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Originally from Bombay, Sohrab Homi Fracis teaches
literature at the University of North Florida and is a
fiction and poetry editor at the State Street Review. He
was awarded the 1999-2000 Florida Individual Artist
Fellowship in Literature/Fiction, and his work has
appeared in Other Voices, India Currents, Weber Studies,
the Antagonish Review, and the Toronto Review of
Contemporary Literature Abroad.
Ticket to Minto: Stories of India and America
Ticket to Minto, Sohrab Homi Fracis's premier fiction
collection, offers readers a passage to an unfamiliar
destination a world in limbo between East and West,
India and America, home and away.
With piercing insight, Fracis expertly reveals the
underlying differences between immersion in India's
culture Hindu, Muslim, or Parsi and life as an
Indian in America. The stories in Ticket to Minto,
alternating between East and West, serve as companion
pieces, interrelated across continents in both theme and
content.
A middle-aged man's search for love in Bombay is
contrasted with an Indian American family's hopes for
the marriage of their westernized daughter. A university
student rushes to save the life of a servant in his
homeland only to find his own life threatened while
attending graduate school in America. Poignant and
daring, Ticket to Minto underlines the harsh realization
that the immigrant never truly arrives but is in
constant limbo.
Winner of 2001 Iowa Short Fiction Award
"A subtle understanding of human nature, clarity, and
intelligence inform this splendid collection. Sohrab
Fracis's accurate eye for sensual detail is as evocative
of the sights, sounds, and smells of India as it is of
the lonelier landscapes of his domicile in America. An
original voice stamped with veracity."
Bapsi Sidhwa, author of The Crow Eaters and
Cracking India.
"Reading Ticket to Minto was an emotional and
intellectual joyride I did not want to end. Here is a
writer who leaps headlong into the creative furnace
daring, energetic, fresh! This collection of stories
will haunt me for years to come."
Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer
"Evokes the snaky path to adulthood, exposing all those
hitchhiking demons at the intersections. From
Caulfieldesque schooldays in Bombay, to assimilation
amid the seductive consumerism and residual racism of
American culture, a powerful, serio-comic look at two
worlds, inside and out."
Lenore Hart, author of Black River and Waterwoman
"This ambitious winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award
is a reminder of how satisfying the short story form can
be.
Readers will recognize
the work of an impressive
new talent."
Publishers Weekly
"12 finely crafted stories that evoke the tug of
tradition all immigrants feel, as well as life in
con-temporary India.
Quiet, evocative tales
illumi-nating India and the Indian experience in
America."
Kirkus Reviews
"Recent authors such as
Jhumpa Lahiri (a Pulitzer
winner) have won wide critical acclaim
The latest to
join that impressive roster of [Indian American] authors
is Sohrab Homi Fracis."
Hartford Courant
"Stunning in its breadth and scope of language and
description. A fresh voice in South Asian fiction...
Brutally honest, exposing sinew and nerves and getting
at the heart of the matter."
India Currents |
