American Dervish - Softcover

Akhtar, Ayad

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031618330X ISBN 13: 9780316183307

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 2012

Synopsis

From Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar, a stirring and explosive debut novel about an American Muslim family in Michigan struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world.
Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes.

American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life.

About this title

Review

"Akhtar, the star and director of the 2005 terrorism drama The War Within, offers what promises to be one of the most complex treatments of Muslim immigration and fundamentalism to come from an American-born (albeit first-generation) writer."--Boris Kachka, New York Magazine

"Whether you believe religion is a precious gift from God or the greatest scourge of mankind, you will find yourself represented in these pages. With brilliant storytelling and exquisitely balanced points of view, Ayad Akhtar creates characters who experience the rapture of religion but also have their lives ripped apart by it."--Manil Suri, author of The Death of Vishnu and The Age of Shiva

"A compelling debut with a family drama centered on questions of religious and ethnic identity.... Akhtar, himself a first-generation Pakistani-American from Milwaukee, perfectly balances a moving exploration of the understanding and serenity Islam imparts to an unhappy preteen with an unsparing portrait of fundamentalist bigotry and cruelty.... His well-written, strongly plotted narrative is essentially a conventional tale of family conflict and adolescent angst, strikingly individualized by its Muslim fabric. Hayat's father is in many ways the most complex and intriguing character, but Mina and Nathan achieve a tragic nobility that goes beyond their plot function as instruments of the boy's moral awakening.... [The story's] warm tone and traditional but heartfelt coming-of-age lesson will appeal to a broad readership. Engaging and accessible, thoughtful without being daunting: This may be the novel that brings Muslim-American fiction into the commercial mainstream."--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"AMERICAN DERVISH opens with an epigram from the Hadith Qudsi (sacred sayings of Muhammad): "And Allah said: I am with the ones whose hearts are torn." A fitting quote for this moving, insightful story about religion and family, immigration and assimilation, wherein hearts are numbed, warmed and broken. Faith and love are found, lost and re-formed as the narrator, Hayat Shah, travels a jagged road through the early years of adolescence with all its confusions and dramatic certainties.... Ayad Akhtar's explorations into the tension between the universal truths of religion and literal readings of its documents plays out effectively in AMERICAN DERVISH, his debut novel. Already a master of scene and dialogue, and evocative prose, he's created a compelling and visceral story. When Mina teaches Hayat to listen to the still small voice within that can only be heard by finding the silence at the end of a breath, Hayat tries, and discovers what will continue to inspire him to find the still, small voice hidden between and beneath each breath, and, with it, wisdom and insight."--Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness

"[A] heartfelt first novel.... Akhtar himself is the son of Pakistani immigrants who settled in Wisconsin, and his knowing take on the complexities of that particular experience feels fresh.... The book's central tension between secularism and religiosity obviously has broader significance, and Akhtar explores these issues with admirable nuance.... Akhtar's characters drive a story that's compelling and believable even at its most alien. AMERICAN DERVISH offers a rich look at a nearby world that many Americans don't know nearly enough about."--Rob Brunner, Entertainment Weekly

"[An] astutely observed novel.... Akhtar, a promising young playwright publishing his debut novel, embraces the contradictions - spiritual, sexual, cultural - of growing up Muslim in America in AMERICAN DERVISH. Hayat's story of betrayal comprises the meat of the novel, which will leave a hole in the heart of the biggest sinner. Whether you are Muslim, Jewish or Christian, this coming-of-age tale hits home.... Intelligently written, emotionally charged, AMERICAN DERVISH is a loss-of-innocence tale that will leave readers pondering the state of their own faith.... it's likely that Akhtar's novel will be on many 2012 best-books lists, including that of the Express-News."--Steve Bennett, San Antonio Express News

In this remarkably self-assured, infectiously readable debut novel, Ayad Akhtar beams readers directly inside Hayat's young mind. His growing love for Mina - as his revered "auntie, '' focus of his budding sexual interest, and teacher of Islam through nightly Koran readings - feels sweet yet fraught. After listening to her read these lyrical holy verses, Hayat floats back to his room "my heart softened and sweet, my senses heightened.'' Of course it's headed toward disaster, but Akhtar lets the ensuring calamities unfold without melodrama. Along the way, Hayat learns that his beloved adults' worst flaws sometimes coincide with what is most lovable and laudable about them, and that faith, mystery, and love have less to do with any religious text than with the human heart.--Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe

"Akhtar is a well-experienced, wonderful writer who approaches a difficult subject confidently and without any pretense.... AMERICAN DERVISH is one of those rare (and, at times, uncomfortable) books that deserves a literary award."--Melissa Smith, Book Reporter

"[D]isturbing, complex and....fascinating... AMERICAN DERVISH is nuanced and full of surprises, conveying the dilemmas many people - not just Muslims - face when they immigrate to the United States."--Repps Hudson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"The Muslim American novel has arrived, and it is titled AMERICAN DERVISH. There have been other novels by and about Muslim Americans, but Ayad Akhtar's tale distinguishes itself from its predecessors....by probing controversial aspects of Islam alongside its sympathetic portrayal of one Muslim American boy's maturation. Akhtar has not only created a heartfelt and arresting story of a precocious but impressionable boy trying to navigate faith, folly, and family; he has provided an intellectually rigorous and unflinchingly conscientious examination of the fraught and much-manipulated subject of Muslim scripture."--Rayyan Al-Shawaf, The Brooklyn Rail

Book Description

An extraordinary debut from a talented new writer

About this edition

• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 031618330X
• ISBN 13: 9780316183307
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384