Twice Born by Leela Soma

• Paperback: 272 pages
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• Publisher: You Write On (8 Dec 2008)
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• Language English

Oft late, there has been a surge of books that claim to strike at the heart of the Indian immigrant experience and many of them do, like Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth", Manju Kapur's "The Immigrant", Bharati Mukherjee's "Desirable Daughters" etc. But most of these novels are set either in the US or in England, so when I heard about Indo-Scot writer Leela Soma's novel set both in Glasgow and Chennai (Madras), I knew it was going to be unusual and different because I don't think I've ever read the experiences of an Indian immigrant in Glasgow before!

The central characters, Ram and Sita, are brought together by their families in what is commonly known as an "arranged marriage" in India. Although Sita is a well educated, independent young woman who longs to fall in love, she allows herself to be talked into marriage with Ram a young medic based in Glasgow because she knows that is what is expected of her.

I thought Soma captured very well the painful familial expectations that all of us growing up in India have experienced. Unfortunately for the couple they have nothing in common. Ram is a fastidious and earnest young man who has a hard time showing his emotions. Sita is a vivacious, intelligent, chatty and emotional young lady who simply cannot understand why Ram cannot be more demonstrative, caring or expressive.

Unlike some of the other books with immigration as a theme, Sita doesn't have major problems adjusting to her new life in Glasgow. After all, she is a convent-educated young girl steeped in an English education that was primed and prepared for Cambridge"...an Indian in every outward way, but with the thoughts and aspirations of a liberally-educated middle class westerner." What she cannot come to terms with is having a marriage devoid of romance. Sita and Ram soon get caught up in their separate lives but continue to be bound together by duty, familial and societal expectations, their daughter Uma and other cultural trappings.

Soma carefully unravels the story of this stifling, but moving marriage. She does so without melodrama and with careful attention to the couple’s mundane moments of tenderness. Both characters are extremely likable but both have their flaws and I found it impossible to take sides. The two are ably supported by a chorus of other great characters like BB, the resident old gossip; Lata, Sita's best friend and confidante; Eileen, a wee Scottish lass who marries a Muslim doctor only to regret it and Neil, Sita's paramour.

Beyond the marriage and family, this novel deals with the momentous themes of love and belonging, it is also an examination of immigration, identity, walking the tightrope between two distinct cultures and so on. Most immigrants inhabit an in-between space that is a little difficult to describe, but Leela, being an immigrant herself has ably captured and given life to that space when she says (and I paraphrase), An immigrant's affection for his or her adopted country and its people ranges from highs to lows. On days when homesickness prevails nothing seems right with the city...on the other hand, the sheer freedom of being able to live life away from the watchful eyes of society and family back home can be exhilarating!

I thought Soma very ably introduces her readers to Glasgow, a city many of us are not so familiar with and I thought her idea of introducing colloquial Scottish phrases through the book helped steep the narrative in local flavour. The history and anthropological buffs amongst us will be quite impressed at how the Scots and the people of Madras influenced each other. Much of the story is set against the political landscape of Sccotland from the 1970's to the present day and that makes for interesting reading too.

This is a story of immigration in the late '70's (1979) to be precise and having emigrated from India to Canada in 2001 I found it very interesting to compare Sita's immigration experience with mine. I think it's so much easier today...for one thing, staying in touch with the home country is a cinch because of the internet, also, one never has to crave for home food or cooking supplies as almost every neighborhood has its own ethnic stores, not to mention cable television companies that beam programmes from India right into your living room. Sita had to wait weeks to make a "trunk-call" when she wanted to speak to her parents...however, I think it made for a more determined assimilation into one's adopted culture. Today, many immigrants continue to live exactly as they did at home. They don't feel the need to assimilate and many are not encouraged to. Good thing? Bad thing? I guess only time will tell.

Do pick up a copy (available from Amazon and Book Depository) and treat yourself to this delightful read!

To read an interview with Leela Soma, please go here

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Category: Fiction
Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Bond Street Books
ISBN: 978-0-385-66530-8 (0-385-66530-X)

Pub Date: February 10, 2009
Price: $29.95

The Bible tells us Jesus Christ gave up his life for humankind and indeed, being prepared to give up one's life has become the greatest expression of love between lovers, a parent and child and sometimes even best friends. Having said that, however, I'd like to ask you this: what is the biggest sacrifice you would make, not for a friend, a lover or even a family member, but for a stranger, someone you don't know, someone you will gain nothing from?

