J.K. Cheema

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courtesy JK Cheema

JK Cheema in front of a bookshelf.

JK Cheema

Madison author J.K. Cheema will be reading from her new memoir, The Black Attaché: Vignettes from a Life. Cheema spent her childhood in India, witnessing partition (the division of India and Pakistan). Her life has taken her to far-flung destinations like Kazakhstan, Armenia and Burkina Faso. She’ll discuss the book, and her past as an American diplomat, with Christopher Chambers of Madison Writers Studio and the Wisconsin Prison Humanities program.

media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome JK Cheema and Christopher Chambers for a reading and conversations on Cheema's memoir The Black Attaché. Join us to learn more about a life of travel from this local author!

This is an in person event at A Room of One's Own. Rescheduled from August 2023.

About the book

The Black Attaché is an irresistible blend of history, travelogue, and reflection that takes you on a journey from the childhood in India, where Cheema lived through the partition of India and Pakistan, nearly dying on the last train out of Pakistan during the riots, to her career as an American diplomat stationed in hardship posts around the world.

With honesty and warmth, Cheema describes her childhood memories and events from places like Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Burkina Faso, amongst others where she has lived and worked.

Jatinder Cheema was born in 1942 to a Sikh family in Lahore, which was then India and now Pakistan. She immigrated to the States and moved to Ann Arbor for her graduate and post graduate studies at the University of Michigan after which she had an accomplished career as a Foreign Services Officer with the United States Agency for International Development. As a US diplomat, she lived and worked in many parts of the world. She now lives in Madison with her husband. The Black Attache is her second book. She produced and help write her mother’s life history book in 2018.

Christopher Chambers is the author of two books of fiction, Delta 88 and Kind of Blue. He teaches for Madison Writers Studio and the Wisconsin Prison Humanities program, and is the former editor of Black Warrior Review, New Orleans Review, Midwest Review, and Wisconsin People & Ideas. He is currently editor of Beloit College Magazine.