海角大神

'Olive Witch' is the memoir of an outsider on a quest for belonging

Born in Nigeria to Bangladeshi parents, Hoque's journeys take her from Africa to middle-class America to an Ivy League college and finally to the country of her birth.

鈥渂ow echo,鈥� the very first words of Abeer Y. Hoque鈥檚 raw, unblinking, urgent-in-these-times memoir, Olive Witch, is an easy-to-miss clue. Followed by a temperature (73掳F) and what looks like a diary entry, the two words might be mistaken for a place name, easily glossed over. It proves, however, to be a subtle warning: a 鈥渂ow echo鈥� is a meteorological term, according to the , referring to 鈥渁 bow-shaped radar signature associated with fast-moving storm systems accompanied by damaging winds.鈥� Hoque鈥檚 鈥榝ast-moving鈥� life story is about to embark, opening with the resulting "damage" from a suicide attempt.

Born in Nigeria to Bangladeshi parents, Hoque is the oldest of three children birthed on three different continents 鈥� her sister in Bangladesh, her brother stateside. For 13 years (except for a brief Pittsburgh layover), Hoque is an 鈥渙nyocha鈥� 鈥� a foreigner 鈥� in Nigeria where her father is a University of Nigeria professor in Nsukka and her mother a girls鈥� school economics teacher. While she envies the dark skin of the local children, she is at least grateful for not being one of the 鈥渉alf-castes ... the only ones who have it worse than the foreigners. The foreigners can鈥檛 help being foreigners, but being half-Nigerian is like being a traitor.... I want all or nothing. It might be too hard to almost belong. Not belonging, on the other hand, is cut and dried, an easy place to find.鈥�

With each family move, that "not belonging" becomes more difficult. When the family migrates to Pittsburgh, Hoque鈥檚 transition initially seems smooth: 鈥淸w]ithin six months, no one [can] tell that I didn鈥檛 grow up in middle America.鈥� Despite 鈥渟ome confusion about how much of this American life [the Hoque children] are allowed to absorb鈥� in between parent-mandated Islamic school on Sundays and eating Bangladeshi food at home, Hoque adapts to the intricacies of teenage slang, overcomes her 鈥渙dour fears鈥� with deodorant her mother insists she doesn鈥檛 need, discovers public libraries, and joins the swim team. Yet isolation looms: 鈥淥utside our sunlight-deprived house is a neighbourhood that hasn鈥檛 yet accepted us, nor have we accepted it. Four years and I鈥檝e not been in any other house on our street except our own.鈥�

"'I can鈥檛 wait,鈥欌�� she writes repeatedly in her journal. 鈥淐ollege. I cannot wait to leave home. I鈥檝e been ready for years.鈥� When Hoque arrives at the University of Pennsylvania, she decides, 鈥淚鈥檓 going to be bold.鈥� Her four years of high school silence are over: 鈥淚 imagine I have a superpower. I will have what I want, I will take what I want, and most of all, I will say what I want. I will engage instead of watch.鈥� Her first conquest 鈥� and first love 鈥� is Glenn, a classmate she meets and claims at orientation; he sings her a Rage Against the Machine lyric that inspires the titular 鈥淥live Witch.鈥� 鈥淚 make it my niche,鈥� Hoque insists, 鈥淚 tell the truth sooner, no matter how alone and exposed it makes me feel.鈥�

Hoque鈥檚 stalwart intellect continues to propel her forward, placing her in a prestigious graduate program at Wharton. But parental, cultural, even academic pressures eventually overshadow her chameleon-like ability to 鈥減ut on any face with its matching mood and modulation.鈥� Adaptability devolves into 鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell if I exist anymore,鈥� until she swallows 32 pills and wakes in a Philadelphia psychiatric ward. Hoque鈥檚 second-chance rebirth launches her peripatetic search for that ever-elusive sense of belonging, pausing in San Francisco where she learns to write herself into existence, stopping in Bangladesh where she discovers her authorial legacy, and continues onward in her quest for creative agency.

Originally published in 2016 in India, "Olive Witch" was over a decade in the making, a jigsaw puzzle created piece by piece until the narrative became whole, not unlike its creator. The seven 鈥渂ow echo鈥� vignettes that capture Hoque鈥檚 day of (re-)awakening from early morning to late evening, began as a one-act play performed in 2002; interspersed throughout the book鈥檚 250-ish pages, the vignettes provide a skeletal structure, into which Hoque fleshes out her journey from "We鈥檙e here to help you" to "You鈥檒l be okay." That a dozen chapters were published previously as standalone excerpts, essays, and stories in various publications (one excerpt won a 2009 Commonwealth Short Story Prize) intermittently comes through, with the occasional unnecessary repeats. Small missteps notwithstanding, 鈥淥live Witch鈥� is ultimately an encouraging, timely story for the masses, an inspiration to live 鈥� authentically, globally, with urgent immediacy.

Terry Hong writes , a book blog for the