Now that's a tough one, isn't it?

Some people are driven to altruistic lengths to help a stranger in need. Many will donate money and time, or both. Some will make radical donations of a healthy kidney or liver to to people in need. Buddhists are well known for a ritual where they take on other people's sufferings, but all these actions, wonderful as they are, are usually premeditated and the giver has had time for prepare himself or herself for this sacrificial gift. Would we be as giving if we're taken by surprise and with an urgency that leaves no room for thinking or planning?

"Little Bee" is the story of two such strangers and how their fates intertwine one fateful summer's day in Nigeria. The central theme of the story examines how despite deep-seated convictions, life unfairly places a disproportionate emphasis on the decisions we make in split seconds.

Other prominent themes in the book include asylum seekers, the state of detention centers in the UK and issues a challenge to its readers to ponder why the word "refugee" has become such an ugly word in today's parlance. For instance, why is it that in late 60's and even early '70's defectors from the then USSR, or other European communists state were cheered on and even celebrated as heroes, but today we balk at having to share our resources with their countrymen. Why do we treat refugees as criminals, locking them away until their cases can be heard? Why do their cases take so long to hear?

The novel is a bittersweet one and told in two voices (the two main female protagonists that we spoke of earlier in the review). This works well because the two women are from opposite sides of the great class divide and by hearing both their voices the reader gets a dual perspective instead of just one. About the characters, I am not sure I could be friends with any of them in real life, but they made for great character studies!

So, to summarize, this is a novel that is sad and yet funny; serious and yet light-hearted; heavy and yet it's only a wisp of a novel...overall a lovely reading experience!

This novel is called "The Other Hand" in the UK and in India and the rest of the sub-continent. Anyone know why novels are sometimes given different titles in different parts of the world?

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Format: Hardcover, 240 pages

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Pub Date: May 22, 2009

Price: $29.95


After having amazing success with her first two books, "Purple Hibiscus" and "Half of a Yellow Sun" (which won her both the Orange Prize for Fiction in the United Kingdom and a $500,000 MacArthur “Genius” grant here in the United States), it seemed inevitable that Chimamanda Adichie would soon launch a book of short stories. "The Thing Around Your Neck" is its intriguing title and it contains 12 short stories some of which are set in Nigeria (the author's home country) and the rest in the US focusing on the Nigerian immigrant experience, the fragile balance of family life and the cultural fissures manifest among Nigerians settled in America.

Maybe it's just the short story format that I am not partial to, but many of the stories, although very readable, failed to engage me in the way Chimamanda's writing normally does. Well, perhaps, I shouldn't be blaming the short story format because I didn't have any difficulty enjoying Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth" or Daniyal Mueenudin's "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders", but I found myself just very mildly engaged in many of the stories from "That Thing About your Neck". Come to think of it, using JL's collection of stories as a yardstick is probably being very unfair. Most anthologies of short stories from a single author are mixed news, at best. If one, two, or perhaps three stories succeed, the reader feels the collection worthwhile. JL's book was an exception where all of her 8 stories were wildly praised by readers and critics alike...definitely a triumph!

Ofcourse, there are flashes of brilliance in "That Thing Around Your Neck", but not nearly enough to make me go you MUST read this book!!! Having said that however, I would like to point out some of the stories that you might enjoy reading. The title story for instance, which implies the choking isolation of a Nigerian girl who relocated to the US from Nigeria only to find that her new country is nothing like she expected, is one which astutely explores the alienation and loneliness that an immigrant feels. She does find love with an Africa-philiac man but cannot figure out if he loves her for her or if he loves her for being an exotic African woman. She notes, "white people who liked Africa too much and those who liked Africa too little were the same-- condescending". With this storyline Adichie is also turning the lens in on Americans and their rather mixed relations with Africans.

