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IN MY FATHER'S COUNTRY

Name: IN MY FATHER'S COUNTRY
Author: Saima Wahab
ISBN: 978-0-307-88494-7

AN AFGHAN WOMAN DEFIES HER FATE

by Saima Wahab ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2012

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An extraordinary journey by a Pashtun refugee in America who was able to return gracefully back to Kabul.

At age five, in 1979, Wahab began her life on the run after her father was taken from their Kabul home by KGB agents during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. At the mercy of male relatives, Wahab, her two siblings and mother were sent to live with Baba, the grandfather, first in Ghazni Province, then in Peshawar, Pakistan. Out of guilt, kindness or a promise to her father, Baba allowed Wahab to attend school, even though she was the only girl in her class and was already getting marriage proposals at age nine. At age 15, the three siblings were sent to Portland, Ore., to live with their professor uncle, who bestowed on them an American education but insisted on traditional sexist double standards at home, which eventually enraged the strong-willed teenager. After college, she finally moved out of the close-knit family when she’d had enough of being considered “dishonorable and dirty” for craving a life of her own. Being outspoken was a liability for a traditional Pashtun woman, and while she never lacked for American suitors, it invited loneliness. As a rare speaker of both English and Pashto, she was hired by the U.S. military in 2004 to help coordinate efforts in Afghanistan. She was sent to work among refugees and local leaders, and the bulk of her detailed, lively memoir delineates the stress and emotional toil she endured. A carefully wrought work that allows a rare look inside Pashtun culture.

Pub Date: April 24, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-307-88494-7

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.