All Water Has Perfect Memory - by Nada Samih-Rotondo (Paperback)

About the Book

All Water Has Perfect Memory is a memoir about deep-rooted family history, mythological parallels, and decoupling family trauma.

Book Synopsis

Shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize

Life changes forever for six-year-old Nada when Iraq's invasion of her birth country of Kuwait pushes her mother to immigrate with her to the United States. Just as she finally settles into her strange new existence apart from her father in Rhode Island, learns English, and grasps the fact that she is there to stay, Nada begins discovering revelation after revelation that changes her perspective on her world and family. With an imaginative blend of folklore and history that explores the relationship between our bodies, ancestors, and the lands that hold us, All Water Has Perfect Memory is a memoir that takes readers through the author's ancestral origins-the coast of Palestine, Kuwait, and the shores of Rhode Island- and explores generations of silence and eventually, connection.

Review Quotes

"Deeply honest and intimate . . . Samih-Rotondo's journey toward self-knowledge and deep connection is a marvel."

-Tina Cane, Poet Laureate of Rhode Island and author of Year of the Murder Hornet

"In her stunning debut memoir, Nada Samih-Rotondo defiantly recounts her journey from Kuwait to America, her fraught coming-of-age in a household continually on the brink of collapse, and her fight for self-possession in a society so eager to deny it. Samih's spare yet evocative words gift us with the power of her tenacity and resilience and demands that we, too, must do our part in the fight against injustice."

-Ly Ky Tran, author of House of Sticks