Ansary’s literary memoir tells the story of a life that straddles the fault line between Islam and the West: his father, hailing from an ancestral line rich in Sufi mystics, was one of the first ten Afghans sent abroad by his government for a Western-style education; and hIs mother was the first American woman to marry an Afghan and live in Afghanistan as an Afghan. Ansary and his sister Rebecca were thus the first Afghan-Americans.

Ansary sketches “the Lost World”— Afghanistan before contact with the West, a world of tightly-knit clans living in large compounds surrounded by high walls in a large city that is really a densely interwoven fabric of private villages permeated by Islam. His story then moves to tiny Lashkargah, headquarters of an American aid project in southwestern Afghanistan, eight square blocks of any California suburb transported to the banks of a river in Afghanistan, a mile upstream from the ruins of a thousand-year-old city and surrounded by a desert wasteland stretching to the horizon on every side. Here, Ansary begins a dual life—Afghan by day, American by night.

The author goes on to explore the theme of bifurcated cultural identity as his story moves to United States, to the sixties counterculture, to travels across North Africa and Turkey, and finally to the psychological journey that Afghan refugees and exiles have gone through in America since the Soviets invaded their country.

Go here to order your copy of West of Kabul, East of New York.
Richard Eder, writing for the New York Times, calls West of Kabul, East of New York “a book that steadies our skittering compass. Pointing east and west it signals not galactic opposites but two ends of a needle we can hold in our hand. … It speaks with modesty of tone and is all the more resonant for that reason; it searches by sifting… His book sees things we cannot make out, and need to.”

John Nichols, writing for the Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin, says, “West of Kabul, East of New York is … not a polemic of globalization or imperialism. In fact, it is essentially an autobiography. Yet, in his exploration of the Afghanistan he knew as a youth and of the practice of Islam to which he was exposed there, he opens vast horizons of understanding… about the price of progress in this perhaps too modern world.”

Roger Downey writes in the Seattle Weekly, “Ansary’s authorial voice is so unemphatic, so over-a-beer conversational that you’re surprised to find tears rising or rage beginning to choke you as you learn about the interminable geopolitical catastrophe that is the author’s birthplace. … West of Kabul, East of New York is one of those rare pieces of journalism–Rebecca West’s dispatches from Nuremberg come to mind, and John Hersey’s Hiroshima—that don’t just record history but make it.”

Jessie Thorpe, writing for United Press International, calls Ansary a “gifted storyteller,” and goes on to say: “Woven into his stories are lucid explanations of Islam, the history of Afghanistan, the heroes of his youth, what school was like in bare classrooms with no books, how women lived, the joys and cruelties of Islamic society — all of it highly educational and absolutely painless to absorb. In addition to ‘speaking’ beautifully, this author is capable of painting large colorful canvases with his words.”

West of Kabul, East of New York has been included on the following lists:

• Favorite Books of 2002 by Amazon.com
• Best Books of 2002 by Christian Science Monitor
• Best Adult Books for High School Students, by The School Library Journal
• Recommended pick for the week of April 4, 2003, by the New York Times
• Favorite Book Picks for 2002 selection by Written Voices (Online Book Review)
• Recommended Readings Archives, Queens Borough Public Library
• Best Books of the Year in 2002 by the San Jose Mercury

It has also been chosen as:

• Common freshman reading selection by Carleton College, Temple University, Albion College, La Guardia Community College, Tulane University, and others.
• New Hampshire Reads selection (April 2003).
• One City One Book selection for the city of Waco, Texas (2004).
• One City One Book selection for the city of Orland, Illinois (2005).
• One City One Book selection for the city of San Francisco (2008)

 

No comments