The ten stories in We Are Not in Pakistan illuminate a paradox: love and fear draw us together, yet drive us to extremes of separation. Sixteen-year-old Kathleen believes her family would be normal if not for her Pakistani grandmother. Olena, a Ukrainian woman living in Moscow, discovers that her husband's new posting will draw her dangerously close to her disapproving mother-in-law. Fletcher, a Lhasa Apso, finds himself in the middle of a game between his mistress and her commitment-phobic boyfriend. Tania tries to transform herself from an exotic dancer into the wife her doctor husband wants. Opposites clash and realign until the very last story, when Dr. Karanbir Singh receives an e-mail from a young woman who professes to be the child of his 1980s green-card marriage.
Eliciting amusement, curiosity, and wonder mingled with sadness for a post-9/11 world, Shauna Singh Baldwin lures us toward the displaced men, women, and other animals who populate these stories. Along the way, she explores our complex human responses to technology, art, and, most of all, our fellow humans.
Book Description
"Engaging and enlightening, international in scope, Baldwin's wonderful eye for detail and her clear, elegant prose bring the daily realities of these estranged characters to life — daily realities that are often profoundly affected by horrific events such as Chernobyl and 9/11. A wonderful collection." — Sandra Gulland, author of The Josephine B. Trilogy"Shauna Singh Baldwin's collection of stories is potent, poignant, disturbing, and of immense importance at this point in time. She examines the intersection of private lives with political and cultural convulsions. She illuminates terrorism for us; not just the terrorism of the media, but the invisible and horrifically costly terrorism of racist paranoia. I can't think of a more valuable book for our dangerous times." — Janette Turner Hospital, author of Oyster and Due Preparations for the Plague
From the Back Cover
The ten stories in We Are Not in Pakistan illuminate a paradox: love and fear draw us together, yet drive us to extremes of separation. Sixteen-year-old Kathleen believes her family would be normal if not for her Pakistani grandmother. Olena, a Ukrainian woman living in Moscow, discovers that her husband's new posting will draw her dangerously close to her disapproving mother-in-law. Fletcher, a Lhasa Apso, finds himself in the middle of a game between his mistress and her commitment-phobic boyfriend. Tania tries to transform herself from an exotic dancer into the wife her doctor husband wants. Opposites clash and realign until the very last story, when Dr. Karanbir Singh receives an e-mail from a young woman who professes to be the child of his 1980s green-card marriage.
Eliciting amusement, curiosity, and wonder mingled with sadness for a post-9/11 world, Shauna Singh Baldwin lures us toward the displaced men, women, and other animals who populate these stories. Along the way, she explores our complex human responses to technology, art, and, most of all, our fellow humans.
About the Author
Shauna Singh Baldwin’s first novel, What the Body Remembers, was published in 1999 by Knopf Canada, Transworld UK, Doubleday USA, and (as an audiobook) by Goose Lane Editions. It received the 2000 Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best Book (Canada-Caribbean region) and has been translated into fourteen languages. Her second novel The Tiger Claw was a finalist for Canada's Giller Prize 2004. Shauna is the author of English Lessons and Other Stories and coauthor of A Foreign Visitor’s Survival Guide to America. Her awards include the 1995 Writer’s Union of Canada Award for short prose and the 1997 Canadian Literary Award. English Lessons received the 1996 Friends of American Writers Award.
A former radio producer and ecommerce consultant, her fiction and poems are widely published in literary magazines and anthologies in the US, Canada, and India. She has served on several juries and teaches short courses in creative writing. Shauna holds an MBA from Marquette University and an MFA from the University of British Columbia. We Are Not in Pakistan: Stories was published by Goose Lane Editions in 2007. Shauna’s third novel, The Selector of Souls, was published by Knopf Canada in September 2012. Reviews, reading schedule, and interviews at: www.ShaunaSinghBaldwin.com.
