I Sat Alone by the Gate

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Mary Efendi’s first novel tells the story of Maryam, a high-school girl from Baku, Azerbaijan, who is thrown into the chaos of immigrant life when her mother decides to emigrate to the United States.Maryam often sits by the window reflecting on passersby and how different they are from people of her country. She notices their clothes and coffee cups and collects points of divergence between two cultures. Then, the reality of immigrant life forces her to step out of the apartment and into a foreign world that is at once fascinating, confusing, and not always kind.Efendi, with nostalgia and introspection, carries the reader through the highs and lows of her protagonist’s early years in America, and treats us to a world populated with real-life characters from the streets of Chicago. Efendi paints a tender picture of home that will appeal to anyone that has ever left their birthplace. While first a story of immigration, I Sat Alone by the Gate is a journey of a young woman coming into her own.