Book Launch: The Forbidden Letters: A True Story” by Hemu Aggarwal
Sunday, November 20, 2022 @ 4 PM
Rigid norms and rules in some cultures suffocate the lives of young people. The book highlights such regulations and their consequences and shows how one young couple subjected to such norms eventually breaks away from them and allows their children to grow unfettered by them.
A century-old, nearly 500 letters were found in an attic. The book includes selected 216 of them. It tells the story of a young couple’s life, married when they were still teenagers, but lived apart intermittently for eight years. The letters describe their love for each other, the agony of separation, taboos of the times, and the hardships endured by women in a joint-family system. Crossing cultural, country, gender, and age boundaries, it takes you on a tumultuous 100-year journey from India to America, shedding the shackles of a joint family and allowing the next generation the freedom to chart their destinies.
Join us for selected readings by the author followed by audience Q&A. Books for sale and signing, fine refreshments available. This is a free event.
Check out a quick synopsis of the book on YouTube!
About the Author
Hemu Aggarwal, artist, writer, and poet, was born in Veraval, Gujarat State, India. She earned her Master’s Degree (MFA) in graphic design from the City University of New York. Hemu has written several newspaper and magazine articles, but this is her first attempt to translate hundreds of letters and write a book.
She is an artist by profession. After graduation, she worked in graphic design firms in New York City for about ten years. She designed many album covers of famous singers, such as the Beatles, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, Mantovani, and many Hip-Hop artists, including Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and The Sugarhill Gang. In 1980, she established her creative design firm, AQ Graphic Inc., in Rockland County, N.Y. She ran it successfully for over 25 years while raising a family and providing leadership to several community and arts organizations. She founded two not-for-profit organizations. One was Asian Women’s Alliance for Kinship and Equality (AWAKE), and the second was The WorldFest New York. Both organizations received the County Executive Arts Award.
Hemu is a prolific painter and creator and has worked in various media, from graphic design to painting, digital art, and photography. She has won awards, certificates of merit, and certificates of recognition for her acrylic paintings and digital art.
She loves to write poems. Literary magazine Spillwords Press has published several poems written by her. She has designed and manufactured one-of-a-kind ahimsa (non-violence) silk scarves, ladies’ tops, and purses using her painting or digital artwork.
Hemu lives in Petaluma, California, with her husband, Yash Aggarwal. She has a daughter, Sona Aggarwal (married to Manuel Chirouze). Her son, Aryan Aggarwal (married to Olga Gorbatiouk), and three grandchildren, Alina Aggarwal, Ava Aggarwal, and Vihaan Solal Chirouze.