{{short description|2002 novel by Tanuja Desai Hidier}} {{Infobox book | name = Born Confused | title_orig = | translator = | image = BornConfused-2002.png | caption = 1st edition hardcover | author = Tanuja Desai Hidier | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = United Kingdom | language = English | series = | subject = | genre = Young adult fiction | publisher = Scholastic Press | media_type = Print (Hardback and paperback) | pub_date = UK: October 1, 2002 <br> US: July 1, 2003 | pages = 432 pp | isbn = 0-439-35762-4 | congress= PZ7.D44885 Bo 2002 | oclc= 49601981 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }} '''''Born Confused''''' is a 2002 young adult novel by Tanuja Desai Hidier about an Indian-American girl growing up in New Jersey.<ref name="HI 2006-05-03">{{cite web |url=http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9964 |title=Yet More Suspicious Passages Found in Kaavya's ''Opal Mehta'' |first=Jon |last=Liu |work=The Harvard Independent |publisher=HarvardIndependent.com (Internet Archive) |date=May 3, 2006 |access-date=August 9, 2007 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20070809000240/http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9964 |archivedate = August 9, 2007}}</ref> First published in the United Kingdom on October 1, 2002,<ref name="Amazon.co.uk Confused">{{cite book |title=''Born Confused'' (UK 1st ed. hardcover): Product Details |id={{ASIN|0439357624|country=uk}} }}</ref> it was later released in the United States on July 1, 2003.<ref name="Amazon Confused">{{cite book |title=''Born Confused'' (US paperback): Product Details |isbn=0439510112 |last1=Hidier |first1=Tanuja Desai |date=2003 }}</ref>

Hidier wrote ''Born Confused'' in 2000/2001, drawing "largely from autobiography." <ref name="DesiClub 2006">{{cite web |url=http://www.desiclub.com/community/culture/culture_article.cfm?id=265 |title=Tanuja Desai Hidier on ''Born Confused'' & ''Opal Mehta'' |first=Tanuja Desai |last=Hidier |publisher=DesiClub.com |year=2006 |access-date=June 2, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060904112724/http://desiclub.com/community/culture/culture_article.cfm?id=265 |archive-date=2006-09-04 |url-status=dead }}</ref> She said in 2006:

<blockquote> "I hadn't read any books I could recall with a South Asian American teen protagonist [before I wrote mine] ... To the best of my knowledge ''Born Confused'' was the first book with a US female teen desi heroine; that was one of the reasons my publisher wanted it, and it is certainly one of the reasons I wrote it &ndash; it was, and is, important to me that a young South Asian American have a voice, and that it be heard and read by people of all backgrounds and ages. And it is just as important that other South Asian American voices be heard; the more out there the more we can begin to approximate expressing the richness and diversity of this culture &ndash; the flip side being the fewer out there the more susceptible one becomes to a stereotyping of sorts, to sometimes having to carry the impossible responsibility of representing a culture that is as diverse as the number of people who make it up." <ref name="DesiClub 2006"/> </blockquote>

An excerpt of ''Born Confused'' had appeared in ''Seventeen'' magazine in 2002.<ref name="DesiClub 2006"/> Hidier was subsequently contacted by book packaging company 17th Street Productions (now called Alloy Entertainment), but she declined their offer to collaborate on an "Indian-American teen story."<ref name="DesiClub 2006"/>

Hidier had also published a short story called "Cowgirls & Indie Boys" in a 2004 anthology edited by McCafferty called ''Sixteen: Stories About That Sweet and Bitter Birthday''.<ref name="Amazon Sixteen">{{cite book |title = '''Sixteen: Stories About That Sweet and Bitter Birthday'': Product Details|date = May 25, 2004| isbn=140005270X | last1=McCafferty | first1=Megan }}</ref>

==Plot== Seventeen-year-old Dimple is too American in India, and yet struggling to conform in America.<ref name="Amazon Confused Editorial">{{cite web |url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0439510112/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books |title=''Born Confused'' (US paperback): Editorial Reviews |publisher=Amazon.com Release date: July 1, 2003 |access-date=June 2, 2009}}</ref> She and her blonde, blue-eyed best friend Gwyn share "outsider status" as "the rich little girl who lived like an orphan and the brown little girl who existed as if she were still umbilically attached to her parents."<ref name="Amazon Confused Editorial"/> Both resisting and ultimately embracing her family's culture and traditions, Dimple navigates suitable/unsuitable boy Karsh Kapoor, her interest in photography, and "a number of tricky situations."<ref name="Amazon Confused Editorial"/>

