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Dream Homes: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile's Journey
by
Joyce Zonana (Goodreads Author)
An Egyptian-Jewish Under the Tuscan Sun, Dream Homes chronicles Joyce Zonana’s quest to find a sense of home among people, foods, and places as far from her native Cairo as Oklahoma and Katrina-stricken New Orleans.After the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, newlyweds Felix and Nellie Zonana flee Cairo with their infant daughter Joyce, ending up in Brooklyn. Growing up, Joyce swif...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
August 1st 2008
by The Feminist Press at CUNY
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Joyce Zonana’s parents left Egypt when she was just a baby. Zonana grew up in Brooklyn trying to reconcile her place in the world as an Egyptian Jew. This search for a home continues throughout her adult life as she travels through the United States—from New York City to Oklahoma to New Orleans to South America to Egypt and back to New York City—her trials of trying to find somewhere to belong are chronicled in her book Dream Homes: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile's Journey.
From her bo...more
From her bo...more
Because my own memoir of growing up in Egypt, SIPPING FROM THE NILE seems at first glance to reference parallel worlds, I opened these pages with some concern that Joyce Zonana and I might have covered the same ground. But this interesting memoir, beautifully written, lyrical, searching, evokes a world seen through a different prism. It is about a woman in search of the lost identity she senses lies at her core, that causes her to embark on a lonely search to find meaning in the spaces between t...more
What a tough hand fate dealt this person. Nassar's expulsion of the Jews from Egypt disrupted her childhood. (she left when she was 18 months old) Her life in New York was confusing - She was Jewish/Egyptian and a puzzle to her neighbors and classmates who were immigrants from Eastern Europe. "You mean you are Jewish and you don't know about gefilte fish?" "We spoke French at home, not Arabic. We don't speak Yiddish."
Joyce had to share a room and a bed with ...more
Joyce had to share a room and a bed with ...more
This is a terrifically poignant memoir. We follow the author in a path that first encircles her family through the mind of a young girl and then returns as a woman to examine the past again. Her trip to Egypt is exotic and revealing and brings us the message: we can all find home within ourselves. Read it! It is wonderful.
A fellow exile from New Orleans, I was immediately taken with this book. Like the author, I too find home in the food I make and in the many homes I have created for myself in my life. This is a book I will return to again and again.
This book works beautifully on so many levels: memoir, travelogue, political history. It was an absolute joy to read. I got to know Joyce well as a person, while also feeling that anyone with any form of outsider status would resonate with this story. It elicited tears and laughter and a genuine opening of the heart. Well-done!
A very informative and, at times, moving memoir. Zonana has an unobtrusive way of telling her story without invading the privacy of the people who she has been involved with. Parts of the story are quite compelling, and I came away craving stuffed grape leaves (she includes several family recipes in the appendix).
I had the chance to meet Joyce and talk with her, which is how I learned about her book. So far her book is a beautiful peak into her past and how she has constructed her identity. Rich prose, with beautiful descriptions of people, places, and food.
Well, what can I say? I hope all my friends read it and let me know what they think.
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A tremendous book from a wonderful author who is Egyptian Jewish. Check out the recipes!
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I've been a reader and a writer for as long as I can remember. Born in Cairo and raised in New York City, I've lived in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oklahoma, and New Orleans. Since 1985 I've been teaching writing and literature at various colleges and universities. I'm currently living in Brooklyn, teaching at Borough of Manhattan Community College, and taking yoga classes at the Integral Yog...more
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