About the Author:
Tanushree Ghosh works in Tech and has a Doctorate in Chemistry from the Cornell University. She is also a social activist and writer. Her blog posts, op-eds, poems, and stories are in effort to provoke thoughts, especially towards issues concerning women and social justice.
She is a contributor (past and present) to several popular e-zines (incl. The Huffington Post US, The Logical Indian, Youth Ki Awaaz, Tribune India, Women’s Web, and Cafe Dissensus). Her literary resume includes poems and stories featured in national and international magazines (Words Pauses and Noises, UK; TUCK, Glimmer Train Honorable mention) as well as inclusion in seven anthologies such as Defiant Dreams (Oprah 2016 reading list placeholder) and The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (published out of Singapore by Kitaab). Her first single author book, From An-Other Land is on immigration.
She has held different leadership roles in non-profits (ASHA and AID India) and is the founder and director of Her Rights (www.herrights.website), a 501(3) c non-profit committed to furthering the cause of gender equality. She is often an invited speaker or panelist for both corporate and non-profit endeavors.
About the Book:
Never has been the conversation on immigration more pertinent than now, post 2016 US elections. From cancellation of refugee protection and zero tolerance to undercurrent crackdown on H visas to the border wall – the resurgence of nationalism is hitting the globalized population head-on.
But what is immigration today? A question of life or death – fleeing of persecution? A compulsion? Or a mere pursuance of privilege? And what is the US today? A land of opportunities? Or a quagmire impossible to comprehend, inherently racist and selfish?
From An-Other Land dives deep into immigration today for the diaspora and its many facets with characters who seek to define themselves in an intercultural setting that is less and less sure of itself. A reality check and a guide for anyone who wants to understand the modern-day US.
Review of ‘From An-Other Land’, by Tanushree Ghosh
When I signed up to receive a free copy of this book from iRead Book Tours, I thought it would be a non-fiction book discussing real life situations and providing insight and information from interviews and studies.
I was at first quite put off when I realised I was reading instead a fiction book following a cast of characters as they make the move from India to the United States. But I was quickly captured and read the entire book in only a handful of sittings.
Thought-provoking and very difficult to read at time—for all the right reasons—Ghosh manages to paint a vivid picture of how immigration can turn out, be it the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. It’s so important to realise that immigration isn’t easy, and that immigrants are not the money-sucking leeches some loud voices in the media are so fond of painting them as. Books like From An-Other Land provide, in the safe cocoon of fiction, a space for readers to open their minds to the possibility that perhaps those loud voices are wrong, and that the discourse around immigration should change to become more human and just, both towards the immigrant and the country they are immigrating to.
Final Thoughts
From An-Other Land would do well if it were rebranded, belonging to that special category of works of fiction that could have a major positive impact in real life.