim from Pakistan. Her childhood was spent in a house full of stories and storytellers, where the customs and religions of both of her parents were celebrated and cherished with equal enthusiasm. But Sadia’s cultural legacy grew more complex when she discovered that there was one story she had never been told. Her beloved maternal grandmother was not a Muslim like the rest of her Pakistani family, but in fact had begun her life as Rachel Jacobs, a descendant of the Bene Israel, a tiny Jewish community whose members believe that they are one of the lost tribes of Israel, shipwrecked in India two thousand years ago. This new knowledge complicated Sadia's cultural inheritance even further, intimately linking her to the faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and to the customs of India, the United States, and Pakistan.
At her grandmother's deathbed, Sadia makes a promise to begin the process of filling in the missing pieces of her family's fractured mosaic. With the help of a Fulbright Scholarship and armed with a suitcase of camera equipment, she arrives in Bombay, where she finds herself struggling to document a community in transition. Her search to connect with the Bene Israel community and understand its unique traditions brings her into contact with a cast of remarkable characters, tests her sense of self, and forces her to examine what it means to lose and seek one’s place, one’s homelands, and one’s history. In the process, she unearths long-lost family secrets, confronts her fears of failure, and finds love in places that surprise her. Sadia beautifully weaves together the story of her grandparents’ secret marriage and the haunting legacy of Partition with an evocative account of a little-known Jewish community and a young woman’s search for self. The Girl from Foreign is her poetic and touching attempt to reconcile with her family's past and help determine her future. When offered the choice, will she be able to choose among the religious and cultural identities that have shaped her? It is an unforgettable story of family secrets, buried identities, lost histories, forbidden love, and, above all, eye-opening self- discovery.
作者简介
Sadia Shepard is a documentary filmmaker and writer who lives in New York City. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 1997, from the Graduate Program in Documentary Film and Video at Stanford University in 2000, and began her work with the Bene Israel community of India while on a Fulbright Scholarship. This is her first book.
目录信息
读后感
In the fancy book,I can not find any chinese words in the text.Though it seems inconvenient to understand the book,I never fail to find out the meaning hiding in the book.Maybe that is a good way to enhance my ability! So I am delight with owning this book!...
评分In the fancy book,I can not find any chinese words in the text.Though it seems inconvenient to understand the book,I never fail to find out the meaning hiding in the book.Maybe that is a good way to enhance my ability! So I am delight with owning this book!...
评分In the fancy book,I can not find any chinese words in the text.Though it seems inconvenient to understand the book,I never fail to find out the meaning hiding in the book.Maybe that is a good way to enhance my ability! So I am delight with owning this book!...
评分In the fancy book,I can not find any chinese words in the text.Though it seems inconvenient to understand the book,I never fail to find out the meaning hiding in the book.Maybe that is a good way to enhance my ability! So I am delight with owning this book!...
评分In the fancy book,I can not find any chinese words in the text.Though it seems inconvenient to understand the book,I never fail to find out the meaning hiding in the book.Maybe that is a good way to enhance my ability! So I am delight with owning this book!...
