One Story, Thirty Stories, Dec. 19th, 5:30PM
Book Launch at Zora Space
5:30-7pm
One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature Edited by Zohra Saed and Sahar Muradi
The most comprehensive collection available of Afghan American writers
"One Story, Thirty Stories is exquisite documentary, a kaleidoscope of fragmented lives, losses, and attempts at re-making. The editors have assembled a collection that manages to be both literature and history, both heartbreaking and hopeful, both educational and lyrical. From the daughter of a cab driver to the daughter of an imam, from a crack dealer to a standup comic to an ambassador, the writers in this book offer not only poignant testimony but also form a who's who of Afghans in the United States. An invaluable, accessible resource for anyone who cares about what America is doing in, and to, Afghanistan."
—Minal Hajratwala, author of Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents
"From a society shredded by violence and a generation caught between Afghanistan and America, Saed and Muradi have sewn together a vibrant patchwork of memory and imagination. At turns raw and affecting, One Story, Thirty Stories is a chronicle of loss and reunion, offering a firsthand look at how communities are fractured and remade, with all the frustration and tenderness that exile evokes."
—Tara Bahrampour, author of To See and See Again: A Life in Iran and America
“An admirable achievement. . . . This is a literature haunted by catastrophe. . . . [These] writers . . . are taking that crucial first step toward absorbing the unique experience of Afghan Americans into the universal themes that inform human experience as a whole.”
—From the Foreword by Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York and The Widow’s Husband
Featuring:
Donia Gobar
Jessamyn Ansary
Khalida Sethi
Sahar Muradi
Zohra Saed
Naheed Elyasi
Mariam Ghani
Zohreh
Reader Comments (1)
Stories of lives, a few verses or a few pages, none superficial or meaningless, this book is a partial mirror to a few scenes and shadows of lives of those who you may not know but would enrich your minds if you would know. Out-rooted, misjudged, and held-out-of-reach Afghans, young or old, stepping halfway around the world holding their heads high,-- working to survive, building the bridge of thoughts with words to cross over the ditch of misinformed or the unaware. However, the stories, poems, essays, and blogs in this book are representing each writer's individual opinion about his/her own life experiences and understanding of the cultural issues surrounding, and not that of the nation of Afghanistan in its interesting and polarized diversity.