A review by half_book_and_co
My Past Is a Foreign Country by Zeba Talkhani

4.0

In My Past Is A Foreign Country, Zeba Talkhani tells the story of the first 27 years of her life. She writes about growing up as an Indian Muslim girl in Saudi Arabia, then moving for her studies first to India, then Germany, and finally the UK. Her story (as the book's tagline says "A Muslim feminist finds herself") could have been easily told in a way which plays easily into the West's favourite narratives about Muslim women finding emancipation in the West. But Talkhani tells her story in a way that actively examines such narrow boxes and deconstructs them. She looks critically at the society she grew up in but uses her same astute ability for observations of societies she moves to. And while the book is very approachable and Talkhani does explain a lot of terms, concepts, food, etc., she never loses her own perspective. The memoir touches upon topics such as mother-daughter relationships within the patriarchy, living with hair loss and navigating ideas around beauty, migration (from the privileges connected to her own migration story to the connection of colonialism and migration), finding her own connection to her religion, racism in the West, the exclusionary nature of the publishing industry, and sexual assault. The multitude of themes feels never too much - just as the reflection of life and Talkhani's personal growth is the thread to hold it all together.