Dreaming In Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language

An eye-opening and courageous memoir that explores what learning a new language can teach us about distant worlds and, ultimately, ourselves.

 

After miraculously surviving a serious illness, Katherine Rich found herself at an impasse in her career as a magazine editor. She spontaneously accepted a freelance writing assignment to go to India, where she found herself thunderstruck by the place and the language, and before she knew it she was on her way to Udaipur, a city in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, in order to learn Hindi. Rich documents her experiences—ranging from the bizarre to the frightening to the unexpectedly exhilarating—using Hindi as the lens through which she is given a new perspective not only on India, but on the radical way the country and the language itself were changing her. Fascinated by the process, she went on to interview linguistics experts around the world, reporting back from the frontlines of the science wars on what happens in the brain when we learn a new language. She brings both of these experiences together seamlessly in Dreaming in Hindi, a remarkably unique and thoughtful account of self-discovery.

What happens when you trade a predictable life for a year of unknowns in a country that changes you from the inside out?

• A Journey of Self-Discovery: From surviving a serious illness to questioning her career as a magazine editor, Rich’s story is a courageous leap into the unknown.
• An Unforgettable Year in India: Rich documents her experiences in Udaipur, Rajasthan—from the bizarre and frightening to the unexpectedly exhilarating—as she navigates a world that both confounds and transforms her.
• The Brain on a New Language: Go beyond the travelogue as Rich interviews linguistics and neuroscience experts to explore what actually happens in our brains when we learn a second tongue.
• A Spiritual Journey: More than just learning to speak, this memoir explores how becoming fluent in Hindi offers a new lens on the world, on India, and ultimately, on the self.

KATHERINE RUSSELL RICH was the award-winning author of The Red Devil: To Hell with Cancer—and Back. She wrote for the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Slate, and Vogue, and taught writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until her death in 2012 after a nearly quarter-century battle with breast cancer.