This book has an interesting concept and makes some very valid points regarding the South Asian diaspora (points which, incidentally, apply in varying degrees to all diasporas). However, I was more interested in what Ruthnum had to say about curry and how it changed than the state of diaspora media six years ago. I enjoyed the first section—"eating"—more than the following two—"reading" and "race." Perhaps part of that is because I am part of the Asian diaspora myself, and so I already have internalized a lot of what he discusses in the "race" section? Or perhaps because we as a bookish community are trying already to normalize the wider diversity in fiction that he dreams about in the "reading" section. We may not have reached the ideal state of diverse media yet, but we have made big improvements in the past few years that were not evident in 2017 when this was written.

I do recommend reading this, especially for white readers who want to better understand what members of brown communities experience when it comes to storytelling and representation. However, do keep in mind that it reads very much like an essay. I don't mind that in my non-fiction, but it's something to be aware of. ( )

This book was so much more then I expected, it is a book about curry and its cultural importance, reading and race also immigration and immigrates kids who have always lived in their new country. It's great that it's about a Canadian writer so we have a view of racism explicit and implied that covers not just the U.S. but the white West. Oh and there are also recipes. ( )

I enjoyed this extended essay that looks at curry as a cultural signifier. Curry is Ruthnum’s starting point for a rumination on race and representation in pop culture and literature. To use an analogy that will no doubt drive Ruthnum crazy, his prose has just the right amount of fiery wit, spicy humour, and heat.

Particularly sharp is the discussion about what Ruthnum calls “currybooks”, or what others have called mangobooks, or sari-and-spice books. You know the covers: colourful sari borders, mangoes, spices, and maybe the top of a woman’s lovely head of glistening black hair, or a close-up of one artfully kohl-lined eye. The stories might be complex and interesting, or they might be typical diaspora narratives by brown authors that traffic in nostalgia and stereotypes, where the pure, dirty and colourful and backward East is contrasted with the spiritually-corrupt, pristine, cool and monochrome yet progressive West.

“The popularity of these narratives,” Ruthnum explains, “and the relationships that diasporic writers have with the as both authors and readers, are part of another tangled story we tell each other and ourselves, wondering ultimately if they are something that white Westerners are interested in for reasons that would make us uncomfortable”.

Ruthnum is interested in how brown people in the West produce and circulate exoticism of their own culture, either because it’s marketable or because they have bought into the stereotypical narratives that claim the “home country” as the place of one’s essential roots and authenticity. But as any immigrant in the West who’s been on the receiving end of the racist “Go back to ________” knows, there is danger in the nostalgia for cultural purity and the assertion that some people have to go back “home” (i.e. they have to get out of where there are now) to become fully human or to be understood or to find commonality with others.

He writes about Pasha Malla, an author I haven’t read and now want to:

“Malla’s previous work successfully evaded addressing the clichés: in the story collection and novel preceeding Fugue States, Malla had sidestepped the curry game completely, delivering closely observed and sometimes surreal character-based stories that had little to do with his racial or cultural origin.”

I take Ruthnum’s point but I also wonder if it’s ever possible to write something that has “little to do with [one’s] racial or cultural origin”. Even in a piece of writing that is expressly not about race or culture or identity, a writer’s background informs the perspective, the worldview, of the story. It’s something I think about a lot in relation to what’s celebrated as experimental or avant-garde writing: it’s very white. If a brown woman wrote like Fleur Jaeggy or Clarice Lispector, would she even have the space and support to nurture her work? Would she even be published if she’s not writing a sprawling inter-generational family saga or something that doesn’t overtly allude to the “immigrant experience” or the “clash” between cultures?

Elsewhere, Ruthnum talks about Bend It Like Beckham, saying that the film is a “shallow parade of annoying stereotypes of older-generation South Asian stiffness and their grudgingly dutiful, big-dreamin’ children”. While I love the film, I also recognise his statement as true, and I’ve always avoided thinking too much about it because I know it will complicate my very (simple) love for the cheesy feel-good vibes when I watch it. As he points out, “the film’s power isn’t in how fresh and South Asian it is, but in how familiar and Western it is”. He understands that he isn’t the target audience of Gurinder Chadha’s film, which is probably beloved to many brown girls everywhere, but he also considers a film that made him feel seen in the same light: “[Bend It Like Beckham] shares this with Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle: both films are mainstreaming narratives, stories that don’t efface the unique effects of diasporic experience, but do concentrate on just how Western brown people in the West can be”.

Curry isn’t a long read, but it’s a dense, sharp little read that asks hard questions. I’ll just end this with a whole slew of quotes from the book:

“Being second-gen made me counterfeit Mauritian back in my old country, and I continued to ring false to South Asians who were more closely aligned with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh－the core that we scattered from […] If Indian is a baggy term, South Asian is parachute pants.”

“Shouldn’t approaching pain, alienation, displacement, and a sense of cultural unbelonging come from a place of incomprehension, not a predetermined inquiry that holds that the East has answers to the dissatisfactions of a life in the West? I’m not telling you, I’m asking. But it’s a pointed ask.”

“As brown people in the West, our stories don’t have to explain ourselves to white people, or to each other－they don’t have to explain shit.” ( )