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Book Summary and Reviews of Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich

Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich

Dreaming in Hindi

by Katherine Russell Rich

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  • Published:
  • Jul 2009, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Having miraculously survived a serious illness and now at an impasse in her career as a magazine editor, Rich spontaneously accepted a free-lance writing assignment to go to India, where she found herself thunderstruck by the place and the language. Before she knew it she was on her way to Udaipur, a city in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, in order to learn Hindi.
In this inspirational memoir, Rich documents her experiences in India ranging from the bizarre to the frightening to the unexpectedly exhilarating using Hindi as the lens through which she is given a new perspective not only on India, but on the radical way the country and the language itself were changing her. Fascinated by the process, she went on to interview linguistics experts around the world, reporting back from the front-lines of the science wars on what happens in the brain when we learn a new language. Seamlessly combining Rich's courageous (and often hilarious) personal journey with wide ranging reporting, Dreaming in Hindi offers an eye-opening account of what learning a new language can teach us about distant worlds and, ultimately, ourselves.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[A] wonderful memoir...her deft and spirited prose depicts being literally 'possessed by words'." - Publishers Weekly

"An unsatisfying memoir but a provocative account of second-language acquisition." - Kirkus Reviews

This information about Dreaming in Hindi was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Katherine Russell Rich

Katherine Russell Rich is the author of the award-winning memoir The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer and Back, and she has written for New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Salon.com, and National Public Radio.

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