Kai, Tara

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KAI, Tara

PERSONAL:

Daughter of Khosro Karamad and Nasrin Tehrani (a homemaker). Education: Studied at Bonn University, Aachen University, and University of Paderborn, received B.A. and M.A.; postgraduate study, University of Paderborn. Hobbies and other interests: Yoga, swimming, traveling, writing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Miami, FL. Office—Department of English, Florida International University, University Park Campus, 11200 Southwest Eighth St., Miami, FL 33199. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany, English literature instructor, 1994-96; Taslimi Construction Company, Santa Monica, CA, project engineer, 1998-99; Florida International University, Miami, FL, adjunct professor of English, 1999—. Project consultant and coordinator, Online Geriatric University.

WRITINGS:

Dar es Salaam: A Novel, Bridge Works (Bridgehampton, NY), 2002.

Contributor of short stories to American and German anthologies, including About Life, the Uni, and the Rest, Unicum Publications (Bochum, Germany), 1995; Foreigner in a Cold Land, Herder Publications (Munich, Germany), 1992, and A World Between, George Braziller (New York, NY), 1999. Contributor of articles and stories to periodicals, including Gablers and A World Between.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tara Kai is a fiction writer whose work reflects her own international travels in Europe, Africa, and America. Kai's debut novel, Dar es Salaam, is set in the African city of that name and presents the coming-of-age tale of a precocious fourteen-year-old girl. Tatum, the novel's central character, journeys from England to Tanzania with her mother, stepfather, and two siblings. During her extended stay in Tanzania Tatum falls in love with—and finally seduces—a forty-year-old African man named Mohammed. The novel explores not only the uncertain ground of teenage passion but also the dynamic of a blended family far removed from their traditional surroundings.

Kai told a contributor to Writers Monthly that she received "hundreds of rejections" for Dar es Salaam before finally finding a publisher. Once released, the book was greeted with warm reviews. "Kai knows how a fourteen-year-old girl feels," wrote Phaedra Trethan in the Philadelphia Inquirer. "She knows the self-loathing, the social awkwardness, the love-hate relationship with one's parents. She also knows Africa: the beauty, the poverty and the people." To quote a Publishers Weekly critic, "Kai shows considerable promise, particularly in her characterizations." A correspondent for Kirkus Reviews called Dar es Salaam "an eerily honest story of adolescent obsession that conjures up Nabokov even as it offers a fresh and grounded view of East Africa."

Reflecting on her publishing debut in Writers Monthly, Kai said: "It's so personal and yet so revealing to have a book on the bookshelf. It's hours of sitting at home alone, creating sentences and then having it in a bookstore where anyone can read it."