Crushed Azaleas, by Amal Moulik

Shards from a Privileged Childhood

Behind embassy doors and elegant receptions, a diplomat’s family life can look charmed. In Crushed Azaleas: Shards from a Privileged Childhood, Amal Moulik reveals the more complicated truth.

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised across Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy, and India, Moulik grew up amid constant motion—an outsider everywhere, yet belonging nowhere. Told through vivid vignettes, his memories capture the wonder of postwar cities, the rituals of diplomatic life, and the friendships that shaped a wandering childhood.

But beneath the cosmopolitan surface lies a more fragile world: a demanding father whose approval must be earned, a mother struggling with deep depression, and a boy searching for refuge in music, memory, and the cultures around him.

Evocative, intimate, and deeply reflective, Crushed Azaleas explores the quiet complexities of identity, family, and belonging—resonating with anyone who has ever lived between cultures or questioned where “home” truly lies.