Reader’s Guide 2019
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Reader’s Guide 2019 What is One Book One Brampton?
How can I Participate?
A city-wide shared reading experience where everyone in the community reads the same book. One Book One Brampton will encourage the community to read a common title and then participate in a variety of events that tie into the themes of the book.
Well, since you asked… Read the book, share it with friends, and attend our Evening with the Winner event, Tuesday, November 19 at 7:00 p.m. at Springdale Branch Library!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR “Samra Zafar is an award-winning international speaker, bestselling author, and social entrepreneur who advocates for equity, inclusion, and human rights. After escaping a decade of abuse living as a child bride in Canada, she pursued her education as a single mother working multiple jobs and completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Economics from the University of Toronto with the highest distinction, winning over a dozen awards and scholarships... The recognition and achievements prompted Samra to share her story to empower women to pursue their dreams and independence; and also start Brave Beginnings, a non-profit organization to mentor abuse survivors in their journey to build a life of freedom. Samra has been a mentor to dozens of women over the course of her career in their journey to pursue their dreams and goals...
photo credit: www.samrazafar.com
In March 2019, HarperCollins published Samra Zafar’s memoir A Good Wife: Escaping The Life I Never Chose, which became an instant bestseller, and earned a spot on national bestseller lists for 12 consecutive weeks, received rave reviews, and was highlighted as a top 2019 read by The Washington Post. The book will soon be published internationally by Penguin Random House, and has been optioned by Canadian producers Pier 21 to be adapted to a television film series for Canada and worldwide...” - Provided by the author’s website
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Reader’s Guide 2019 ACCOLADES
photo credit: www.muslimlink.ca
• Canada’s Top 25 Immigrants 2019 • Nominee – Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women 2019 • Ascend Canada Mentor of The Year Award, 2018 • Brilliant Minded Woman Award, 2018 • CPACT Malala Yousafzai Women Empowerment Award, 2018 • Pink Attitude Award, 2018 • RBC Global Citizen Award, 2017 • Proclamation by Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio 2017 • Woman of Courage Awards (several organizations) • CivicAction DiverseCity Fellow, 2019 • Spotlight Award (Canada Pakistan Professionals Association)
ABOUT THE BOOK “At sixteen, Samra Zafar had big dreams. She was going to go to university, and forge her own path. Then with almost no warning, those dreams were snatched away when she was suddenly married to a stranger at 17 and had to leave behind her family in Pakistan to move to Canada. Her new husband and his family promised that the marriage and the move would be a fulfillment of her dream, not a betrayal of it. But as the walls of Elements of Appeal their home slowly became a prison, Samra realized the promises were empty ones. Genre: Autobiography; Memoir Desperate to get out, and refusing to give up, she hatched an escape plan for herself and her two daughters. Slowly over the months and years, she found the strength not only to build a new future, but to walk away from her past. A Good Wife tells the harrowing and inspiring story of a young girl who grows into a woman of courage and power in the face of oppression.” - Provided by the publisher
Themes: Culture; Arranged Marriage; Abuse; Education; Empowerment Tone: Harrowing; Inspirational Writing Style: Compelling
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Reader’s Guide 2019 REVIEWS “Whether you are trying to escape a life you never chose or the one you did, Samra’s resolve and ingenuity will inspire you to honor every flicker of longing for freedom.” - Shauna Singh Baldwin, author of The Tiger Claw and The Selector of Soul
“A thoroughly engaging story of strength, feminism and refusal to conform to societal and familial expectations. I found it difficult to put this book down.” - Cea Sunrise Person, bestselling author of North of Normal
“I cried while reading this book, but I was also left in awe of Samra Zafar’s epic grit and bravery. Her story will stay with you long after the last hope-filled page is turned.” - Lisa Gabriele, author of the bestselling novel The Winters
“Samra Zafar has penned a rare memoir, a life story worth reading and an emotional rollercoaster that will leave you feeling empowered at the end. This is a modern-day fairy tale where the heroine saves her own life.” - Sharon Bala, bestselling author of The Boat People
A Good Wife READ-ALIKES Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal “Nikki...a modern daughter of Indian immigrants, has spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a “creative writing” course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community…” - Provided by the publisher 4
We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib “Samra Habib has spent most of her life searching for the safety to be herself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, she faced regular threats from Islamic extremists...From her parents, she internalized the lesson that revealing her identity could put her in grave danger. When her family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of challenges: bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage...” - Provided by the publisher
Reader’s Guide 2019 The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan by Rafia Zakaria “For a brief moment on Dec. 27, 2007, life came to a standstill in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, the country’s former prime minister and the first woman ever to lead a Muslim country, had been assassinated...Back in Karachi …Rafia Zakaria’s family was suffering through a crisis of its own... In that moment these twin catastrophes...briefly converged...” - Provided by the publisher
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini “A breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years... that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives...are inextricable from the history playing out around them...” - Provided by Goodreads
