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    Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me
    Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me
    Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me
    Audiobook6 hours

    Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me

    Written by Sopan Deb

    Narrated by Sopan Deb and Sunil Malhotra

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A bittersweet and humorous memoir of family—of the silence and ignorance that separate us, and the blood and stories that connect us—from an award-winning New York Times writer and comedian.

    Approaching his 30 birthday, Sopan Deb had found comfort in his day job as a writer for the New York Times and a practicing comedian. But his stage material highlighting his South Asian culture only served to mask the insecurities borne from his family history. Sure, Deb knew the facts: his parents, both Indian, separately immigrated to North America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were brought together in a volatile and ultimately doomed arranged marriage and raised a family in suburban New Jersey before his father returned to India alone.

    But Deb had never learned who his parents were as individuals—their ages, how many siblings they had, what they were like as children, what their favorite movies were. Theirs was an ostensibly nuclear family without any of the familial bonds. Coming of age in a mostly white suburban town, Deb’s alienation led him to seek separation from his family and his culture, longing for the tight-knit home environment of his white friends. His desire wasn’t rooted in racism or oppression; it was born of envy and desire—for white moms who made after-school snacks and asked his friends about the girls they liked and the teachers they didn’t. Deb yearned for the same.

    Deb’s experiences as one of the few minorities covering the Trump campaign, and subsequently as a stand up comedian, propelled him on a dramatic journey to India to see his father—the first step in a life altering journey to bridge the emotional distance separating him from those whose DNA he shared. Deb had to learn to connect with this man he recognized yet did not know—and eventually breach the silence separating him from his mother. As it beautifully and poignantly chronicles Deb’s odyssey, Missed Translations raises questions essential to us all: Is it ever too late to pick up the pieces and offer forgiveness? How do we build bridges where there was nothing before—and what happens to us, to our past and our future, if we don't?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 21, 2020
    ISBN9780062985231
    Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me
    Author

    Sopan Deb

    Sopan Deb is a writer for The New York Times, where his topics have included sports and culture. He is also the author of the memoir Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me. Before joining the Times, Deb was one of a handful of reporters who covered Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign from start to finish as a campaign embed for CBS News. He was named a “breakout media star” of the election by Politico. At The New York Times, Deb has interviewed high profile subjects such as Denzel Washington, Stephen Colbert, the cast of Arrested Development, Kyrie Irving, and Bill Murray. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and dog.

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    Reviews for Missed Translations

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    • 5/5
      what a great read. an inspiring journey that was heartfelt and I felt like I really got to know Sopan.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Very entertaining and easy to relate, loved the book. I would recommend to anyone

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      You do not have to be south Asian to understand this book. As an immigrant child myself, this book resonated with me in so many ways. It gives me greater insight to my own parents and why they do the things they do or why they did what they did before. It invokes me to learn about them not as only my parents but as people as well.

      1 person found this helpful