What do you think?
Rate this book
Dream Homes: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile's Journey
The American daughter of Egyptian Jewish immigrants journeys in search of belonging from Brazil to New Orleans and beyond—includes recipes and photos! Born to Egyptian Sephardic Jews who fled to the United States after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, Joyce Zonana spent her childhood in Brooklyn. But her experience of Jewish culture was very different from that of the other children she knew, from the foods they ate to the language they spoke. As she struggled to find a sense of inclusion, never feeling completely American or completely Egyptian, a childhood trip to Brazil became the basis for a lifelong quest to find her place in the world. Meeting members of her extended family who had migrated to Brazil was one step in discovering the kind of life she might have lived in Egypt, and exploring the woman she was becoming. Through travels that ranged from Cairo to Oklahoma and finally New Orleans in the shadow of Katrina, and including an evocative exploration of the way food varies from culture to culture, this is a “frank, spirited memoir of identity from a Brooklyn-raised, Egyptian-born Jewish feminist.” ( Kirkus Reviews )
223 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2008
About the author
Joyce Zonana
8 books16 followersI've been a reader and a writer for as long as I can remember. Born in Cairo and raised in New York City, I've lived in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oklahoma, and New Orleans. Since 1985 I've been teaching writing and literature at various colleges and universities. I'm currently living in Brooklyn, teaching at Borough of Manhattan Community College, and taking yoga classes at the Integral Yoga Institute. My memoir, which grew out of my realization that all my academic writing was really about myself, is an attempt to give voice to the many parts of my complex identity.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 29, 2020
I really enjoyed getting to know Joyce by reading her memoir. I first got to know Ms. Joyce Zonana when she entered our bookish orbit on #booktwitter. When she shared a submission to a magazine that she had just written, I thought this is an interesting woman, I really ought to read her! I just finished reading her memoir, listening to her being interviewed on a podcast and hope to read her highly acclaimed translation of Malicroix soon. Joyce is a lovely lady, brave and adventurous, who tries to live her best life as many lingering memories continue to take up so much definitive space in her life that they demand her attention.
We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Zonana captures Bachelard's sentiment perfectly in Dream Homes!
We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
Zonana captures Bachelard's sentiment perfectly in Dream Homes!
August 12, 2016
This is a very well-written memoir by an author that I actually knew - was somewhat friendly with - at Brooklyn College back in the 70s! I was so happy to read that after the tumult of the 70s-80s, which I also experienced, Joyce forged a wonderful life for herself, earning a doctorate from an Ivy and going on to a multi-decade career teaching writing and feminist topics on the college level!
There are some similarities in our backgrounds; both of us are from families that emigrated to the US in the post-war period. We were both expected to marry, have kids, and become housewives - and both of us obviously "rebelled" as far as our families were concerned. Of course, in the 60s and 70s, there was a social revolution occurring, and the idea was that women could have the same experiences and opportunities as men. Joyce laid out a career path for herself and followed it - did not back down and kept trying.
My own response to the demands of life - of the world of unending responsibility/career - was, from as far back as I can remember, to essentially reject it in favor of reading, writing, drawing, and so forth. Thus, the choices I made, were consistent with this wish to have a pleasant life without actually being drawn into the world of "adult responsibilities." Joyce instead embraced the challenge of pursuing graduate study and then becoming a valued teacher, concerned about her students, and so forth. So, although there were similarities to our backgrounds to some extent, Joyce persevered and created a wonderful life for herself - whereas the price I paid, was about three decades of office work so that I could have the leisure to pursue my "real life" of reading, going to museums, film festival films, concerts, meeting friends, going on walking tours, and so forth.
On the other hand, even if I did spend my entire working life as an office worker, rather than have a career, choosing this way of making a living rather than having a career was consistent with my preference from the time I was a child, when I disliked the idea of even finishing elementary school, much less going on to junior high school, high school or college. I had no interest in any of the adult "responsible" pathways of life, work, school, having kids - I was only interested in reading, writing poems/stories, drawing, and imagining different worlds.
Instead, Joyce struggled and succeeded, and put the facets of her life together - gaining insights and conveying knowledge to others. I remember Joyce as a bright-eyed young woman with a warm smile and short curly hair, vaguely remember visiting her at her apartment in Brooklyn, where she told me about her Egyptian-Jewish background. The rest is a blur - we probably had met taking a class at Brooklyn College, but I can't remember the details.
This is an endlessly interesting memoir - it includes so many fascinating profiles of relations, the social milieu in Egypt her extended family left, the pathways the relations took in the New World. It's wonderfully readable!
There are some similarities in our backgrounds; both of us are from families that emigrated to the US in the post-war period. We were both expected to marry, have kids, and become housewives - and both of us obviously "rebelled" as far as our families were concerned. Of course, in the 60s and 70s, there was a social revolution occurring, and the idea was that women could have the same experiences and opportunities as men. Joyce laid out a career path for herself and followed it - did not back down and kept trying.
