Lambda Literary
By Theodosia Henney | June 23, 2014
“In her 2014 Lambda Literary Award nominated debut novel Corona, Bushra Rehman describes a life in vignettes; a young second-generation Pakistani woman named Razia Mirza, who is passionate, drifting, bright, and unshakably resilient. In a fine rebuke of linear chronology, Razia’s tales dart back and forth from her childhood in Corona, Queens to a wild tapestry of locations, all filled with characters both odd and entirely believable. Her adventures find her hitchhiking through Florida, navigating the Bhangra scene of New York City, working as a tour guide in a Massachusetts Puritan Colony, living with drunk anarchist Italians, and falling in love with unlikely people and places.”
LA Review of Books
Chaitali Sen | Oct. 2013
“While so many immigrant narratives are about the transformation of the immigrant, what Rehman’s novel does beautifully is illustrate the transformation of the places immigrants inhabit. Her Corona is vibrant and dynamic, a crossroads where various ethnicities, languages, religions, and cultures rub against each other, sometimes clashing, sometimes mingling, but in the process creating a place that is entirely new. Next to Corona the rest of the country seems strange — alien, absurd, and stagnant.”
Two Truths Many Lies and a Novel
Swati Marquez | Sept. 2013
I have been waiting for Bushra Rehman’s novel Corona for at least 14 years. Bushra and I first met at a South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) meeting in 1998 at the St. Marks’ Location of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Vividly, I remember her performing the following year for SAWCC’s “Tattoo This!” fundraiser and artists showcase at the Joseph Papp Public Theater—the petite poet towered in all black, a flowing skirt, combat boots, shaved head, and read “Marianna’s Beauty Salon” with incredible conviction and poise.