North Jersey teacher's novel about coerced marriage in Bangladesh wins NYC Big Books award

PATERSON — Not many people get to see themselves on a digital billboard in Times Square.

But Rumki Chowdhury of Paterson — a local school teacher — experienced that last month, after her novel “Secrets in the Wind” won an NYC Big Books award.

“Here!” she exclaimed, scrolling through her phone to find the photo of her Times Square moment. “You never know if what you’re writing is going to impact anyone.”

A first-generation immigrant from Bangladesh, Chowdhury’s family arrived in the Bronx when she was 3 and came to Paterson when she was 16. She said she enjoys speaking her native tongue and gets plenty of opportunity to do so in Paterson’s 2nd Ward, a neighborhood populated by thousands of Bangladeshis.

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The community, she said, helped her rediscover her cultural identity, which can be difficult for immigrants living in the melting pot of American culture.

“It’s important to me to keep my cultural identity,” said Chowdhury, mother of children ages 4, 9, and 12.

Her conversation about her writing career — which includes interning at The Record — turns to her black hijab that frames her face. The topic of hijabs is near to the 38-year-old's heart. She published a series of essays on her culture blog about European bans on the article of clothing that is traditional in Islamic cultures.

Wearing a hijab after 9/11 attacks

For Chowdhury, the decision to start wearing a hijab came when she was 22 years old amid the Islamophobia after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“My mom was afraid to go out in her hijab, but she still did it,” said Chowdhury. “That really inspired me — that she could be herself and not be afraid of her individuality.”

The love of her culture shines through in Chowdhury’s 379-page novel. The story’s narrator is an American-born teenager named Asha, who returns to her mother’s homeland on summer vacation.

“Every writer has a little bit about themselves in their stories,” Chowdhury explained. “I’ve visited Bangladesh a few times since moving to the United States — not as much as I would like to — so a little of that is in the main character.”

Bangladesh through eyes of an outsider

The novel takes place in Sylhet, the fifth largest city in Bangladesh, through the eyes of Asha, an American visitor who wishes to be “accepted” by her motherland.

As a foreigner, Asha experiences many things about Bangladeshi culture for the first time. Her outsider status makes her unable, and unwilling, to recognize her 17-year-old cousin’s secret — she is trying to escape the clutches of a stalker.

It was a “side to Bangladesh I didn't want to see, I closed my eyes in an attempt to replace that memory with something more pleasant,” Chowdhury wrote.

Critique of coerced marriage involving children

The novel is a critique of coerced marriage, often involving children, which is still common in Bangladesh. Many children find themselves unable to flee their predicament because “marriage is a means of escape from their horrendous circumstance,” Chowdhury writes, and they often believe they are “protecting their families” from stalkers who threaten them with harm.

Chowdhury said it was a difficult subject to tackle, especially for a writer with so much love for where she came from. What has helped, she said, is the reception her book received after being published, including feedback from sexual abuse survivors in Bangaladesh who told Chowdhury that they saw themselves in her story.

“I tried to find the balance. It’s a very beautiful country, but in every beautiful country, there are dark alleyways,” she told Paterson Press. “You have to wake up the community — this is raising awareness about an issue that needs to be dealt with.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: North Jersey teacher's novel about coerced marriage in Bangladesh wins NYC Big Books award