Final Step on the Journey

Hurray! It's here—Journey of a Konkani Family! In addition to editing the book, I wrote the about-the-book and about-the-author blurbs on the back cover, which I have reproduced here for your reading pleasure.

Book summary:
Being a citizen in a multicultural world requires a knowledge of history, from the personal to the global. But young Konkanis born and raised in the United States may be unfamiliar with the legends and customs of their Indian heritage, as well as with the story of the exile and dispersal of their ancestors from Goa beginning in the sixteenth century. For them, this true story of one family within the larger story of history will bring to life the language and community traditions of a culture they will want to get to know. Their guide in this engrossing tale, told with humor and compassion and packed with universal truths, is a man with roots in both the traditional Konkani world and the modern American world.

About the author:
Mulki Radhakrishna Bhat, a Konkani from Udupi on the west coast of Karnataka, grew up in India as part of a large, close family with rich cultural traditions. He immigrated to the United States as a young adult, navigated its very different cultural traditions, and had a long career as a nuclear physicist. He and his wife, Padma, who live on Long Island in New York, have one son, whose questions inspired him to tell the story of several generations of his family within the context of the India diaspora.

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I am hugely grateful to my colleague Joan Pendleton, who subscribes to both the Freelance and Copyediting-L e-mail lists as I do, for referring the book's author to me when he was seeking an editor.

cultural memoir Indian diaspora author EditorMom