My own response to the demands of life - of the world of unending responsibility/career - was, from as far back as I can remember, to essentially reject it in favor of reading, writing, drawing, and so forth. Thus, the choices I made, were consistent with this wish to have a pleasant life without actually being drawn into the world of "adult responsibilities." Joyce instead embraced the challenge of pursuing graduate study and then becoming a valued teacher, concerned about her students, and so forth. So, although there were similarities to our backgrounds to some extent, Joyce persevered and created a wonderful life for herself - whereas the price I paid, was about three decades of office work so that I could have the leisure to pursue my "real life" of reading, going to museums, film festival films, concerts, meeting friends, going on walking tours, and so forth.
On the other hand, even if I did spend my entire working life as an office worker, rather than have a career, choosing this way of making a living rather than having a career was consistent with my preference from the time I was a child, when I disliked the idea of even finishing elementary school, much less going on to junior high school, high school or college. I had no interest in any of the adult "responsible" pathways of life, work, school, having kids - I was only interested in reading, writing poems/stories, drawing, and imagining different worlds.
Instead, Joyce struggled and succeeded, and put the facets of her life together - gaining insights and conveying knowledge to others. I remember Joyce as a bright-eyed young woman with a warm smile and short curly hair, vaguely remember visiting her at her apartment in Brooklyn, where she told me about her Egyptian-Jewish background. The rest is a blur - we probably had met taking a class at Brooklyn College, but I can't remember the details.
This is an endlessly interesting memoir - it includes so many fascinating profiles of relations, the social milieu in Egypt her extended family left, the pathways the relations took in the New World. It's wonderfully readable!
December 23, 2023
Misleading cover. This book was beautifully, thoughtfully written.
July 22, 2009
Because my own memoir of growing up in Egypt, SIPPING FROM THE NILE seems at first glance to reference parallel worlds, I opened these pages with some concern that Joyce Zonana and I might have covered the same ground. But this interesting memoir, beautifully written, lyrical, searching, evokes a world seen through a different prism. It is about a woman in search of the lost identity she senses lies at her core, that causes her to embark on a lonely search to find meaning in the spaces between the world her parents knew and seldom revealed and the world of America which is her own reality. Because DREAM HOMES is redolent with the fragrance and taste of the food and memories of a "home" she never knew (she left when she was 18 months old) it has a wistful elegiac charm and I enjoyed reading it very much.
March 12, 2010
I had the chance to meet Joyce and talk with her, which is how I learned about her book. So far her book is a beautiful peak into her past and how she has constructed her identity. Rich prose, with beautiful descriptions of people, places, and food.
August 6, 2008
Well, what can I say? I hope all my friends read it and let me know what they think.
August 16, 2021
Evocative, lyrical, bittersweet memoir, threads of lost times and places pulling on the present. A fast read, distinct essays-as-chapters format are lovely, self-contained vignettes. Educational about Egyptian Jews, to boot!
January 20, 2020
What an intimate book about being an other. As an Egyptian Jew, young Zonana is not fully welcomed in Brooklyn by the Middle-Eastern nor the Jewish community, and as an adult, she navigates acceptance in communities regarding her sexuality. Zonana presents the difficulty of finding oneself as a balancing act: one must discover and build up one's unique adult self while also keeping in mind one's cultural heritage and roots. And the book is written with so much warmth and compassion for mistakes and dark times! There's a crappy boyfriend and years where she feels lost, searching for what's next. There was a sweetness too in the way she wrote about others, an understanding of the paradox that finding one's self, one's home, is a task ultimately left to the individual - yet others (friends, family, lovers, strangers) are necessary to truly feel whole and at home. A life's journey, struggles, and joys are presented along with luscious descriptions of vegetable markets and the process of lovingly, slowly painting different homes in various hues. (This book made me want to repaint my house.)
January 11, 2009
Joyce Zonana’s parents left Egypt when she was just a baby. Zonana grew up in Brooklyn trying to reconcile her place in the world as an Egyptian Jew. This search for a home continues throughout her adult life as she travels through the United States—from New York City to Oklahoma to New Orleans to South America to Egypt and back to New York City—her trials of trying to find somewhere to belong are chronicled in her book Dream Homes: From Cairo to Katrina, an Exile's Journey.
From her book, it’s clear that no matter how far away you go, you are still connected intrinsically and sometimes helplessly to your culture, heritage and family. Zonana was deeply influenced by her mother and grandmother; on a practical level, this influence includes a number of recipes. At the end of the book, there are recipes for stuffed grape leaves, ful medammes, tahnia, loubia, charoseth, tomato salad and more. All of the recipes connect to powerful and memorable moments from her life, connecting her disparate identities—the Egyptian side, the Jewish side, and the American side.
One of the most touching moments of the book is her visit to Cairo. With a friend, she makes her way to an old synagogue in the middle of the medieval Jewish quarter. Eventually they find it, and as she stands at the gates, she writes:
The desolation of the place assails me, and in a sudden spasm, I begin to cry...hot steady tears rising from within, as if I have stumbled upon an ancient spring that flows upward from the stones, through my body, and back onto the stones again...I am crying, no doubt, for the history of the Jews in modern Egypt, for our community’s dislocation, for my family’s losses, and for my own...But my tears have their source elsewhere, in a place I cannot name or understand...I have the sensation of homecoming.
