Winner of the SheWrites New Novelist competition 2011
Sita is the firstborn, but since she is a female child, her birth makes life difficult for her mother who is expected to produce a son. From the start, Sita finds herself in a culture hostile to her, but her irrepressible personality won’t be subdued. Born in India, she immigrants as a toddler to the U.S. with her parents after the birth of her much anticipated younger brother.
Sita shifts between the vastly different worlds of her WASP dominated school and her father’s insular traditional home. Her journey takes us beneath tales of successful middle class Indians who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s.
The gap between positive stereotypes of South Asian immigrants and the reality of Sita's family, who are struggling to stay above the poverty line is a relatively new theme for Indian literature in English.
Sita's struggles to be American and yet herself, take us deeper into understanding the dilemmas of first generation children, and how religion and culture define women.
About the Author
Mohana Rajakumar has lived in Qatar since 2005. She has published six e-books including a mom-ior for first time mothers, Mommy But Still Me, a guide for aspiring writers, So You Want to Sell a Million Copies, a short story collection, Coloured and Other Stories, and a novel about women’s friendships, Saving Peace. From Dunes to Dior, is a collection of essays related to her experiences as a female South Asian American living in the Arabian Gulf. Her second novel is set in Qatar which explores if this generation of people believe that Love Comes Later. Mohana has a PhD from the University of Florida with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory. She was a winner of the She Writes We Love New Novelists competition. Catch up on her latest via her blog or follow her on Twitter @moha_doha.
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