Border Less - by Namrata Poddar (Paperback)

About the Book

"Dia Mittal is an airline call center agent in Mumbai searching for a better life. As her search takes her to the U.S., and eventually to Greater Los Angeles, Dia's checkered relationship with the American Dream dialogues with the experiences and perspectives of a global South Asian community across the class spectrum--call center agents, travel agents, immigrant maids, fashion designers, blue- and white-collar workers in the hospitality industry, junior and senior artists in Bollywood, hustling single mothers, academics, tourists in the Third World, Afro-Asian refugees displaced by military superpowers, Marwari merchants in the Thar Desert and trade caravans of the Silk Road, among others. What connects the novel's web of brown border-crossing characters is their quest for belonging and a negotiation of power struggles, mediated by race, class, caste, gender, religion, place or immigration. With its fragmented form, staccato rhythm, repetition, and play with English language, Border Less questions the assumptions of the "mainstream" Western novel."--Back cover.

Book Synopsis

Dia Mittal is an airline call center agent in Mumbai searching for an easier life. As her search takes her to the United States, Dia's check-ered relationship with the American Dream dialogues with the expe-riences and perspectives of a global South Asian community across the class spectrum--call center agents, travel agents, immigrant maids, fashion designers, blue- and white-collar workers in the hospitality industry, junior and senior artists in Bollywood, hustling single mothers, academics, tourists in the Third World, refugees displaced by military superpowers, Marwari merchants and trade caravans of the Silk Road, among others. What connects the novel's web of brown border-crossing characters is their quest for belonging and negotiation of power struggles, mediated by race, class, gender, nationality, age, or place. With its fragmented form, staccato rhythm, repetition, and play with English language, Border Less questions the "mainstream" Western novel and its assumptions of good storytelling.

Border Less was a finalist for The Feminist Press's Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. Chapters from the novel won the Short Story Contest organized by 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, judged by Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise; the New Asian Writing Prize; and appeared in The Best Asian Short Stories anthology. The opening chapter, in a slightly different form, was published in The Kenyon Review.

Review Quotes

"Irreverent...portrait of adventures and hardships in a racialized, Brown body." - Morgan Jerkins, New York Times Bestselling Author of This Will Be My Undoing

"Challenges the traditional form and aesthetic of the western novel." -Aline Ohanesian, Author of Orhan's Inheritance, Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

"Delves with heart-breaking delicacy and precision into the solitary struggles of her characters." -Ananda Devi, Author of Eve Out of Her Ruins, Winner of the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie

"Captures with acuity and a light touch our shared transnational present and complex human ties." -Françoise Lionnet, Literature Professor at Harvard University and Author of Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity

"A masterful writer, bringing time and place to life with vivid story and color and memorable wisdom." -Jill McCorkle, New York Times Bestselling Author of Hieroglyphics

"A serious transnational, feminist and a postcolonial novel." -Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, Literature Professor at Linfield University and Author of The Postcolonial Citizen