I Am Yours: A Shared Memoir

by Reema Zaman

Overview

It is time.

It is time to free our voice.

To speak is a revolution.

For too long, through the most intimate acts of erasure, women have been silenced. Now, women everywhere are breaking through the limits placed on us by family, society, and tradition. To find our voices. To make space for ourselves in this world. Now is the moment to reclaim what was once lost, stolen, forsaken, or abandoned. I Am Yours is about my fight to protect and free my voice from those who have sought to silence me, for the sake of creating a world where all voices are welcome and respected. Because the voice, without intimacy, will atrophy. We’re in this together. You are mine, and I am yours.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948705110
Publisher:	Amberjack Publishing
Publication date:	02/05/2019
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	145,588
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Reema Zaman is an award-winning author, speaker, and teacher. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, Narratively, The Rumpus, B*tch, Magazine, VIDA, SHAPE, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. Zaman was selected as the 2018 Oregon Literary Arts’ Writer of Color Fellow and serves as serve as Ambassador and Mentor for Girls Inc., Pacific Northwest. In Spring 2019, Zaman and NY Times bestselling writer Lidia Yuknavitch will kick off the first of their annual panel and reading series, “Women, Power, and Writing: Authoring a New Anthem,” co-hosted by Literary Arts and Corporeal Writing Center. Born in Bangladesh, raised in Thailand, and presently residing in Portland, Oregon, she holds a double B.A. in gender studies and theater from Skidmore College.

Read an Excerpt

"Look at the sky. When she wishes to explode in a fury of flamingo, peach, lavender, and indigo, she will. When she desires to be an expansive swatch of calm blue, she is. When she longs to spill oceans of rain, she follows her yearning.

The sky does not hesitate. Neither shall we."

Editorial Reviews

"My heart just burst into a thousand songs after reading I Am Yours by Reema Zaman. From the first word to the last, this story is phenomenal triumph of one woman's body and voice rising up and through a culture that would quiet her. Moving through experience and language without flinching, Reema reminds us that to have a body is to bring a soul to life. A stunning debut." -- Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The New York Times-bestelling The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children, and The Chronology of Water.

Lidia Yuknavitch

"Astonishing—as light as a healing wand, and as deep as honesty can go. Reema Zaman has the voice and wisdom of a leader. Do yourself a favor and read I Am Yours. —Rene Denfeld, author of New York Times bestselling The Child Finder


"I Am Yours is one of those rare books that begs to be devoured and savored in equal measure. It’s more than a memoir; it’s a spiritual guide." —Gemma Hartley, author of FED UP: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward

From the Publisher

"A staggering work filled with presence, I Am Yours provides a profound explanation of love, delivered as an act of witness... Powerfully vulnerable and eloquent, Zaman’svoice is a fire—full-throated, wide-open, and roaring."—Foreword Reviews, Starred Review

Foreword Reviews

Winter 2018

Writer Zaman acknowledges in the beginning of this debut work that memoir is a truth based on what a person feels, and that the art of writing memoir can be difficult. Divided into four acts with simply titled chapters—"Feel," "Forgive," "Pause," "Listen"—the book describes the hardships the author has encountered, including anorexia and an abusive marriage. The volume is mostly organized chronologically, but some chapters travel back and forth through time to give readers an understanding of how past events contributed to Zaman's present circumstances. The strength of the narrative portrays how a person who has contended with enormous tragedy can summon the resolve to confront and rise above it, and courageously share it with others. VERDICT Memoir fans will appreciate Zaman's journey.—Susan E. Montgomery, Rollins Coll., Winter Park, FL

Library Journal

2018-11-07

A Bangladesh-born author, actor, and speaker tells the story of her search for self-acceptance and a life lived across continents.

Zaman grew up watching her brilliant, college-educated mother fold in on herself "like an origami bird." Her father, a Zamindar from a politically prominent Bangladeshi family, expressed his love harshly and bullied her mother. He moved the family from Bangladesh to Hawaii and then Thailand in pursuit of his career with the United Nations. From him, the author learned that men dictated what women could and could not do. From a male cousin who went unpunished for trying to molest her, she learned that men could sexually abuse women and not face any consequences. Zaman eventually rebelled by cutting her hair short, becoming anorexic, and sleeping with men of her choosing. She left for college in the United States, studying theater and women's studies, and then went to New York with aspirations to become a stage actor. Meanwhile, her mother, who had procured a career of her own, divorced her father and remarried a man who respected her independence. The author married as well, but her husband was "unkind and often dangerous," just like most of her old lovers. She divorced him and began mending the difficult relationship she had with her father. Cautious of involvements, Zaman fell in love with a self-help guru who believed that an "alpha [male]" should never let a woman "feel too secure in his affections for her." After leaving him, the author went to Oregon to live with her mother and stepfather and "get myself sorted." Within the space of the loving family she never had, the author let go of her inner disciplinarian and began writing to understand—and ultimately release—the self who had been her "imaginary best friend." In this candid book, Zaman not only celebrates her quest to define herself and her voice, but also to find health, self-love, and wholeness.

An eloquently searching and intelligent memoir.

Kirkus Reviews

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