Native Believer

Native Believer

"Native Believer stands as an important contribution to American literary culture: a book quite unlike any I've read in recent memory, which uses its characters to explore questions vital to our continuing national discourse around Islam."
-- New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice

"M.'s life spins out of control after his boss discovers a Qur'an in M.'s house during a party, in this wickedly funny Philadelphia picaresque about a secular Muslim's identity crisis in a country waging a never-ending war on terror."
-- O, the Oprah Magazine

"Native Believer is a page-turning contemporary fiction that addresses burning issues about the very essence of identity, and without question Ali Eteraz is a writerâ€™s writer, one whose ear for the English language is just as acute as fellow naturalized Americans Vladimir Nabokov (born in Russia) or Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnam).â€
Â— Los Angeles Review of Books

"[A] poignant and profoundly funny first novel....Eteraz combines masterful storytelling with intelligent commentary to create a nuanced work of social and political art."
-- Booklist

"Eteraz's narrative is witty and unpredictable...and the darkly comic ending is pleasingly macabre. As for M., in this identity-obsessed dandy, Eteraz has created a perfect protagonist for the times. A provocative and very funny exploration of Muslim identity in America today."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"In bitingly funny prose, first novelist Eteraz sums up the pain and contradictions of an American not wanting to be categorized; the ending is a bang-up surprise."
-- Library Journal

"Who wants to be Muslim in post-9/11 America? Many of the characters in Ali EterazÂ‘s new novel Native Believer have no choice in the matter; they deal in a variety of ways with issues of belonging and identity in a society bent on categorizing, stereotyping, and targeting Muslims."
-- KPFA Pacifica

"Ali Eterazâ€™s fiction has encompassed everything from the surreal and fantastical to the urgently political. Native Believer, his debut novel, explores questions of nationality, religion, and the fears and paranoia in American society circa right now.
-- Vol. 1 Brooklyn

"Eterazâ€™s novel asks what Muslims must do to themselves in order to be successful in the United StatesÂ—deny their heritage? Buy into Americaâ€™s war machine? Watch as the Middle East goes up in flames?"
-- CounterPunch

Ali Eteraz's much-anticipated debut novel is the story of M., a supportive husband, adventureless dandy, lapsed believer, and second-generation immigrant who wants nothing more than to host parties and bring children into the world as full-fledged Americans. As M.'s life gradually fragments around him--a wife with a chronic illness; a best friend stricken with grief; a boss jeopardizing a respectable career--M. spins out into the pulsating underbelly of Philadelphia, where he encounters others grappling with fallout from the War on Terror. Among the pornographers and converts to Islam, punks and wrestlers, M. confronts his existential degradation and the life of a second-class citizen.

Darkly comic, provocative, and insightful, Native Believer is a startling vision of the contemporary American experience and the human capacity to shape identity and belonging at all costs.

Country USA
Brand Akashic Books
Manufacturer Akashic Books, Ltd.
Binding Paperback
ReleaseDate 2016-05-03
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781617754364

Country	USA
Brand	Akashic Books
Manufacturer	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Binding	Paperback
ReleaseDate	2016-05-03
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781617754364

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