Then there is "The Arrangers of Marriage," where an orphan is forced to marry a Nigerian medical student doing his internship in the United States. Again, like the girl in the title story, this protagonist also finds things are not as she was led to believe, for her new husband had omitted to tell her family that he was already married to an American woman (for a green card) and was yet to be divorced from her. In creating protagonists like these Adichie is keeping it very real because many immigrants leave their homeland thinking "the grass is always greener on the other side" only to find out that it isn't necessarily so. The frightening thing for such immigrants is that once they leave, Nigeria is no longer home either. Home is now a gray space between the two.

"Jumping off Monkey Hill" is apparently autobiographical and the setting is a writing workshop for promising African writers but lead by a white scholar, an apparent "expert" on Africa, who criticizes a story with a homosexual theme put forward by one of the participants saying "homosexuality stories weren't reflective of Africa". Which leads to the question...what is an African story? What is perhaps noteworthy is that Adichie has three stories in this collection with a homosexual theme!

My favorite story of the bunch was the last one, titled, "The Headstrong Historian"...I simply love how Adichie used this one family's history to illustrate how the advent of Christian missionaries and the free education (in the white man's language) they offered the children of the Africans severed the people from their faith, history and culture. A very moving story. I've linked to the story in the "Newyorker" magazine so you can enjoy it as well!

A summary of this book inevitably makes it seem bleak, but because these stories are shot through with grace, elegance and empathy they leave the reader with a positive, rather than negative impression. Adichie's language is clean and crisp, with a musical quality that I have enjoyed in her previous novels and which I am pleased to note continues over to this one.

Chicago by Alaa Al Aswany

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper (October 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• Genre: Fiction
  

Before launching into a note of praise for Egyptian author Alaa Al Aswany's second 'novel' "Chicago" (translated into English by Farouk Abdel Wahab), permit me to quote some witnesses for the prosecution.

"Al Aswany seems to see the novelist's role as being close to that of a schoolteacher. He writes, in the style of a Wikipedia entry by Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky, about the wretched fates of the Native American peoples who once flourished in Chicago." ~ Sunday Telegraph

"The cast of characters is a large one, and Chicago weaves together their various stories - too many of them, perhaps... the American characters are scarcely believable, being thinly drawn caricatures who speak in a wooden manner, representing competing points of view and nothing more" ~ Guardian, UK.

Aswany’s storytelling is also marked by its sensuality. From the self-denying student who allows himself an hour of recreation to watch wrestling and pornography to the lapsed poet whose voice and wholeness of self is restored by sex, everywhere we see the animal self lurking beneath the trained, dressed, and tutored body-in-the-world, aching to unsheath itself ~ The Scotsman



Al Aswany, a dentist by profession, is probably one of the most popular writers in the the Middle East today. He shot to fame with his wonderful first book titled "The Yacoubian Building" about a group of families living in this one apartment block in the center of Egypt and their intersecting lives served as a microcosm of Egyptian society. He has attempted something similar with his second book 'Chicago" but instead of an apartment block he has chosen the venue to be the University of Illinois and while most of the cast are Egyptian expats there are also some Americans.

Now, in Al Aswany's defence I have to say that I didn't consider his writing didactic or schoolteacher-like in the least. True, he seems wont to give us the history of Chicago, but it's done in a very readable manner and I like to look at it as his tribute to the city where he studied dentistry for two years.

I do agree with the critics when they say that his fleshing out of the American characters in the novel was rather weak, but it doesn't surprise me. Al Aswany is Egyptian and he would know much more about the Egyptian psyche than that of the American one, also, he was a student in the US in the late '80's and it could be that some of his impressions of America and its people are quite dated, still, that's no excuse for weak, unbelievable characters.

One of his goals here in "Chicago" is to provide a window into how Egyptians think and act among themselves when they are away from the Motherland as well as the Arab experience in America and to that end I think he achieves what he sets out to do. The other goal of the novel seems to be to expose the regime in Egypt for what it is - corrupt, biased, oppressive and brutal - and Al Aswany does that effectively by using his characters to offer political commentary. One of the most fascinating passages in the novel comes when an Egyptian Muslim sits down to discuss politics with an Egyptian Coptic Christian. What is revealed is something I didn't know: the Copts or the original Egyptians as they are known are highly discriminated against in Egypt

About the use of sex and sensuality in the novel...yes...there is a lot of that...but I don't think it's out of place. You see, in Egypt young men and women are not allowed to have sex until they are married and pornography is banned...but in America, they are free to have it when they want, with whomsoever they want and even buy sex toys if they so desire. Al Aswany, I think, uses sex as a metaphor for freedom...

