PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksI understand Aboulela’s desire to answer contemporary fear-mongering with a portrayal of a Muslim jihadist who is not an extremist or a fanatic, but the threat embodied by the fantasy of Shamil cuts in multiple fascinating ways that are often short-circuited by the novel’s insistence on his unequivocal virtue. The Kindness of Strangers reads as a well-crafted but quiet plea for the kind of humanism that once allowed enemies to respect one another.
