A story collection which moves between realism and fable, history and the present, capturing the lives of Muslim women and men across myriad geographies and circumstances.
With compelling themes of displacement and reinvention, these stories push boundaries — probing race, class, sexual identity, and family; the role of women in Arab and American culture; and much more. In this collection, mythology meets reality, and Jarrar’s palette spans the world ... The thirteen stories in this collection blend humor with rage, wit with pathos. Jarrar presents an astonishing variety, each story as inventive as it is insightful. It’s a book for this oppressive electoral season, where presidential politics are ugly and destructive, and demagoguery is endeavoring to trample a core American truth: Our country’s strength derives from open borders. Jarrar is here with a correction.
Jarrar’s collection is full of characters whose pain exists side-by-side with their vibrant, witty, no-bullshit personalities ... she writes about the Arab diaspora in all its human complexity during a time of increasing Islamophobia ... Jarrar’s style?—?sensitive, peculiar, and closely observed?—?also has roots in Russian literature, but its rhythm sounds modern and entirely her own.
Him, Me, Muhammed Ali gets a chokehold on you from the start and doesn’t let you go until you’ve questioned your own life, how you use your body and what you think is your happy place.
