I heard memoirist Pearl Sofaer speak recently. Pearl was born and grew up in Bombay, India, of  a Baghdadi Jewish family. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay, California, area. Pearl is author of the memoir/cookbook, Baghdad to Bombay: In the Kitchens of My Cousins (Paper Jam Publishing, 2008; $18). The book includes traditional Jewish recipes from Iraq and India. Pearl interviewed her extended family to collect the recipes in the book, which include: Iraqi Borscht, Fish Curry, Baghdadi Jewish Chicken Soup, and Luzina, to name a few. Pearl told stories about what the traditional Baghdadi Jewish community was like in the first half of the 20^th century, and what it was like to grow up in Bombay. At the end of her presentation, Pearl sang traditional songs using Middle Eastern Jewish (Mizrahi) melodies, which sounded so exotic to our western ears. Her CD is Gems of Mizrahi Liturgy.

 Are musical memoirs next? Downloadable mp3 memoirs? M-memoirs?

1. leaving your country of origin;
2. growing up in a faraway land;
3. being raped or sexually abused.

Past experiences such as these may seem too big to write about comfortably. But perspective changes everything. Check out these three memoirs and how each woman’s viewpoint has shaped her storytelling.

Leaving Your Country of Origin

Marie-Solange Benedict, author of Child of a Mountainous Land: Odyssey of a Haitian Refugee, writes a memoir about leaving her native Haiti in 1962 to escape the Duvalier dictatorship. She describes how she moved first to Liberia, West Africa, then to England, where she attended boarding school, and finally to the United States, where she currently resides in the Miami area. Marie-Solange, now an attorney, tells stories of how as an immigrant she encountered racism, struggled to overcome the frustrations faced by blacks in the United States, and finally transcended these problems through her faith in Jesus, God, and the Gospels. Thanks, Marie-Solange, for giving me an inscribed copy of your book.

Growing Up in an Exotic Land 

Jean Naggar, author of Sipping from the Nile: My Exodus from Egypt, is a literary agent, book reviewer, writer, translator, and editor. Jean writes about growing up in the closely knit Jewish community of pre-1956 Cairo, Egypt. Her detailed descriptions, along with lots of photographs, detail a life that no longer exists, in the vein of Lucette Lagnado’s The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, and Andre Aciman’s Out of Egypt.

Being Raped or Sexually Abused

Ann C. Willis, author of The Secret Behind the Church Altar, sat at the exhibit table next to mine. She told me she had driven from the Dallas area to attend the Self-Publishing Expo with her nephew, who shared the driving on their 27-hour trip. Ann’s memoir, like the movie Precious, takes up the theme of a young woman who is raped, sexually abused, and pregnant by her father. In Ann’s case, her father was a minister. Now a pastor herself, Ann gives seminars for others on how to deal with rape and sexual abuse. The Secret Behind the Church Altar is also available on Amazon.