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Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Contributors:

Samantha Ellis (Author)

Contributors: Samantha Ellis (Author)

Regular price $28.95 USD
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ETA: From January 19, 2026 to February 3, 2026
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BISAC categories: Biography & Autobiography -> Jewish

BISAC categories: Language Arts & Disciplines -> General

BISAC categories: Biography & Autobiography -> Arab & Middle Eastern

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Product Description

A life-affirming memoir about resilience, language, and the healing power of our ancestor's music, stories, and recipes.

Samantha's mother tongue is dying out. The daughter of Iraqi Jewish refugees, Samantha grew up surrounded by the noisy, vivid, hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic. A language that's now on the verge of extinction.

The realization that she won't be able to tell her son he's "living in the days of the aubergines" or "chopping onions on my heart" or reminding him to "always carry salt" opens the floodgates. The questions keep coming. How can she pass on this heritage without passing on the trauma of displacement? Will her son ever love mango pickle?

In her search for answers Samantha encounters demon bowls, the perils of kohl, and the unexpected joys of fusion food. Her journey transports us from the clamour of Noah's Ark to the calm of the British Museum, from the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages to the banks of the River Tigris. As Samantha considers what we lose and keep, she also asks what we might need to let go of to preserve our culture and ourselves.

Always Carry Salt is an immersive and moving meditation on the words and traditions that shape us and what we carry forward into future generations.
ISBN-13: 9798897100286
Author: Ellis, Samantha, N/A, N/A
Publisher: Pegasus Books

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9798897100286

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Publish Date: January 6, 2026

On Sale Date: January 6, 2026

Language: English

Pages: 288

Dimensions: 9.14 × 6.23 × 2.21 in

Weight: 2.15 lbs

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