In reading this book I have come to the conclusion that this book was written mainly for an Egyptian audience. Al Aswany was showing them what life is like for Egyptians that immigrate to America, however, it is captivating stuff for an American audience as well because we get to see ourselves through the eyes of Egyptian immigrants.

The book seeks not only to entertain (although it does an excellent job of that) but seeks to get the reader to ponder the role of an immigrant. Does he or she owe it to the adopted country to sever ties with the old country and be totally loyal to this new one? Or can the immigrant successfully juggle being a hybrid of both countries? As an immigrant myself, I personally think that immigration is always a struggle and one is forever having to make choices...hopefully we're making more right choices than wrong ones.

The Sound of Language by Amulya Malladi

Category: Fiction
Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pub Date: December 26, 2007
Price: $16.95

It is not unheard of for Denmark to be wary of – even hostile to – refugees (mostly from Muslim countries like Turkey, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan) in its midst. Some say the media perpetuate a stereotyped image of refugees as parasites, wanting to feast on Denmark's generous welfare system. Others are concerned that refugees do not want to become Danes, desiring instead that the Danes make way for their cultures, ideas etc., many of them unacceptable, like the wearing of the hijab, forced marriages, marriages between cousins etc. While all Danes don't think the same way, the ones that do are fairly vocal and as a result Denmark does come across (to me, atleast) as being a little racist.

Amulya Malladi, an Indian author, married to a Dane, addresses these issues in her latest fictional work titled "The Sound of Language". In this beautiful and honest piece of writing, Raihana, an Afghan widow comes to Denmark from a Pakistani refugee camp to start a new life. She is sponsored by fellow Afghans who with traditional Afghan hospitality invite her to stay with them for as long as she wants.

There are two things all refugees must do when they arrive in Denmark,one is to learn Danish and the other is to land a "praktik" or a job that enables them to earn money as well as practice their Danish. Raihana lands a job with an elderly beekeeper and widower, Gunnar. At first their relationship is strained because Gunnar (and especially his family who are protective of him) don't like the idea of this young Muslim girl coming to the house. THey are afraid she will take advantage of his loneliness and his kindness. On the other hand, Raihana's people also don't want her working for a "white" man whom they feel might take sexual advantage of this young, pretty widow.

But as Raihana and Gunmar continue to work together all preconceived stereotypes melt away and they grow genuinely fond of each other even introducing their families to each other and thus building a bridge of friendship between two communities that hardly ever mingle.

The novel sheds light on Denmark's attempts at building a multicultural society....its successes and its failures. For it to truly succeed, both, Danes and the new refugees have to learn to meet each other in the middle.

What made Amulya Malladi choose this subject for her current novel? In an interview she says she found immigrating to Denmark from the US very challenging. The people aren't the friendliest in the world and nor is the weather, but as she has a Danish husband and a familial support system, integration for her was a relatively painless procedure. However, whenever she sees a refugee she is drawn to how difficult it is must be for them to start life afresh in this foreign land and thus the story was born. Also, she wanted to explore how communication takes place and relationships are built when there is no common language and the relationship between Gunnar and Raihana is very much a study of that.

I have read all Amulya's books and she has yet to disappoint. Ofcourse, some of the characters in this novel were quite cliched but I forgive her for that because I don't know if you can weave a story about immigration, racism etc without resorting to a few stereotypes for your characters.

Other notable reads:

Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Khadare
Ismail Kadare’s classic novel of a boy’s coming of age in the midst of the horrors of war (Albania), in a stunning new translation.

The Tears of Sheba: Tales of Survival and Intriuge in Arabia by Khadija Al-Salami
The inspirational account of a remarkable woman, the story of her life is set against the background of civil war and family strife in Yemen. A wonderful read for anyone interested in Yemen or in the Middle East. I was completely swept away by Khadija's story and loved how she wove stories of Yemen's history and culture into her own.

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar and "Daughter of the Ganges" by Asha Miro

Publishers: Harper Collins

Price:	$24.95
On Sale:	5/29/2007

If I may start with a prediction...

