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About the Author and Novel:

Tamim Ansary sent an e-mail the day after the attack on the World Trade Center that launched him into the public eye. Growing up in Afghanistan and America, Ansary came to question how to reconcile the elements of the two cultures that helped shape his identity. His memoir tells of his journey.

Biography on Tamim Ansary:

Tamim Ansary was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1948, son of the first Afghan ever to marry an American woman and the first American woman ever to live in Afghanistan as an Afghan. He moved to America at age 16, traveled in the Islamic world in 1980, during the Iranian hostage crisis, and traveled in Pakistan and then Afghanistan in 2002, after the fall of the Taliban. He worked in educational publishing for many years, contributing as an editor and writer to major textbook programs in reading, language arts, and social studies, and then later as a freelance writer.

His books for adults include the literary memoir West of Kabul, East of New York (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002). In 2005, he co-authored The Story of My Life: an Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky (Simon Spotlight Entertainment) for Farah Ahmadi, an Afghan girl who stepped on a land mine when she was seven years old.

Ansary has written dozens of nonfiction and some fiction books for children, as well as a series of educational comic books, literary fiction, and an eclectic array of other works. He directs the San Francisco Writers Workshop, and has taught several courses, including the popular, "World History through Islamic Eyes" at San Francisco State's Osher Institute, and he has taught memoir writing seminars at writing conferences. He currently has a grant to encourage young Afghan-Americans to pursue writing their life stories, and he also writes a monthly column for Encarta.com on a variety of subjects-currently education is his focus.

His commentary has been heard on various National Public Radio stations and he has lectured at colleges and universities ranging from Dartmouth to Houston Community College. He was the Commencement Speaker at Reed College in May, 2006.

Further background on modern Islamic thinkers:

For readers interested in learning more about the diversity of Islam, the following individuals were mentioned by Professor Eaton at the end of his forum lunch talk “West of Kabul and the Diaspora of the Muslims in the Contemporary World.”

“Muslims have always responded creatively to challenges from without. One thinks of the 19th c. Indian Muslim reformer Sayyid Ahmad Khan, or the Egyptian reviver of medieval Islamic rationalist thought, Muhammad Abduh. Contemporary examples include:

Iranians:

Ali Shariati -- The Utopian sociologist of the Revolutionary Era.

Abdulkarim Soroush -- The democratic theorist of the post-revolutionary era.

Reza Aslan -- The historian of religion and articulate interlocutor with Western media.

Arabs:

Hasan Hanafi -- An Egyptian rational philosopher.

Fatima Mernissi -- Moroccan feminist thinker.

Ali Ahmad Said -- Syrian literary critic and leading modernist Arab poet.

Muhammad Arkoun -- North African Francophile and neo-Mu`tazilite

Tariq Ramadan -- Brilliant intellectual who has undertaken a radical reinterpretation of classical Muslim texts. Ramadan’s career perfectly exemplifies the problem. Three years ago he was invited to join Notre Dame’s faculty, in its Institute for International Peace Studies. But the US State Dept. turned down his application visa on the grounds that he is a terrorist.

In their different ways, these people view Islam at home in a world of change and non-Muslim challenge.”