Ah, she could be Afghan or Iranian or something…

but its still feeding into the Western person’s mindset of what an Afghan looks like. Because Afghans are brown, they’re a part of those “brown” ppl that harass Israel all the way to the “brown” people in the southern tip of that place next to where thai food comes from, and some of those “brown” people travel to Mexico so they can cross our borders easily and marry white ppl to get lighter…..

the publishers are feeding into the notion of “exotic” because if they put up the typical afghan: pashtun, tajik, uzbek, hazara … then there’s a chance they could look like too many things – and no one wants our globally-educated Western people to start being threatened by “white” “yellow” or “hapa” looking people (hapa – for lack of a better term).

Better to keep the stereotype as everyone is “brown,” and only the japanese and chinese are “yellow,” only Anglos are “white” – that’s what’s so insulting about the cover.

Its facilitated stereotypes likes these why people can’t comprehend that the middle east is quite diverse, from their asian black ppl to their asian white ppl – although they all share a common thread of having (mostly) a semetic stock.

the same reason why people can’t comprehend that South Asians are quite diverse, with their asian black people, their asian white people, to yes, their asian “hapas” & “yellow” ppl – although they all share the common thread of having (mostly) an Indic stock.

and finally its that very same stereotype why ppl can’t comprehend Central Asia (& yes, Afghanistan is central asian) is quite diverse, with their asian black, white, yellow, and hapas – although they all share the common thread of having (mostly) an Iranic stock.

Its not about hating ppl based on their skin, but only showing the world 1/10th of your country’s potential and diversity – and the Western world ONLY allowing that 1/10th representation to exist.

Marjane Satrapi’s books are a riot. She’s amazing.

WOW. I would have never thought it!

(And you do have a point. She was stuck in the ’50s for quite a long time in her books, but, to her credit, she has moved ahead chronologically and geographically. She did a reading in NY years ago – a very rare thing indeed – and she was great fun to listen to. Just wind her up and let her go, and she seemed to go on until the Q & A without taking a breath!)

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/07/04/12.php#13000

TRUE.

Ashi, as I read the snippets of the decription, it occurred to me that – absent the spices and rehashed giant bullseye Indian cultural indicators – this book sounds like something that could have been written by Dublin native, Maeve Binchy. That is, a book about women and their relationships. Not Literature with an “L”, but sometimes a page-turning read on the train nonetheless.

And then I got to wondering if maybe some of the audience for these books is not confused 2nd genners, but non-desi women who like Maeve Binchy-type novels and who get pulled in by the exotica on the cover….

Ah, she could be Afghan or Iranian or something…

Here’s two novels just published here in the UK by British Desi authors:

Ishq and Mushq by Priya Basil

Bitter Sweets by Roopa Farooki

Both pan-generational family tales spanning the sub-continent and Britain, both featuring food and curry as central metaphors, even including that sensuality vibe in their titles.

So you know what to do, if you want to get published guys. They love curry, they want curry novels, with a generation gap, and East and West things and bits.