India, May 22 -- Tell us about your memoir, Homebound, and what inspired you to write it.

My book is called Homebound: A Memoir Traversing Oman. It started out just as many countries were removing their COVID travel restrictions. I decided to plan a trip to Oman, the neighbouring country to Yemen, where my maternal ancestors come from. A cholera epidemic was compounding the humanitarian disaster in Yemen. From my apartment in Paris, I thought I'd perhaps explore what was the kingdom of Hadhramaut, which spanned the east of Yemen and the west of Oman. I had saved up from the stipend that France was giving during the COVID epidemic and thought I'd use that for a trip to Oman. It was like a gift I was giving myself. I flew to the southern c...