Come Back to Afghanistan

Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story, by Said Hyder Akbar and Susan Burton, is my recommended read for this month. Akbar, currently a senior at Yale and the child of Afghan immigrants, writes a thoughtful, compelling, humorous memoir of his time spent in post-Taliban Afghanistan. He has a particularly interesting vantage point, as his father was advisor to Afghan president, Harmid Karzai, and later became governor of Kunar, a volatile province. The political and the personal beautifully weave together in this riveting, highly readable tale of chaos and change.

For more on Said Hyder Akbar, please listen to the programs he recorded for National Public Radio's "This American Life". Links to both shows are listed to the right.