Once a Stranger

A novel about family, tradition, loss and the challenge of feeling at home, from the author of the memoir No Country Woman

Their mother was sick. Their mother was dying.
Laila wanted her to come home.
She wasn't sure which of the two truths was more frightening.

Ayat hasn't seen or spoken to her sister, Laila, and mother, Khadija, for six years. She has been estranged from her family since she baulked against the arranged marriage of her sister and settled into a relationship deemed haram by Indian Muslim tradition.

Living in Melbourne, with Harry, Ayat's a different person now, living a different life. She is not the woman her mother and sister once knew - so how can she go home? But how can she not?

Once a Stranger weaves through the past and present to show the bonds and disconnects between sisters, and between a mother and daughter, as the three women grapple with the idea of where they feel most at home.

No Country Woman: A Memoir of Not Belonging

‘I was born in a hospital in Suva, Fiji. I can't recall ever seeing the building on my trips back to the city, first as a child or later as an adult. I imagine it in shades of blue and brown, the plastic waiting room chairs covered in the fine film of moisture that creeps over everything there. It is not a place I've thought of often, but I think of it now and wonder how it has shaped me. I am Fijian-Indian, and have lived in Australia since I was three years old. Memories of my early life in Fiji are limited to flashes, like an old film projector running backwards. I remember a blue dress, a trip on a boat where my father handed me a dried, floating starfish that I clutched in my fingers, determined not to lose it back to the ocean.'

No Country Woman is the story of never knowing where you belong. It's about not feeling represented in the media you consumed, not being connected to the culture of your forebears, not having the respect of your peers.

It's about living in a multicultural society with a monocultural focus but being determined to be heard.

It's about challenging society's need to define us and it's a rallying cry for the future.

About the Author

Zoya Patel is the author of No Country Woman, a memoir of race, religion and feminism. She is co-host of The Guardian's Book It In podcast, and the Margin Notes podcast alongside Yen Eriksen. Zoya is a columnist for the RiotACT, and regular books critic and writer for The Guardian, Canberra Times, SBS Voices, Refinery29 and more. Zoya has won numerous awards for her writing and editing, and she was a 2020 judge for the Stella Prize and Chair of the 2021 Stella Prize judging panel.