Unrooted Childhoods

Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing up Global is a book of memoirs of people who grew up in multiple countries, or moving frequently between distant regions within the same country, also known as third culture kids, and is edited by Faith Eidse and Nina Sichel. It documents the life (including the unique challenges, feelings of difference/outsiderism, and gifts) of growing up in multiple nations, cultures, and language-regions by weaving the individual memoirs of notable and also unknown writers, notables include Eidse, Sichel, Isabel Allende, Marie Arana, Pat Conroy, Pico Iyer, and many others into one book. It was published in 2003.^[1]

Primary authors

Faith Eidse is an award-winning writer and author. The recipient of the Kingsbury Award and nominated for the Bellwether Prize, she grew up in Congo/Zaire, Canada, and the United States. Nina Sichel, born in the U.S. and raised in Venezuela, is a writer, former editor and ESL teacher.

Notable contributors

• Pat Conroy is a military brat and award-winning, best-selling author. His works include The Great Santini.
• Ruth Unselm is a writer and researcher and is credited with coining the term "third culture kid".
• Isabel Allende Chilean writer who grew up as a Chilean Foreign Service brat.
• Ariel Dorfman

Reception

The literary review "Booklist" said that writings in the book "including that by Isabel Allende, Ariel Dorfman, and Tara Bahrampour, and military brat Pat Conroy speak eloquently about the pain and also the riches of the search for home". The same review was also somewhat critical of the wistful tone of some of the other writers.

See also

• Global nomad
• Itinerants
• Military brat (U.S. subculture)
• Nomads
• Social psychology
• Subcultures

References