Synopses & Reviews
*Winner of the 2022 New American Voices Award*
Finalist for the 2023 Oregon Book Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
These intimate stories of South Indian immigrants and the families they left behind center women's lives and ask how women both claim and surrender power--a stunning debut collection from an O. Henry Prize winner
Traveling from Pittsburgh to Eastern Washington to Tamil Nadu, these stories about dislocation and dissonance see immigrants and their families confront the costs of leaving and staying, identifying sublime symmetries in lives growing apart.
In "Malliga Homes," selected by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for an O. Henry Prize, a widow in a retirement community glimpses her future while waiting for her daughter to visit from America. In "No. 16 Model House Road," a woman long subordinate to her husband makes a choice of her own after she inherits a house. In "Nature Exchange," a mother grieving in the wake of a school shooting finds an unusual obsession. In "A Life in America," a professor finds himself accused of having exploited his graduate students.
Sindya Bhanoo's haunting stories show us how immigrants' paths, and the paths of those they leave behind, are never simple. Bhanoo takes us along on their complicated journeys where regret, hope, and triumph appear in disguise.
Review
"Reconceptualizes the great American road trip, centering Indian immigrants — particularly, Tamil women — and their children as its drivers and passengers... The journeys... carry readers across the vast American landscape, transcending state boundaries and biomes to stitch a narrative mosaic, its patches cut from distinct corners of the country... Bhanoo tackles complexity with a light hand. The writing is lush and sensory... With Seeking Fortune Elsewhere and its glimpse into the lives of Tamil immigrants, Bhanoo artfully extends the burgeoning South Asian American literary canon’s trajectory." — Meena Venkataramanan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Review
"Yearning drives the characters in Sindya Bhanoo's elegant, sensitive debut collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere... These eight stories investigate the many ways that loneliness can enter a life and Bhanoo makes the reader feel every heartbreak through her skillful, measured prose." — Jenny Shank, Star Tribune
Review
"Tender and precise... Bhanoo’s focus is clear and tightly observed, centering the decisions and difficulties of a global life, some of them gut-wrenching... These stories rattle and shake with the heartache of separation, rendering palpable the magnitude of small decisions in our less-than-small world." — Samantha Hunt, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
*Winner of the 2022 New American Voices Award*
*Winner of the 2023 Oregon Book Award for Fiction* Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
Finalist for the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction
Longlisted for the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Longlisted for The Story Prize
These intimate stories of South Indian immigrants and the families they left behind center women's lives and ask how women both claim and surrender power--a stunning debut collection from an O. Henry Prize winner
Traveling from Pittsburgh to Eastern Washington to Tamil Nadu, these stories about dislocation and dissonance see immigrants and their families confront the costs of leaving and staying, identifying sublime symmetries in lives growing apart.
In "Malliga Homes," selected by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for an O. Henry Prize, a widow in a retirement community glimpses her future while waiting for her daughter to visit from America. In "No. 16 Model House Road," a woman long subordinate to her husband makes a choice of her own after she inherits a house. In "Nature Exchange," a mother grieving in the wake of a school shooting finds an unusual obsession. In "A Life in America," a professor finds himself accused of having exploited his graduate students.
Sindya Bhanoo's haunting stories show us how immigrants' paths, and the paths of those they leave behind, are never simple. Bhanoo takes us along on their complicated journeys where regret, hope, and triumph appear in disguise.
About the Author
Sindya Bhanoo’s fiction has appeared in Granta, New England Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the Disquiet Literary Prize and scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers conferences. A longtime newspaper reporter, she has worked for The New York Times and The Washington Post. She is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and Carnegie Mellon University. She lives in Austin, TX.