Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #677792 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Akbar's refreshingly unsentimental reminiscences of visiting his father's homeland as a teen make for an intriguing portrait of Afghanistan at a time of significant transition. On 9/11, Akbar, who was born in Peshawar in 1984 but grew up in the U.S., was living near Oakland, Calif., where his father ran a clothing store. After the attack, the elder Akbar, a descendant of an Afghan political family, returned to his country to take a job as President Hamid Karzai's chief spokesman and, later, as governor of Kunar, a rural province. The author visited his father for three successive summers, and the result is this account, a closeup view of the creation of the country's post-Taliban democratic government, told from a perspective that's impressively both insider and objective. Akbar reports on chats with cabinet ministers and warlords, and sketches the lay of the land, visiting both sumptuous Kabul palaces as well as bombed-out villages. His youth and curiosity send him on some dangerous adventures (he retraces a mountain route between Afghanistan and Pakistan used by fleeing members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban), and that youthful flavor also infuses the writing with a hip stream-of-consciousness that is by turns funny, insightful and, occasionally, breathtaking.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 8 Up–After the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, Afghans living in exile began to return home in hopes of participating in rebuilding their war-torn country. Akbar's father sold his hip-hop clothing store in Oakland to join his friend Hamid Karzai, now the elected president, serving first as his spokesman and later as the governor of the remote province of Kunar. The author joined him right after he finished high school and spent three summers, first in Kabul and then in Asadabad, the provincial capital. The young man traveled through the countryside and across the mountainous border into Pakistan. Equipped with a microphone and recorder, he chronicled his experiences and his reactions for public radio's This American Life. These immediate observations form the basis of this engaging and informative account of Afghan life and politics interwoven with a teen's reactions to his first visit to his family's native land. Because of his background and connections, his interest and knowledge of Afghan history and politics, and his language skills, Akbar was involved in his father's work in ways that most teens can only dream of. Readers are rewarded with an inside look at Afghan reconstruction that is both informative and appealing. The teen admires his father and his father's friends immensely; he dreams of being personally involved in nation-building. Readers will come away from this memoir with a strong desire to see into the young man's future and that of the country that has so entranced him.–Kathleen Isaacs, Towson University, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Said Hyder Akbar's family members were prominent political figures in pre-Taliban Afghanistan. Forced to immigrate to the U.S., Hyder's father returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban's fall and was appointed a governor. Teenage Hyder joined his father for lengthy visits, which he first recounted in radio documentaries for the program This American Life, of which coauthor Burton is a contributing editor. Here, Hyder, now 20, expands on his experiences in a wholly engrossing memoir that balances sophisticated political and social observations, astonishing for someone so young, with irresistible flashes of teen enthusiasm: "This is like Lollapalooza--like going backstage and getting to meet all the rock stars," he says, after a meeting at the presidential palace. Hyder's extensive research and experience (he frequently corrects newspaper reports) along with his intimate, self-deprecating, and entertaining voice will inspire readers to learn and care intimately about the individuals whose lives he describes. This is required reading for anyone seeking a better understanding of Afghanistan and of what it feels like to be a bicultural young person pulled between continents. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved