ASHA BANDELE talks to MEGAN SULLIVAN
In The Prisoner’s Wife: A Memoir (Pocket Books, 1999), bandele narrates her relationship with the man who would become her husband: Rashid. Though when she met him Rashid had already spent nine years in prison, bandele would “do” several more years with him as his wife and the mother of their child. Ultimately, Rashid was released and deported to his native Guyana, where he lives today. In Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother’s Story (Collins, 2009), bandele tells readers about the deportation notice that changed her life, and spends some time describing her visits to Rashid, but mostly this is a story about raising a daughter as a single parent in New York. Again, since the focus of this issue is children of incarcerated parents, bandele and I spoke primarily about incarceration and the impact it has on children and families.
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