Product Details

Publishers Weekly

Rich, the author of The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer-and Back, recounts in this wonderful memoir her subsequent life's journey: immersing herself in the transformative complexities of learning Hindi. Fired from her New York City magazine job, palpating the possibility of being a full-time writer and tempted by the "foolproof out" that was traveling to India, Rich ensconced herself in a yearlong language program in Udaipur, in the northwest state of Rajasthan, where with three other students she struggled to get her brain, and tongue, around the disorienting "monsoon of words" in the total immersion program. A delicate balance of social graces determined success or failure, as the author learned painfully when she felt compelled to relocate from the home of her host family, an extended Jain clan, because of misunderstanding over her nonmarried status. Fluidly interspersed within her witty, tongue-in-cheek account of the nutty fellow students and nosy, however well-meaning, Indian spectators are comments and elucidation on second-language acquisition from experts, and observations while visiting a school for the deaf. Homesick, rattled by the violence, Rich nonetheless arrived at making jokes and actually dreaming in Hindi, and in her deft and spirited prose depicts being literally "possessed by words." (July)

Language Log

"…a charming intellectual travelogue, partly about the culture and history of India, partly about the nature of language and language learning, and also, as usual for great travel writing, very much about its author…. ‘I ski Hindi,’ [Rich writes and] elsewhere in the book, she skis psycholinguistics, in long, gleeful conversations in university laboratories and the pages of books and articles; and just about every other language-related discipline gets at least one downhill run as well."

— Mark Liberman

Elle

"In her deftly written memoir, DREAMING IN HINDI, Rich makes us wish we to could come alive in a foreign world, fearless of mistakes, misperceptions and mishaps, and enlivened by the unfamiliar ... a natural journalist, [Rich] gracefully sprinkles reportage about neuroscience and linguistics, as well as her own poignant insights, into her narrative."

Daily Beast

"DREAMING IN HINDI: Coming Awake in Another Language…is a riveting memoir about an American woman who spends a year in Rajasthan learning Hindi. The book illuminates the truth that when we learn a language, we learn an entire culture. One of the best foreign observers of contemporary India, Rich''s gaze on the country is witty, empathetic, and intimate."

— Suketu Mehta

Kirkus Reviews

An adventurous writer travels to India to learn Hindi and absorb the culture through language. The challenge in learning a second language as an adult is part of the impetus for this memoir of one woman's journey of self-discovery. In fact, the linguistic investigation emerges as the central focus of her adventure and the most interesting aspect of the narrative. Journalist Rich (The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer-and Back, 2002) clearly articulates linguistic concepts, philosophies regarding language and the neurological and cognitive phenomena associated with learning a new language. These sections are far superior to the author's descriptions of the people, places and events she encountered while on her language-immersion program in Udaipur. Most of the characters enter the narrative in an amorphous, ephemeral fashion, and the dialogue and personal events are often melodramatic and tedious. Although Rich tries to imbue these day-to-day relationships with a sense of immediacy-including scenes or histories involving the threat of terrorism and violence from increasing Muslim/Hindu tensions-the autobiographical aspects of the book seem like filler. Rich ably investigates controversial topics like Noam Chomsky's nativist theories and the more recent-though equally contentious-interest in the Whorf Hypothesis, and her conversations with linguists and neuroscientists are always engaging. The details of Hindi-from odd idiomatic expressions to the way in which it seems inextricably connected to the Hindu religion and its strict social mores and taboos-are the book's strongpoint. Rich's involvement with a school for deaf boys in the region also produces some interesting anecdotes andfascinating explorations of sign language and gesture, but readers may desire more specific detail and aspects of real-world usage. An unsatisfying memoir but a provocative account of second-language acquisition. Agent: Betsy Lerner/Dunow, Carlson & Lerner