用户评价
我很少用“结构精巧”来评价一本书，因为这个词听起来太刻板了，但对于这部作品来说，找不到更合适的词了。它的章节安排，尤其是跨越不同时间线的叙事切换，处理得干净利落，没有丝毫的拖泥带水或混乱感。作者像是站在一个上帝视角，同时操控着多个棋盘，但每一个棋子的移动轨迹都清晰可见，最终汇合成一幅宏大的画面。最让我感到惊喜的是配角的塑造。通常情况下，主角的光芒会掩盖其他人，但在这里，每一个次要人物都拥有完整的生命轨迹和动机，他们的出现，哪怕只是匆匆一瞥，也对主线剧情起到了至关重要的推动作用。这让我体会到了一种多维度的叙事魅力，仿佛我不是在读一个故事，而是在观察一个复杂而真实的生态系统如何运作。
评分说实话，我本来对这种偏向心理侧写的作品兴趣不大，总觉得情绪渲染得太过，容易失真。但这本书的厉害之处在于，它笔下的人物心理活动，细腻得让人感到一丝寒意，却又如此真实可信。你不会觉得角色是工具人，他们有着自己坚硬的内核和脆弱的伤口。举个例子，书中关于“记忆”的片段处理，简直是神来之笔。作者用一种近乎诗意的语言，探讨了记忆如何塑造我们，以及我们如何被自己构建的幻象所困。那种对时间流逝的无力感，那种对逝去时光的追忆与缅怀，被刻画得入木三分。读到某些章节时，我甚至需要停下来，深呼吸几次，因为那种压抑感太强了，不是那种无谓的黑暗，而是源自人性深处的幽暗角落被精准定位的感觉。它要求读者集中全部的注意力，稍有走神，可能就会错过某个至关重要的线索。
评分我最近读过不少所谓的“深度”小说，结果发现它们大多只是故作高深，堆砌着晦涩难懂的词汇，让人读起来如鲠在喉。然而，这部作品完全是另一番光景。它的文字功底扎实得令人赞叹，但最难得的是，它将复杂的情感和深刻的哲思融入到了极其流畅自然的叙事之中。我特别喜欢作者对“选择”这个主题的处理。书里的每个人物，似乎都在人生的十字路口徘徊，他们做出的每一个决定，都不是非黑即白的对错题，而是充满了灰色地带的挣扎与妥协。这种真实感，让我感同身受，甚至在合上书本后，还会不自觉地思考，如果我是他们，我会怎么做？那种代入感不是那种廉价的模仿，而是真正触及灵魂深处的共鸣。它没有给出标准答案，而是让你带着疑问继续前行，这种开放式的结尾或处理方式，无疑是成熟的标志，它尊重读者的思考能力，而不是把结论硬塞给我们。
评分啊，这本书！我得说，刚翻开的时候，我完全没抱什么期待，毕竟市面上这种带着点悬疑色彩的都市小说多如牛毛，大多都是故事情节老套，人物扁平得像张纸片。但这部作品，它真的让我眼前一亮。作者的叙事节奏把握得极其精准，那种不紧不慢却又暗流涌动的笔法，像极了夏日午后一场突如其来的雷阵雨，让你在感到凉爽的同时，又隐隐期待着下一道闪电何时落下。我尤其欣赏它对场景氛围的描绘，那种潮湿、迷蒙的城市气息，仿佛能穿透纸面，让我真切地感受到主角们呼吸的空气。书中的一些对话设计得非常巧妙，那种欲言又止、充满潜台词的交流，比那些大段的心理独白更有力量，让人忍不住反复咀嚼，去探究角色们隐藏在言语背后的真实意图。它不像某些小说那样急于把所有谜团一下子抛出来，而是像剥洋葱一样，一层层地揭示，每一次翻页都伴随着新的疑惑和更深的投入，这种阅读体验，简直是享受。
评分这本书给我最大的感受是那种“余韵”。很多书读完后，合上封面的那一刻，故事仿佛就尘埃落定了，但这部作品却像是一段悠扬的旋律，在脑海中久久回荡。它不像那种爆米花式的爽文，追求即时的感官刺激，而是更倾向于挖掘那些隐藏在生活表象之下的矛盾与张力。它探讨的主题虽然宏大，比如人与社会、个体与群体之间的疏离感，但表达方式却非常内敛和克制，没有进行说教式的升华。我特别欣赏作者在细节之处流露出的那种对人性复杂性的深刻洞察，那种对美好事物易逝的淡淡忧伤，都被包裹在严谨的逻辑和引人入胜的情节之下。读完之后，我花了好几天时间整理思绪，它强迫你去思考，去感受，这种高质量的阅读体验，是极其难得的。
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