title: Olive Witch: A Memoir
author:  Abeer Y. Hoque 
description: Always aware of language and its limitations in fully fleshing out a life lived across cultures, Hoque charts a remarkably intercontinental journey of personal discovery while celebrating hard-won lessons of self-acceptance. A quietly moving memoir.<br /><b>- Kirkus</b><br /><br />Engrossing...Hoque&apos;s writing is an elegant mlange of candor and a strange sense of calmness, which she maintains throughout...An evocative examination of identity and what it means to be true to yourself.<br /><b>- Booklist</b><br /><br />...a lyrical, evocative, and sharply honest work...one can only imagine the work to come, considering the sheer magnitude of the author&apos;s skill with location, memory, and introspection.<br /><b>- Wendy Wright, <i>The Pittsburgh Post Gazette</i></b><br /><br />Part travelogue, part meditation, Abeer Hoque&apos;s exploration of home and identity, Olive Witch, is beautifully written... Hoque, a talented photographer, has a terrific sense of place and pacing.<div><b><b>- Geeta Kothari, <i>Kenyon Review</i></b></b> </div><br /><br />An unflinching yet luminously beautiful take on family, race, sex, and the treachery of memory. Its razor sharp edges can draw blood.<br /><b>- Sandip Roy, author of<i>DON&apos;T LET HIM KNOW</i></b><br /><br />Hoque&apos;s is an intelligent, riveting, startlingly honest voice. The writing is elegant and remains exhilarating even when the events are dark.<br /><b>- Chika Unigwe, author of<i>ON BLACK SISTERS STREET</i></b><br /><br />Not since Michael Ondaatje have I read a writer who so seamlessly marries poetry with prose in their writing with such a deft, bittersweet touch.<br /><b>- Zafar Sobhan, editor of<i>the Dhaka Tribune</i></b><br /><br />Written with honesty, intelligence, and an eye for sensual detail, this is a fierce and gorgeous memoir.<div><b><b>- Stephen Beachy, author of<i>BONEYARD</i></b></b> </div><br /><br />A brave and gorgeous new voice has arrived among us and I am thrilled to welcome her into the fold.<br /><b>- Nayomi Munaweera, author of<i>ISLAND OF A THOUSAND MIRRORS</i>and<i>WHAT LIES BETWEEN US</i></b><br /><br />This memoir vividly conveys each setting with its unique joys and heartaches and the complex parts they play in an ever-changing sense of self and home.<br /><b>- Pavani Yalamanchili, editor of<i>The Aerogram</i></b><br /><br />Boy, this is elegant writing: smooth, clean, sharp, but, with just enough wiggle.<br /><b>- Aaron Shurin, author of<i>THE SKIN OF MEANING</i></b><br /><br />Some gorgeous writing. Spontaneous. Fresh. Fire in the belly fresh.<br /><b>- Andrew Pham, author of<i>THE EAVES OF HEAVEN</i>and<i>CATFISH AND MANDALA</i></b><br /><br />Vivid and unflinching, a coming-of-age story of migration, and the pain, rupture, and redemptive possibilities of displacement.<br /><b>- Tahmima Anam, author of<i>THE BONES OF GRACE</i>and<i>A GOLDEN AGE</i></b><div><br />...seductive, sharp, transformative... Olive Witch will become a compass for others, women who write, but also anyone who travels between many worlds, and many selves<br /><b>- Nilanjana Roy, author of<i>THE WILDINGS</i></b><div><br /> Abeer Hoque has written a memoir that sneaks up on you, and suddenly you are captivated. Here is a story of finding one&apos;s place in a world that insists too strongly on national borders and other lines of division.<br /><b>- Chinelo Okparanta, author of<i>HAPPINESS, LIKE WATER</i>and<i>UNDER THE UDALA TREES</i></b><br /><br />&quot;...traverses a wide emotional landscape, juxtaposing perceptions, moods, and events which though they seem disparate, form a compellingly authentic mirror for the fractured world we all share.&quot;<br /><b>- Paul S. Flores, Susan Griffin, and Andrew Leland, Judges for the<i>TANENBAUM AWARD</i>in Nonfiction from the San Francisco Foundation</b> </div></div><br /><br />...an encouraging, timely story for the masses, an inspiration to live - authentically, globally, with urgent immediacy. <br /><b>- Terry Hong, <i>Christian Science Monitor</i></b><div><br />The book traces Hoque&apos;s multicultural experience through powerful vignettes from her life, written in a prose so delicate and masterful it borders on poetry. I&apos;ve never been so moved by a book. Or inspired. <br /><b>- Sezn Koehler, <i>HuffPost</i></b><div><br />...this startling and sharp, lyrical and lacerating, honest and uncompromising account of a rebirth marks Hoque as a major talent. <br /><b>- Sumana Mukherjee, <i>LiveMint</i></b></div></div><div><b><i></i></b></div><div><b><i></i></b></div><div><br />...a joy to read, even the really painful parts. <br /><b>- Deesha Philyaw,<i>the Rumpus</i></b></div>
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  Olive, Again is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
  are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
  coincidental.
  
  
  Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Strout All rights reserved.
  
  
  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of
  Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
  
  
  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin
  Random House LLC.
  
  
  “The Walk” was first published in Night Stories: Linden Frederick—Fifteen
  Paintings and the Stories They Inspired, copyright 2017 Forum Gallery,
  published by Glitterati Arts. It was also published previously in It Occurs to
  Me That I Am America, edited by Jonathan Santlofer (New York: Touchstone,
  2018).
  
  
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Names: Strout, Elizabeth,
  author.
  
  
  Title: Olive, again / Elizabeth Strout.
  
  
  Description: New York : Rand