Vendor
	Writers House Maja Nikolic
Original language
English
Categories
Autobiography: religious & spiritual Memoirs

I AM YOURS

Reema Zaman

One of Electric Literature’s 48 Books By Women and Nonbinary Authors of Color to Read in 2019

Reema Zaman, a Bengali immigrant raised in Thailand and Hawaii before spending most of her adult life in New York, has encountered different cultural attitudes toward what it means to be a woman, but she’s never found a book that speaks to her own experience. She’s never found a place to belong, a person to belong to, a story to fit into. “Home” has been such an elusive shadow, one that dances over the walls, slipping out of sight as often as it slips in.

And so, in her achingly original memoir I AM YOURS, Reema has taken it upon herself to tell her own story, to “be a voice for those who haven’t one.” Looking back at her life at 3 years old, at 15, at 23, Reema brings the reader very personally into moments where she’s had her power taken away, and moments where she’s fought back. Small details stand out most: the swan-shaped eclairs sold at a bakery inside the hospital, which Reema didn’t buy for fear of getting fat. The bare lightbulbs of the half-finished barn where she lived with her ex-husband, afraid of being singed if she wandered too close. Reema talks very directly to the reader throughout, her confidante, her imaginary friend, as she puzzles together all the pieces of her life and asks the all-important question: what now? The balance of lyrical and analytical language resembles Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, the unique framing device stands out like the one in Heidi Julavits’s The Folded Clock, but ultimately Reema is inescapably, beautifully individual.

Available products
Book Published 2019-02-01 by Amberjack Publishing

Comments

“It’s more than a memoir; it’s a spiritual guide. Zaman will pull you up by your heartstrings and remind you that you alone are the author of your life. The last word belongs to us if only we are brave enough to speak. Poetic, healing, and so necessary.” -- Gemma Hartley, author of Fed Up

“In this candid book, Zaman not only celebrates her quest to define herself and her voice, but also to find health, self-love,
and wholeness. An eloquently searching and intelligent memoir.”

“Tender, fierce, compassionate, and wise, Reema Zaman’s I AM YOURS is a moving story about how one woman found her voice—and her power. I was enthralled by this beautiful book from the first page to the last.” – Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Torch

“My heart just burst into a thousand songs after reading I AM YOURS by Reema Zaman. From the first word to the last, this story is phenomenal triumph of one woman’s body and voice rising up and through a culture that would quiet her. Moving through experience and language without flinching, Reema reminds us that to have a body is to bring a soul to life. A stunning debut.” –Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Misfit’s Manifesto, The Chronology of Water, and The Book of Joan

“The strength of the narrative portrays how a person who has contended with enormous tragedy can summon the resolve
to confront and rise above it, and courageously share it with others.”

“A staggering work filled with presence, I AM YOURS provides a profound explanation of love, delivered as an act of witness. Powerfully vulnerable and eloquent, Zaman’s voice is a fire—full-throated, wide-open, and roaring.”