Internment by Samira Ahmed “Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens. With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp’s Director and his guards.” - Provided by Goodreads I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali Nujood Ali’s childhood came to an abrupt end in 2008 when her father arranged for her to be married to a man three times her age. With harrowing directness, Nujood tells of abuse at her husband’s hands and of her daring escape. With the help of local advocates and the press, Nujood obtained her freedom— an extraordinary achievement in Yemen, where almost half of all girls are married under the legal age…” - Provided by the publisher
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Reader’s Guide 2019 DOCUMENTARY KANOPY VIDEO STREAMING SERVICE Did you know? Each Brampton Library cardholder can stream up to 10 videos per month with 3 day (72 hour) viewing access for each streamed video. The Abused Woman: A Survivor Therapy Approach “Dr. Lenore Walker has worked with physically, psychologically, and sexually abused women for more than 30 years and has developed an approach to their treatment called Survivor Therapy. In this dramatic recreation of key moments in the two-year course of therapy with Sarah, a 36-year-old battered woman with a history of childhood sexual abuse, Walker (the recipient of the American Psychological Associations 1994 Distinguished Contribution to Women’s Health Award) illustrates the basic principles of her approach.” - Provided by Kanopy
What Will People Say “Sixteen-year-old Nisha lives a double life. When out with her friends, she’s a regular Norwegian teenager. At home with her family, she is the perfect Pakistani daughter. But when her father catches her alone with her boyfriend, her two worlds brutally collide.To set an example and escape the judgment of their peers, Nisha’s parents send her to live with family in a small town in Pakistan. There, in an unfamiliar country surrounded by people she barely knows, Nisha must adapt to a rigid culture that denies her the freedoms she once enjoyed.” - Provided by Kanopy
Salma: Portrait of a South Asian Poet “When Salma, a young Muslim girl in a south Indian village, was 13 years old, her family locked her up for 25 years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage. During that time, words were Salma’s salvation. She began covertly composing poems on scraps of paper and, through an intricate system, was able to sneak them out of the house, eventually getting them into the hands of a publisher. Against the odds, Salma became the most famous Tamil poet: the first step to discovering her own freedom and challenging the traditions and code of conduct in her village.” - Provided by Kanopy 6
Reader’s Guide 2019 A Dance for Heroes: Finzan “A film which raises one of the most important issues of African rural life, the status of women, in a style accessible to every villager. FINZAN tells ww the story of two women’s rebellion. Nanyuma, a young widow defies her brother-in-law, the village fool, when he asserts his traditional right to “inherit” her. Fili, a young woman sent from the city by her conservative father, is brutally “circumcised” by village women, scandalized by her refusal to submit to this ancient ritual. Sissoko weaves these two stories together into a painfully realistic picture of village society, tragically unable to free itself from the past.” - Provided by Kanopy
An evening with the winner, Samra Zafar November 19 • 7:00 pm Springdale Branch, 10705 Bramalea Rd. Brampton Library is pleased to present an evening with Samra Zafar to talk about the 2019 One Book One Brampton winning book, A Good Wife. Drop in and join us for light refreshments prior to the author talk and afterward purchase a copy of the book and have it signed by the author.
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Reader’s Guide 2019 RUN YOUR OWN BOOKCLUB Getting started: • • • • •
Appoint a lead or coordinator Sign up 5-10 members Get your free library card at any Brampton Library branch Borrow print copies at your nearest Brampton LIbrary branch or a digital copy online. Read the book at your own pace
What do we want to talk about? • • • • •
Did you like the book? Hate it? Why? What did you think of the main character? Does the story make you think of something (or someone) in your own life? Does the story remind you of something else you’ve read, or a movie you’ve seen? Would you normally read this kind of book?
It’s really about your reaction to the book: Love it or hate it, throw your comments on the table to find that some people will agree with you while others may have a completely different reaction. That’s where the discussion comes in. Your opinion of the book is all you need to participate in a group discussion. Your opinion matters as much as anybody else’s. Make the discussion your own and just have fun! Book clubs of any origin – company employees, family and friends from the neighbourhood, or strangers talking about books in an online discussion forum – all provide opportunities to build relationships, explore new thinking, find shared interests, and in the case of One Book One Brampton, participate in a city-wide reading experience.
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Reader’s Guide 2019 Discussion Questions for Book Clubs 1. What do you think motivated Samra Zafar to share her life story? How did you respond to her “voice”? Did you learn something from reading A Good Wife, if so what? 2. How might Zafar’s life been different had she chosen not to leave her husband and attend university? What risks did she face and what fears did she have to overcome in order to leave her past behind? 3. What role does culture play in Zafar’s life? How does this differ from your own experience? What were the most surprising, intriguing, or hard to understand aspects of the book? Have you gained a new perspective or did the book affirm your prior views? 4. Zafar addresses the reality of domestic abuse and the lasting effects it has on an individual’s life. Why is it important for her to shed light on this issue? 5. Can you point to a specific passage that struck you personally? Why did this resonate with you? 6. If you had the chance to ask Zafar one question, what would it be?
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