This immensely personal book chronicles Calcutta's little-known Jewish community through the lives of four generations of Jewish women in Silliman's family. It has been called "a fascinating account of the relationship between urban and national identities, the heterogeneity of the Jewish diaspora, cultural difference between colony and post-colony, and, above all, women's lives" by Gayatri Spivak. Asia Society spoke with Professor Silliman from her home in Iowa City.