Publisher Description
This elegant young adult novel captures the immigrant experience for one Indian-American family with humor and heart. Told in alternating teen voices across three generations, You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture--for better or worse. From a grandmother worried that her children are losing their Indian identity to a daughter wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair to a granddaughter social-activist fighting to preserve Bengali tigers, Perkins weaves together the threads of a family growing into an American identity. Here is a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new. Full Cast: Sneha Mathan, as Narrator Shivali Bhammer, as Sonia Priya Ayyar, as Tara N’Jameh Camara, as Chantal Zehra Jane Naqvi, as Anna
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“Perkins tells a nuanced, quintessentially American story. She affectionately traces four young women’s interrelated yet distinct paths to determining their identities, and, later in the book, adds a fifth. Ranee, the Das family matriarch, has long lived according to Bengali tradition. In her 60s, she embarks on a process of discovery familiar to many immigrants who move to this country as adults: She reshapes herself from the blended clay of her native and adopted homes.”
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Chicago Tribune
About Mitali Perkins
Mitali Perkins is the author of Rickshaw Girl, a New York Public Library Top 100 Book; Tiger Boy, a Junior Library Guild selection; and You Bring the Distant Near, among other novels. Mitali was born in Kolkata, India, and has lived in Bangladesh, India, England, Thailand, Mexico, Cameroon, and Ghana. She resides in San Francisco, where she is a lecturer at Saint Mary’s College of California.
About the Narrators
Zehra Jane Naqvi is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.
Zehra Jane Naqvi is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.
N’Jameh Camara is a voice artist and Earphones Award–winning narrator.
Sneha Mathan is a voice actor and audiobook narrator. Her audiobook work has received several Earphones awards, and she is a three-time Audie Award finalist. She lives in Seattle.
Priya Ayyar is an audiobook narrator, actor, and writer with a BFA and MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her acting credits for television and film include Law & Order: Criminal Intent, All My Children, and the documentary The Children of War. She has appeared on stage in War of the Unheard, Aminta, and The Road Home, and she has written and performed in the plays Karmic Fusion and Losing Remote Control.