== Legacy == thumb|Author Tanuja Desai Hidier speaks at the 2014 National Book Festival. ''Born Confused'' has been lauded by fellow novelist Sandhya Menon as being "the flagship for other South Asian young adult novels.”<ref>{{Cite web|title=After 15 years, 'flagship' South Asian young adult novel 'Born Confused' still resonates|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/flagship-south-asian-young-adult-novel-born-confused-still-resonates-n795426|access-date=2021-11-19|website=NBC News|date=September 2017 |language=en}}</ref> ''[https://www.kajalmag.com/ Kajal Magazine]'', which strives to cultivate a space of creativity and commentary for members of the South Asian diaspora, also praised the novel as revolutionary, explaining that "That book ''was'' community and it ''created'' community."<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-12-13|title=Reflecting on Born Confused 15 Years Later|url=https://www.kajalmag.com/born-confused-15-years-ya-lit/|access-date=2021-11-19|website=Kajal Magazine|language=en}}</ref>

Placing the protagonist in the liminal space of being Indian-American and struggling with both sides of that identity, the book allowed young Indian-Americans to find representation and belonging at a time when it was even scarcer than it is today.

== Controversy == In 2006, the novel was identified as having been one of several works allegedly plagiarized by new novelist Kaavya Viswanathan.<ref name="HI 2006-05-03" /><ref name="Crimson 2006-05-02 Similar">{{cite web |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513213 |title=''Opal'' Similar to More Books |first=David |last=Zhou |author2=Paras D. Bhayani |work=The Harvard Crimson |publisher=TheCrimson.com |date=May 2, 2006 |access-date=May 31, 2009 |archive-date=February 23, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080223115144/http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513213 |url-status=dead }}</ref> On May 3, 2006, ''The Harvard Independent'' reported that Harvard University student Kaavya Viswanathan's highly publicized debut young adult novel ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life'' (2006) contained "imagery, sentence structure, and paragraph organization" which was "strikingly similar" to material in ''Born Confused''.<ref name="HI 2006-05-03" /> The ''Independent'' pointed out three similar passages between the books;<ref name="HI 2006-05-03" /> Hidier herself later found "two dozen instances of lifting from ''Born Confused'' in the ''Opal Mehta'' book."<ref name="DesiClub 2006" /> Portions of Viswanathan's novel had previously been alleged to have been plagiarized from several other sources, including Megan McCafferty's first two Jessica Darling novels ''Sloppy Firsts'' (2001) and ''Second Helpings'' (2003), and Meg Cabot's ''The Princess Diaries'' (2000).<ref name="Crimson 2006-05-02 Similar" /><ref name="Crimson 2006-04-23">{{cite web |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512948 |title=Student's Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy |first=David |last=Zhou |work=The Harvard Crimson |publisher=TheCrimson.com |date=April 23, 2006 |access-date=May 31, 2009}}</ref><ref name="NYT 2006-04-25">{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/books/25book.html |title=Harvard Novelist Says Copying Was Unintentional |first=Dinitia |last=Smith |work=The New York Times |date=April 25, 2006 |access-date=May 31, 2006}}</ref> 17th Street/Alloy had helped Viswanathan "conceptualize and plot the book," and shares the novel's copyright.<ref name="Crimson 2006-04-27">{{cite web |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513112 |title=College Looking Into Plagiarism |first=David |last=Zhou |work=The Harvard Crimson |publisher=TheCrimson.com |date=April 27, 2006 |access-date=June 1, 2009}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.thisistanuja.com/ Official Tanuja Desai Hidier website] *{{cite web |url=http://www.mybindi.com/arts-entertainment/BOOKS/bornconfused.html |title=Review: ''Born Confused'' by Tanuja Desai Hidier |first=Preeti |last=Thandi |publisher=MyBindi.com |year=2002 |access-date=June 2, 2009|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090105190153/http://www.mybindi.com/arts-entertainment/BOOKS/interview-tanuja.html|archivedate=2009-01-05}} *{{cite web |url=http://www.mybindi.com/arts-entertainment/BOOKS/interview-tanuja.html |title=Interview: Tanuja Desai Hidier |first=Preeti |last=Thandi |publisher=MyBindi.com |year=2002 |access-date=June 2, 2009|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090106021601/http://www.mybindi.com/arts-entertainment/BOOKS/bornconfused.html|archivedate=2009-01-06}} *{{cite web|url=http://english.clas.asu.edu/wq-born-confused+|title=Born Confused |publisher=Department of English, Arizona State University}}

Category:2002 British novels Category:Novels set in New Jersey Category:Indian-American novels Category:Scholastic Corporation books