EW Calls A PLACE FOR US “The Thinking Person’s Summer Read”
June 13, 2018
Our new Igloo Book Buzz selection is a transformative debut novel, A PLACE FOR US. “To be taken hostage by Fatima Farheen Mirza’s heartrending and timely story is a gutting pleasure,” says Sarah Jessica Parker, Editorial Director of SJP for Hogarth, of her newly published inaugural acquisition for the imprint. “It allows her reader to better understand what it means to reconcile one’s love of family and culture with a desire to find one’s own path, and one’s own faith. Ms. Mirza painstakingly details the life of an Indian Muslim family in America and their children’s search to feel whole, fulfilled, and content. She captures your mind and heart with an urgency that defies you to stop reading. I guarantee you will be different when you close the book.”
expand- “Ambitious… a family epic that is textured and keenly felt… Mirza draws Amar’s lifelong struggle with the concept of unconditional devotion so poignantly that readers will find it exceedingly relatable. But so too is the mysterious whisper in his ear urging him always to return, no matter how far he strays, back home.” – The New York Times Book Review
- “Mirza, 27, is about to become a star…The debut author brings us the thinking person’s summer read, a rich and layered tale about family and assimilation.” — Entertainment Weekly “
- "It is absolutely gorgeous… Mirza writes about family life with the wisdom, insight and patience you would expect from a mature novelist adding a final masterpiece to her canon, but this is, fortunately, just the start of an extraordinary career.” – The Washington Post
- “An affecting, authentic and artful debut by Fatima Farheen Mirza…The novel is deeply moving and surprisingly insightful. Mirza's writing is poignantly beautiful.” – Associated Press
- “The book dives into the lives of a Muslim-American family, opening on the eve of the eldest daughter’s marriage, and examines the intricacies of a family straddling two very different cultures.” — Vanity Fair
- “Fatima Farheen Mirza’s A PLACE FOR US is everything I love about family sagas. It traverses time and place, explores the conflicts between a parent’s expectation and a child’s desires, and, most importantly, introduces us to fully imagined, flawed characters whose relationships are deep, entangled, and rich in love. The story — which centers on an American Muslim family navigating the tension between tradition and autonomy — is told in fragments, jumping from one character to another, slowly adding layers to scenes by revisiting interactions from multiple perspectives. And Mirza renders this family with a gentle hand, lovingly, so that each character will make their way into your heart.” — Buzzfeed
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