Thrity Umrigar's latest book "If Today Be Sweet"
(its title is borrowed from a poem by Omar Khayyam) will be a darling of the book clubs because it covers a diverse range of themes, like home, family, widowhood, bereavement,community, immigration, culture clashes, the sterility of suburban life, neighbors, contemporary America... in other words, there is something for everyone to discuss.



Sorab Sethna is an Indian-born American who is conflicted because he no longer feels a pull towards his Indian roots. He has recently started to enjoy the American dream and the luxuries provided by this country and yet, something makes him feel guilty for doing so, especially as he recalls his disadvantaged fellowmen in India. His immediate dilemma is what to do with his widowed mother? Invite her to stay with them in the US (which would be very disruptive for him and his American wife) or should he let her return to Bombay to a life that she is familiar with?


Then you have Tehmina, the widowed Indian mother. She is on a visit to America where her son Sorab lives but she finds America so strange and foreign. Life is so regulated in this country, people are so law abiding and disciplined, but cold. She finds the pewter-colored skies of Cleveland dull and misses the warmth, color and chaos of the Bombay streets. She misses her talkative and friendly neighbors. In the rich suburb that her son lives in, it could be hours before you see someone walk down the street and even then they are hurrying by with no time to for a friendly chat.

Tehmina is torn between living with her only son and grandson in the US or returning to the life she is familiar with in Bombay. The reader feels for Tehmina because having to uproot herself to live with her son in a foreign (to her) country is not easy, especially at her age. What will Tehmina choose? Will America win her over as it does with most immigrants or will she return to India?

Then we have Suzanne, the American daughter-in-law who is so unused to looking after a helpless mother-in-law, a country bumpkin , but at the same time, she understands that she can't have her husband Sorab worrying about his mom all the way in India and thus is in favor of the mother moving in with them, except, she then wants a bigger house so that she has her "personal space", something that the Americans seem to crave, notes Tehmina with some amusement.

I see from the book (and from life around me) that immigrants, especially first generation, have very conflicted ideas about home. Where is home? Is it where you are physically located, or is it where your roots are or your heart is, or is home simply a state of mind? This book explores that to a large extent and you realize it is something all of us as immigrants have had to ask ourselves, but for many of us, the answer still eludes us.

Umrigar is probably one of my favorite Indian writers. If you haven't read anything by her I urge you to give her books a whirl. Her writing is tender, elegant and eloquent and she has the most endearing characters fill her books, you won't be disappointed.

You can find my review for "The Space Between Us", here



This Edition: Hardcover

Publication Date: 06/2006

Price: $24.00

I just finshed reading Asha Miro's "Daughter of the Ganges".

What can I say about this book without giving too much away? I will tell you that it's a remarkable story of hope, love, perseverance, networking and probably something called luck. Anyway, it's about this girl called "Asha" ("hope" in Hindi) adopted as a young girl from an orphanage in Bombay by a family that lived in Barcelona. Neither Asha nor the family spoke a common language to begin with, so communication was by signs and gestures until Asha started to learn Catalan. Asha, like most adopted kids was always curious to know where she had come from and who her natural parents were and she was lucky that her adoptive parents always encouraged her to go in search of her story.

When she was twenty Asha decided to visit India with a group that was going to do some voluntary work in Bombay and Nasik (the city she was born in according to her birth certificate). Asha's description of her drive into the city of Bombay from the airport is my second favorite after "Shantaram's"...maybe I should start collecting literary descriptions of the ride in from Bombay airport as it obviously makes has a huge impact on people! :)

SHe makes contact with the convent in which she had lived in before the adoption and after a series of well-meaning lies that people told her about her past, she is able to finally unearth the truth of what happened... where she came from, who her family is, why they gave her up for adoption etc., thus filling in the blanks of her own personal crossword puzzle.

This is a very powerful story and one that you will enjoy reading. The translation from Spanish into English isn't one of the better ones, but even so, you will be touched tremendously and profoundly. I had tears streaming down my face often in the last 100pages or so of the book.

I am stopping here for now...sorry I couldn't give away everything or it would spoil the read for you.


Note: I have closed the comments box for this post only because I won't be around to read and answer the comments. Thank you for understanding.

