Room to Fly: A Transcultural Memoir

By Padma Hejmadi

Book Overview

Room to Fly is a unique journal-or ongoing memoir-by a woman who traces the elusive contours of cultural perceptions East and West, welcoming us into the intimate geography of individual lives. The book takes its shape and direction from a tenet of Japanese Sumi painting: If you depict a bird, give it space to fly. Padma Hejmadi explores the human spaces surrounding language, landscape, literacy and illiteracy, music, dance, legend, the cadence of ancient craft, and the ceaselessly unfolding layers of family relationships. Part autobiography, part lively meditation, Room to Fly represents a new genre with an old diction. Hejmadi's spare, luminous prose combines lyricism with humor and intellectual rigor, drawing us from Bombay to the Bahamas, from Japan to New England, the Greek Isles to New Mexico.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520215060
• ISBN13: 9780520215061
• Release Date: November 1999
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

dont miss this.

this small book contains a huge amount of living, thinking and writing. Please read it and buy it. Your view of the world will expand and your faith in humanity andthe ablilty to think will be greatly enlarged.

A wonderful, sensual storyteller

This is a soaring, remarkable exploration of human consciousness, seen through the filters of time, place, and language. Hejmadi captures the intricacies of human awareness with precision, clarity, wit, and grace. Whether the setting is East or West, Delhi or Taos, Hejmadi's truths about love, life, work & family are reverberant and universal. She has the gift of making you walk her extraordinary path along with her. A wonderful gift for any booklover in your life.

A soaring spirit

AThis is a fabulous book, of special interest to women and sensitive thinkers of all cultures. Padma Hejmadi writes with a clarity and compactness unrivaled in today's literature. She explores the world from her special vantage point, bringing it alive with her gift of visual as well as written language. The scenes imprint themselves on one's memory forever. The gift of this courageous woman is not to be ignored. Read and enjoy!