In Sensorium - Notes for My People

The 2022 Kirkus Prize Winner for Nonfiction

Fragrance has long been used to mark who is civilized and who is barbaric, who is pure and who is polluted, who is free and who is damned—

Focusing their gaze on our most primordial sense, writer and perfumer Tanaïs weaves a brilliant and expansive memoir, a reckoning that offers a critical, alternate history of South Asia from an American Bangladeshi Muslim femme perspective. From stories of their childhood in the South, Midwest, and New York; to transcendent experiences with lovers, psychedelics, and fragrances; to trips home to their motherland, Tanaïs builds a universe of memories and scent: a sensorium. Alongside their personal history, and at the very heart of this work, is an interrogation of the ancient violence of caste, rape culture, patriarchy, war, and the inherited ancestral trauma of being from a lush land constantly denuded, a land still threatened and disappearing because of colonization, capitalism, and climate change. 

Structured like a perfume—moving from base to heart to head notes—IN SENSORIUM interlaces eons of South Asian perfume history, erotic and religious texts, survivor testimonies, and material culture with memoir. In Sensorium is archive and art, illuminating the great crises of our time with the language of Liberation.

A Perfumer’s Perspective: Structured like a fine fragrance, this book moves from the heavy base notes of history to the transcendent head notes of spiritual awakening. Decolonizing History: A critical look at South Asia, interrogating the violence of caste, colonialism, and patriarchy through the lens of an American Bangladeshi Muslim femme. Ancestral Trauma and Healing: An intimate exploration of inherited trauma, weaving together survivor testimonies, religious texts, and personal memory to map a path toward liberation. Scent as Archive: Discover how fragrance—from jasmine attar to the smell of rain on dry earth—can serve as a portal to the past, a language of resistance, and a record of what has been lost.