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Ahmedi, Farah
The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky
Born at the peak of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Ahmedi grew up amid the sounds of gunfire and fighter planes. When she stepped on a land mine on her way to school, she began to learn--slowly--that ordinary people, often strangers, have immense power to save lives and restore hope. She left Afghanistan, where the classrooms are filled with more students than seats (and no books), to Chicago, where teenagers struggle to decide whether to try out for school plays, whom to take to the homecoming dance, and where to go to college.
v, 249 p. 2005
921 Ah53
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Ansary, Mir Tamim
West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story
Shortly after militant Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, Tamim Ansary of San Francisco sent an e-mail that circulated widely throughout the world, describing his perceptions of Afghanistan. Ansary grew up in Afghanistan and emigrated to America, where he was drawn into the community of Afghan expatriates. The dream of returning to their home country was tainted by the nightmare of militant Islamic religious fundamentalism. His is one of the most eloquent voices on the conflict between Islam and the West.
292 p. 2002
921 An791
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Dumas, Firoozeh
Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no first-hand knowledge of this country beyond her father's glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since. "Funny in Farsi chronciles the American journey of Dumas's family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encounted a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot. [Book jacket]
x, 187 p. 2003
921 D891
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Elliot, Jason
An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
Part travelogue, part historical evocation, part personal quest, and part reflection on the joys and perils of passage, "An Unexpected Light" captures perfectly the emotional lure of a seldom-glimpsed world. It is a poignant look at Afghanistan and a heartfelt reflection on the experience of travel itself.
473 p. 1999
915.81 E
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Fadiman, Anne
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, Fadiman painstakingly details the clash of two cultures - Western medicine and Eastern holistic healing traditions. When three-month-old Lia Lee entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.
ix, 341 p. 1998
301.45195 F
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Kremmer, Christopher
The Carpet Wars: From Kabul to Baghdad: A Ten-Year Journey Along Ancient Trade Routes
Award-winning journalist Christopher Kremmer chronicles his fascinating ten-year journey along the ancient carpet trade routes that run through the world's most misunderstood and volatile regions -- Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. An edge-of-the-chair travel memoir, The Carpet Wars offers a personal, vivid, and revealing look at Islam's human face, wracked by turmoil but sustained by friendship, industry, and humor.
xii, 448 p. 2002
950.428 K
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Latifa
My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story
From 1997 to 2001, sixteen-year-old Latifa was a prisoner in her own home as the Taliban wreaked havoc on the lives of Afghan girls and women. The oppressive regime banned women from working, from schools, from public life, even from leaving their homes without a male relative. Female faces were outlawed as the burka, or head-to-toe veil, became mandatory. This book is an extraordinarily powerful account of a teenager's life under terrible circumstances and a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit.
xi, 210 p. 2001
958.1046 L
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Nafisi, Azar
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Prof. Nafisi resigned from her job as professor of English Literature at a university in Tehran in 1995 due to repressive government policies. For the next two years, until she left Iran, she gathered seven young women, former students, at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss works of Western literature forbidden by the new regime. They used this forum to learn to speak freely, not only about literature, but also about the social, political, and cultural realities of living under strict Islamic rule.
347 p. 2003
921 N13
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Pipher, Mary Bray
The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town
In cities and towns all over the country, refugees arrive daily. Lost Boys from Sudan, survivors from Kosovo, families fleeing Afghanistan and Vietnam: they come with nothing but the desire to experience the American dream. Their endurance in the face of tragedy and their ability to hold on to the essential virtues of family, love, and joy are a tonic for Americans who are now facing crises at home. Their stories will make you laugh and weep--and give you a deeper understanding of the wider world in which we live.
xxv, 390 p. 2002
325.21 P
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Seierstad, Asne
The Bookseller of Kabul
In Afghanistan, just after the fall of the Taliban, a bookseller named Sultan Khan allowed a Western journalist [Asne Seierstad] to move into his home and experience firsthand his family's life in the newly liberated capital of Kabul. From that act of openness emerges this remarkable book, already an international bestseller, the most initimate look at ordinary life for those who have weathered Afghanistan's extraordinary upheavals. One husband, two wives, five children, and many other relatives sharing four small rooms opened up their lives, unforgettably.[Front flap]
xv, 287 p. 2003
958.1 S
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Shah, Saira
The Storyteller's Daughter
The English-born daughter of an Afghan aristocrat, inspired by his dazzling stories to rediscover the now lost life their forbears presided over for nine hundred years, becomes, at age twenty-one, a correspondent at the front of the war between the Soviets and the Afghan resistance. Then, imprisoning herself in a burqa, she risks her life to film Beneath the Veil, her acclaimed record of the devastation of women's lives by the Taliban.
253 p. 2003
921 Sh1255
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Zoya
Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom
Zoya, 23, has witnessed and endured more tragedy and terror than most people do in a lifetime. She became a refuge when her mother and father were murdered by Muslim fundamentalists and started a new life in exile in Pakistan. She joined the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and made dangerous journeys back to her homeland to help women oppressed by the system.
239 p. 2002
958.104 Z
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