Airplane Mode

July 1, 2023

In her first book, Calicut, India--born, Brooklyn, NY--based writer/translator Habib braids together a cultural history of travel with a personal account of her many trips as an immigrant whose family and loved ones have spanned continents, highlighting leisurely travel as a mostly European/American phenomenon. She also looks at future travel in light of postcolonialism and climate change. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2023
Airplanes play a far smaller role here than the title implies, and the attitude is less irreverent than adversarial, as writer and translator Habib, a Muslim and Third World-raised woman of color, asks deeply important questions about the assumptions many of us make about the modern world in her first book. For example, why do colonial explorers get to "discover" and name plants after themselves without seeking their local names and contexts? Why does the world think lack of privilege is a "lack" rather than "a crack through which the light gets in"? Perhaps the passport isn't a document of access, but rather, for a Third World denizen, a document for preventing mobility--a phenomenon the author calls passportism. (Habib uses Third World ""because none of its other names do justice to its beautiful dark magic."") Why can't a marginalized person hang out without being asked why they're there? And what if true cosmopolitanism isn't a tourism that ticks off countries from a bucket list, but rather, the education one gets from migration and minorityhood? A timely reframing of what it means to travel.

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September 1, 2023

Writer and translator Habib's first book is an insightful travelogue filled with her own stories of travel as a woman of color from a third-world country--a term she doesn't shy away from. Growing up in the South Indian state of Kerala, the author discovered an early taste for travel writing in the stories of the Queen of Sheba and other ancient explorers whose curiosity led them to new adventures. This book highlights the inherent inequities in privileges between those who can easily globetrot versus others who frequently encounter difficulties while traveling. This work shows that militourism, colonialism, capitalism, and climate change shape how and where people travel. With a sharp wit, the book unearths travel truths with a humorous bent that delivers several laugh out loud moments. From a history of guidebooks to the obscure history of carousels, there are compelling stories and insights that will expand and alter most readers' view of the world. Sprinkled throughout the chapters are references to works in which one can further investigate some of the book's briefly mentioned topics. VERDICT Fans of travel writing, history, and travel writing itself will find this quick read a delightful, eye-opening one that fuels more insatiable wanderlust.--Holly Hebert

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Starred review from October 16, 2023
Translator Habib examines global travel and the inequalities that underpin it in her trenchant debut. Mixing memoir and history, she recalls how her own trips (and challenges with an expiring student visa) made her realize “how intrepid you are as a traveler depends, at least partly, on how entitled you feel to travel.” For example, she contrasts a white friend’s “easy charm with strangers” and “ability to condense entire countries into crisp little sentences,” with the way “Brown people... did not fit the stereotype of the tourist. We were supposed to be the local color.” From there, Habib goes on to describe passport discrimination (both globally and within “Third World” countries) as “akin to a caste system with multiple stratas” and delve into the fascinating 19th-century roots of modern guidebooks. Elsewhere, she traces the often-invisible influences on the desire to travel, noting, for example, that a Thai government program encouraged the proliferation of Thai restaurants worldwide on the “astute calculation” that their dishes would inspire tourism. (Habib realized firsthand just how well that bet paid off when she found herself in a Thai eatery while abroad in Barcelona: “The epiphany was that I was a cliché..... How bracing it is to catch a glimpse of the software that is running me and hundreds of thousands of others... beneath the surface of our wanderlust.”) With a perceptive eye and in fluid, intimate prose, Habib nimbly demonstrates how “the more we dig into the history of modern tourism, the more the pickax hits the underground cable connection with colonialism.” Jet-setters will be captivated and challenged.

October 15, 2023
A wide-ranging, politically acute inquiry into the history of travel and tourism, as seen by a south Indian writer and translator. Attending a lecture by a travel videographer on "the travel habits of different demographics," Habib heard him proclaim, "Europeans travel in August" and "cruises are for retired Americans." Then came the kicker: "People from the Third World do not travel; they immigrate." Born in Kerala, India, now living in Brooklyn, the author is a traveler and an immigrant, sometimes a tourist, as well. All these perspectives play a role in this collection of essays. Habib opens by contrasting her experience as a traveler with that of a white woman she met in Turkey, segueing into a history of guidebooks and an interrogation of the association between travel and privilege. "But what if," she wonders, "instead of being a hole in the self, [lack of privilege] is more akin to a window? A crack through which the light gets in, a third eye that reveals the magic-mushroom hybridity of the world we live in?" Another essay describes her months as a new mother in Brooklyn, finding solace in aimlessly riding buses; Brooklyn, she proclaims, is "a flaneur's paradise." Most essays combine the history and historiography of travel with engaging personal narratives--e.g., her white American husband getting foiled in his plan for a romantic trip to Paris because his brown wife cannot get the paperwork in time. Habib includes funny stories about craving Thai food in Barcelona and her biophobia (fear of nature). A wonderful afterword explains "Why I Use 'Third World In This Book.' " Although some find the term derogatory, she argues, "To speak of the Third World is to bring it into being...It's not offensive to me. Its nasty women, bad hombres, and shitholes are dear to me. Enlightening and entertaining.

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