My Evil Mother: A Short Story
The part played in a Western fairy tale by the wicked stepmother is, in much of India, played by the powerful and evil mother-in-law. From traditional folk song to Bollywood film, she is an archetypal character: the bitch-power, the devil woman, the old hag whose tests must be overcome for our heroine to advance into her own power. Whole soap-opera
... See moreMinal Hajratwala • Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents
My mother had never known me either, though it wasn’t because I hadn’t given her a chance. I’d given her a lot of chances. What was saddest was that she didn’t seem to want to know me, not as I was on the inside. I wasn’t even sure if she could grasp that I had an inside, that I was real. Sometimes it seemed impossible that she had ever given birth
... See moreMelissa Broder • Milk Fed: A Novel
