An American Family: Khizr Khan - Softcover

Khan, Khizr

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0751572330 ISBN 13: 9780751572339

Publisher: Sphere, 2017

Synopsis

Timely and timeless, An American Family is an intensely personal immigrant story. Khizr Khan traces his remarkable journey from humble beginnings as one of ten children born on a farm in rural Pakistan, his grandfather reading Rumi beneath the moonlight and instilling in young Khizr a yearning for education that ultimately leads him to Harvard Law. A moving love story builds between Khizr and Ghazala when they meet at University, as he tries to get the girl who is out of his league. Always helping others with the little they have, the Khans move to Texas and become citizens as they build a humble, family-focused life in a place that
affords them freedom and dignity. Having instilled the same ideals that brought him to America in the first place, Khan relates the heroic and tragic story of his middle son, U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who is killed while protecting his base camp in Iraq, and the ways in which their undying pride in him and his
sacrifice have helped them endure the deepest despair a parent can know. An American Family is a lyrical and intimate depiction of what being an American really means.

About this title

Review:

Advance praise for An American Family

"Self-effacing, the author writes movingly . . . [Khizr] Khan's aspirational memoir reminds us all why Americans should welcome newcomers from all lands."--Kirkus Reviews

"An American Family is a small but lovely immigrant's journey, full of carefully observed details from the order in which Ghazala served tea at a university event, to the schedule of the police patrols in the Boston Public Garden where Khan briefly slept while he was in between apartments, to the description of Humayun's headstone as a 'slab of white marble with soft streaks the color of wood smoke.'. . . Most importantly, the book is an effective argument for the depth of Khan's love for and knowledge of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the amendments to it. He emerges as such an eloquent advocate for both documents, and for American values, that I finished An American Family with my own sense of patriotism and sense of civic obligation revitalized."--Alyssa Rosenberg, The Washington Post

"[A] moving memoir . . . a story about family and faith, told with a poet's sensibility . . . The book is a wonderful refutation of Trump's nativism and bigotry, but it is no partisan polemic. . . . Khizr Khan's book can teach all of us what real American patriotism looks like."--The New York Times Book Review

"[A] wide-eyed and eloquent memoir . . . A sense of wonder about America's promise peppers the entire narrative, even as [Khan] recounts his early struggles in the country while supporting his wife and three boys. . . . The account is especially resonant now."--Booklist

"Sometimes it takes a newcomer to point out the beauty that old-timers take for granted. America, more than any other country, was founded upon ideals: individual freedoms, equal protection and due process of law. Khan reminds us that these ideals are worth fighting--and even dying--for. The Khans truly are the most American of families."--BookPage

"An American Family holds its own alongside other fine memoirs of immigration and would be an inspired addition to any college or high school syllabus. The Gold Star father who spoke so movingly at the 2016 Democratic National Convention is just as affecting on the page."--Shelf Awareness (starred review)

"Self-effacing, the author writes movingly . . . Khan's aspirational memoir reminds us all why Americans should welcome newcomers from all lands."--Kirkus Reviews

Book Description:

The story of one family's pursuit of the American dream and why, especially in these tumultuous times, we must not be afraid to step forward for what we believe in when it matters most, by the man who brandished his pocket constitution at the 2016 Democratic Convention and in doing so captured the attention of the world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sphere
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0751572330
• ISBN 13: 9780751572339
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288