RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewSince the first allied attack on the Taliban in October 2001 began what many consider the longest war in U.S. history, few foreign journalists have written about Afghanistan with the depth and doggedness of the Kabul-based Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins ... The journey took place in 2016 — but after Kabul fell to the Taliban last year and the U.S. withdrawal forced tens of thousands of Afghans to flee the country, the book feels prescient. Aikins poignantly frames the question many of us have been wrestling with since the chaotic events of 2021: \'What does it mean to be free in our world? The refugee is freedom’s negative image; she illustrates the story of progress that we tell ourselves\' ... It has become a cliché to state that a book is \'urgent\' or \'necessary\' when it touches on a critical humanitarian issue; almost any book about Afghan migrants would be important right now. But this book is exceptionally well done. That’s primarily due to Aikins’s painstaking, unflinching portrayals. In refusing to make saints or sinners of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, Aikins crafts an expansive, immersive work that reads like the most gripping novel but is all the more compelling because the events are both true and ongoing ... During a journey as haphazard as it is harrowing, Aikins keeps the focus on Omar and the other migrants while giving enough context that we always understand what’s at stake in this high-risk, ever-shifting environment. At times, especially toward the end, the pacing of the book is electrifying ... There are no tidy arcs or pat resolutions. Aikins chronicles it all ... Aikins does not just criticize governments; he examines his biases in a way that invites readers to scrutinize their own ... Aikins moves past his role as journalist. He experiences the kind of equality that politicians, advocates and religious leaders tout but rarely achieve ... He weaves those fragments into a meticulously told story the world needs to hear now more than ever ... This book is Aikins’s profound act of love — for Omar, for their travel companions and for the beleaguered people of Afghanistan, now irrevocably scattered around the world.
Jordan Ritter Conn
RaveThe New York Times Book Review... riveting ... a well-wrought portrait of two brothers, Riyad and Bashar Alkasem, and their journeys out of Syria ... Conn pushes beyond simply humanizing the Alkasems; the book portrays Syria and the United States as multifaceted and complex, both capable of generosity and oppression, with histories as interconnected as the brothers’ own ... Conn builds tension slowly and with great sympathy, adding necessary context to clarify political nuances. He alludes to the background of Bashar’s wife, Aisha — also a lawyer — who is more critical of Syria’s government and eventually persuades her husband to leave; Conn describes Aisha’s \'passion, her will to fight\' in contrast to her more cautious husband and I found myself wishing her story had been granted more space, especially because she carries much of the emotional weight of the book’s final scenes. Conn keeps the stakes high and the decisions fraught until the very end, when Bashar, his wife and their children plunge into a journey that feels like both the wrong solution for a family that never wanted to leave and the only choice available to them ... As complicated and ever-shifting as their views of Syria and the United States are, the brothers’ affection for Raqqa is unwavering. Conn translates their memories into a resplendent love letter to an obliterated city, where Riyad swims as a boy in the Euphrates and gathers recipes from his relatives, and where Bashar poignantly lays out pillows and blankets to look at the stars with his daughters in the courtyard of their family home at night before the bombs drop. The loss of that Raqqa feels unbearable.
