Airplane Mode: Travels in the Ruins of Tourism - Softcover

Shahnaz Habib

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1914613708 ISBN 13: 9781914613708

Publisher: September, 2024

Synopsis

'A ruthlessly honest and funny observer' New York Times

'Should be required reading' Los Angeles Times

Unique and illuminating, Habib asks what it means to be a joyous traveller when we live in the ruins of colonialism?

What does it mean to be a joyous traveller when we live in the ruins of colonialism? The conditions of travel have long been dictated by the colours of passports and the colour of skin. For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures.

In Airplane Mode, Habib threads the history of travel through her childhood stories of family vacations in India, as an adult curious about the world and as an immigrant for whom round-trips are an annual fact of life.

PRAISE FOR AIRPLANE MODE

'Brilliant at evoking the quieter pleasures of travel' Financial Times

'Compelling, witty, nuanced and frankly devastating on the ways that many ways that colonialism is embedded in the experience of travel' Jini Reddy, author of Wanderland

'In interweaving the personal and political stakes of travelling as a migrant, Habib gives us an urgently needed reimagining of the genre' Jessica J. Lee, author of Dispersals

‘Fresh, thought-provoking and funny’ Michael Kerr, Deskbound Traveller

'A memorable and unique travelogue that explores what it means to explore the world through the lens of colonialism, capitalism, and climate change' Debutiful

'Fascinating, wide-ranging and insightful... who gets to travel and what makes us so keen to travel in the first place?' Annabel Abbs, author of Windswept and Sleepless

'An enlightening and entertaining debut essay collection' Smithsonian magazine

'Insightful, funny, moving, politically astute... Habib's book is rich and her narrative voice analytic, historically informed, and passionate... compels us to engage in the politics of travel' International Examiner

About this title

About the Author

Shahnaz Habib is a writer and translator based in Brooklyn. She translates from her mother tongue, the south Indian language of Malayalam, and has translated two novels, Jasmine Days, winner of the 2018 JCB Prize, and Al Arabian Novel Factory. Airplane Mode, her first book, was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals of Excellence.

Edition details

• Publisher: September
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1914613708
• ISBN 13: 9781914613708
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288