Her visit to Cairo seems to make a connection to her past and her heritage, and when she settles in New Orleans to teach and live, her life seem to be normalizing. Then Hurricane Katrina hits, and Zonana is once again—and this time literally—without a home.
The text of the book is enhanced by the images of her life and childhood helping to give context and personalization to her tale. The writing is elegant and passionate; the story is familiar and strange all at once. A beautiful read.
Review by Kristin Conard
From her book, it’s clear that no matter how far away you go, you are still connected intrinsically and sometimes helplessly to your culture, heritage and family. Zonana was deeply influenced by her mother and grandmother; on a practical level, this influence includes a number of recipes. At the end of the book, there are recipes for stuffed grape leaves, ful medammes, tahnia, loubia, charoseth, tomato salad and more. All of the recipes connect to powerful and memorable moments from her life, connecting her disparate identities—the Egyptian side, the Jewish side, and the American side.
One of the most touching moments of the book is her visit to Cairo. With a friend, she makes her way to an old synagogue in the middle of the medieval Jewish quarter. Eventually they find it, and as she stands at the gates, she writes:
The desolation of the place assails me, and in a sudden spasm, I begin to cry...hot steady tears rising from within, as if I have stumbled upon an ancient spring that flows upward from the stones, through my body, and back onto the stones again...I am crying, no doubt, for the history of the Jews in modern Egypt, for our community’s dislocation, for my family’s losses, and for my own...But my tears have their source elsewhere, in a place I cannot name or understand...I have the sensation of homecoming.
Her visit to Cairo seems to make a connection to her past and her heritage, and when she settles in New Orleans to teach and live, her life seem to be normalizing. Then Hurricane Katrina hits, and Zonana is once again—and this time literally—without a home.
The text of the book is enhanced by the images of her life and childhood helping to give context and personalization to her tale. The writing is elegant and passionate; the story is familiar and strange all at once. A beautiful read.
Review by Kristin Conard
September 27, 2011
What a tough hand fate dealt this person. Nassar's expulsion of the Jews from Egypt disrupted her childhood. (she left when she was 18 months old) Her life in New York was confusing - She was Jewish/Egyptian and a puzzle to her neighbors and classmates who were immigrants from Eastern Europe. "You mean you are Jewish and you don't know about gefilte fish?" "We spoke French at home, not Arabic. We don't speak Yiddish."
Joyce had to share a room and a bed with her mentally disturbed Grandmother (Rose) Her Mother never stood up to her shrieking, negative, unreasonable Mother-in-Law. No wonder she left home at a young age.
Joyce: "Unable physically to escape our enforced intimacy, I learned to slip away secretly in my mind."
A major part of the book describes Joyce's feelings when having to decide to go back to living in New Orleans or move to NYC. She and her mother had to leave New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. She thinks about Schoen's Divine Tempest and Robert Frost: "Robert Frost tells us that his choice makes all the difference, but he doesn't tell us what that difference is. He doesn't tell us if it was the right choice."
Joyce had to share a room and a bed with her mentally disturbed Grandmother (Rose) Her Mother never stood up to her shrieking, negative, unreasonable Mother-in-Law. No wonder she left home at a young age.
Joyce: "Unable physically to escape our enforced intimacy, I learned to slip away secretly in my mind."
A major part of the book describes Joyce's feelings when having to decide to go back to living in New Orleans or move to NYC. She and her mother had to leave New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. She thinks about Schoen's Divine Tempest and Robert Frost: "Robert Frost tells us that his choice makes all the difference, but he doesn't tell us what that difference is. He doesn't tell us if it was the right choice."
October 8, 2008
This book works beautifully on so many levels: memoir, travelogue, political history. It was an absolute joy to read. I got to know Joyce well as a person, while also feeling that anyone with any form of outsider status would resonate with this story. It elicited tears and laughter and a genuine opening of the heart. Well-done!
February 5, 2009
A very informative and, at times, moving memoir. Zonana has an unobtrusive way of telling her story without invading the privacy of the people who she has been involved with. Parts of the story are quite compelling, and I came away craving stuffed grape leaves (she includes several family recipes in the appendix).
December 12, 2008
This is a terrifically poignant memoir. We follow the author in a path that first encircles her family through the mind of a young girl and then returns as a woman to examine the past again. Her trip to Egypt is exotic and revealing and brings us the message: we can all find home within ourselves. Read it! It is wonderful.
December 25, 2008
A fellow exile from New Orleans, I was immediately taken with this book. Like the author, I too find home in the food I make and in the many homes I have created for myself in my life. This is a book I will return to again and again.
August 4, 2008
A tremendous book from a wonderful author who is Egyptian Jewish. Check out the recipes!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews