Marina Budhos – författare

Marina Budhos’s extraordinary and timely novel examines what it’s like to grow up under surveillance, something many Americans experience and most Muslim Americans know.  Naeem is far from the “model teen.” Moving fast in his immigrant neighborhood in Queens is the only way he can outrun the eyes of his hardworking Bangladeshi parents and their gossipy neighbors. Even worse, they’re not the only ones watching. Cameras on poles. Mosques infiltrated. Everyone knows: Be careful what you say and who you say it to. Anyone might be a watcher. Naeem thinks he can charm his way through anything, until his mistakes catch up with him and the cops offer a dark deal. Naeem sees a way to be a hero—a protector—like the guys in his brother’s comic books. Yet what is a hero? What is a traitor? And where does Naeem belong?  Acclaimed author Marina Budhos delivers a riveting story that’s as vivid and involving as today’s headlines.

In the tumult of 1970s New York City, seventh graders are bussed from their neighborhood in Queens to integrate a new school in South Jamaica.Jamila Clarke. Josie Rivera. Francesca George. Three mixed-race girls, close friends whose immigrant parents worked hard to settle their families in a neighborhood with the best schools. The three girls are outsiders there, but they have each other. Now, at the start seventh grade, they are told they will be part of an experiment, taking a long bus ride to a brand-new school built to "mix up the black and white kids." Their parents don''t want them to be experiments. Francesca''s send her to a private school, leaving Jamila and Josie to take the bus ride without her.While Francesca is testing her limits, Josie and Jamila find themselves outsiders again at the new school. As the year goes on, the Spanish girls welcome Josie, while Jamila develops a tender friendship with a boy--but it''s a relationship that can exist only at school.

"You forget. You forget you don't really exist here, that this isn't your home." Since emigrating from Bangladesh, fourteen-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal U.S. citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous -- a suspected terrorist. When Nadira's father is arrested and detained at the U.S.-Canadian border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don't ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart. Nothing matters to her anymore -- not even college. It's up to Nadira to be the strong one and bring her family back together again.

A Muslim immigrant teen struggles to hold her family together in the wake of 9/11 in this poignant novel from acclaimed author Marina Budhos.You forget. You forget you don’t really exist here, that this isn’t your home. Since emigrating from Bangladesh, fourteen-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal US citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous, a suspected terrorist. When Nadira’s father is arrested and detained at the US-Canada border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don’t ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart. Nothing matters to her anymore—not even college. It’s up to Nadira to be the strong one and bring her family back together again.

Jaya is from Trinidad, Maria is from Mexico, and Lola is from Slovakia. The girls couldn’t be more different, except for two things: They’re all the daughters of maids and nannies in their prosperous suburban town of Meadowbrook, and they all long to fit in and succeed among their more privileged peers. But when Jaya’s mother is accused of stealing some valuable jewelry from her employer, the seemingly liberal town of Meadowbrook becomes a place of ugly tensions and racism, and the girls’ friendship threatens to buckle under the strain.Once again, Marina Budhos has written a thoughtful and ambitious novel about class and the cultural differences that can both divide and unite.