The vote was close, but we have a winner. Before we get to that we’d like to share our favorite comment submitted with the vote: “I realized I have never read a book from the Middle East. This is what is great about this group. I am reading books I would have never picked up without you posting them. I used to belong to another group which was supposedly international but they often had books by American authors who just visited the different countries. I already read too many American authors. Thank you all for putting together this group and supporting expanding my book shelf!!!”
We’re thrilled you appreciate this group and the diversity of reading native authors from countries around the world.
BUT WHAT BOOK ARE WE READING for the club?
Winner of France’s Lagardère Prize, short-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction
In her award-winning novel, Inaam Kachachi portrays the dual tragedy of her native land: America’s failure and the humiliation of Iraq.
The American Granddaughter depicts the American occupation of Iraq through the eyes of a young Iraqi-American woman, who returns to her country as an interpreter for the US Army. Through the narrator’s conflicting emotions, we see the tragedy of a country which, having battled to emerge from dictatorship, then finds itself under foreign occupation.
At the beginning of America’s occupation of Iraq, Zeina returns to her war-torn homeland as an interpreter for the US Army. Her formidable grandmother—the only family member that Zeina believes she has in Iraq—gravely disapproves of her granddaughter’s actions. Then Zeina meets Haider and Muhaymin, two “brothers” she knows nothing of, and falls deeply in love with Muhaymin, a militant in the Al Mehdi Army. These experiences force her to question all her values.
“We let ourselves be won over by this novel that describes with such faithfulness and emotion the tearing apart of a country and a woman forever caught between two shores. The book poetically explores the stinging sorrow of grasping at the past, the link between language and identity, and the tragic loss of never being able to truly go home again.” —AramcoWorld
(A special thank you to book club member, Jordi Valbuena for the suggestion.)
Happy reading! (If you want to read & discuss the winning book together, join our online book club on Facebook.)