American Visa by Juan De Recacoechea

Translated by Adrian Althoff
with an afterword by Ilan Stavans




















Genre: Fiction/Mystery/Crime

Themes: Immigration, Urban life

ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-20-0 l 257 pages | $14.95
Published By: Akashic Books

When: April 2007


Anyone who has ever traveled abroad cannot help but understand the value of a visa. This little paper or ink stamp on your passport is your sole permission slip to enter a whole new world. But that little ink stamp usually comes with a hefty price especially if it is being issued by a country like the United States, Canada or Britain. You are required to have a zillion documents and all must be in good order with a healthy bank balance and other assets, like a house, car etc in your country of origin. So what happens to people that do not meet these requirements? Are they to be forever denied a chance to visit America, their dream country? That's especially hard when they live across the border and get to watch the American dream unfold but can have no part in it.


Just published by Akashic Books, "American Visa", the story of a Bolivian man's quest for a visa to America, has been described as nouvela noir or a tragicomic travelogue. Authored by Juan De Recacoechea, it has enjoyed incredible success in Latin America and is the highest selling Bolivian novel in over 20 years. In a country of only 9 million people, where the official illiteracy rate is estimated to be only 15%, Recacoechea’s success is no mean feat. "AmericanVisa" is only the second Bolivian book, and Recacoechea’s first, to be translated into English in 50 years!!!

Adrian Althoff, first got interested in this novel when his professors at Amherst asked him to find out what the most popular and bestselling novel in Bolivia was (a history major, he was in La Paz for his thesis research). After he ascertained it was "American Visa" he brought a copy home,read it and said "it was like getting hit with a tidal wave". He knew then he just had to translate it and bring it to the American reading public.

"American Visa" is not the kind of novel you would normally associate with Latin American writers..it is not a political novel and there is no hint of magical realism, instead the author chooses to focus on the La Paz of the 1990's.

The protagonist, Mario Alvarez, a retired school teacher and a huge fan of old-school American detective fiction, in particular Chandler and Chester Himes, travels to La Paz in quest of an American visa to visit his son in Miami. As he waits to obtain his visa he roams the streets of La Paz climbing up and down the Bolivian class ladder, mingling with the ladies of the night and getting drunk as often as he can. When despite getting a haircut and donning his best Prince-of-Wales suit, his visit to the US consulate is unsuccessful (the cocaine trade has made the Americans very suspicious of Bolivians) his story takes on lots of twists and turns and starts to resemble one of his much loved detective novels.

I have to confess I found this a hard novel to put down. Written in first person I was more than happy to walk the streets of La Paz (so vibrantly real in the book) with Mario Alvarez, seeing first hand why he was so desperate to leave Bolivia and to start a new life in the US. Recacoechea takes some amazing urban characters like prostitutes, transvestites, cocaine dealers, half-breeds, unscrupulous politicians, and weaves them masterfully into his fascinating tale. This book will also provide you some amazing insights into a class-conscious Bolivian society and will show you how the Latin-American people perceive the United States. At the end of the book you will walk away with a better understanding of why people will commit desperate acts to secure immigration to other countries, a definite plus when you consider that immigration is a hot button issue these days in the US.

I hope Akashic Books will bring more translations our way...I cannot believe this is only the 10th Bolivian text to be translated into English! As one critic remarked, " Ironic that Juan de Recacoechea’s protagonist spends all his time trying to get to America, when it is we who should be getting to Juan de Recacoechea. So true!

Finally, I thought I should share my favorite Bolivian recipe, Cocadas or Coconut Candies:
(for a picture, please go here)

Cocadas
(Coconut Candies or Macaroons)

Ingredients

2 2/3 cups shredded coconut
3/4 cup condensed milk
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon almond essence

Preparation

1. In a bowl, mix shredded coconut, egg, condensed milk, and almond essence until everything is well mixed.
2. Let rest for two or three minutes.
3. Spread butter on a baking sheet.
4. Using two teaspoons, put small amounts of the mixture onto the baking sheet.
5. Bake at medium temperature ( 325 Fahrenheit degrees) for twenty-five minutes or until they are golden, dry and smooth at the same time.

Yields 24 regular-size coconut candies.