Author: Tamim Ansary

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Book Reviewed By: David-Iman Adler

West of Kabul, East of New York is a complex book that spans the categories of autobiography, modern history, current events, and comparative sociology. Unfortunately, like the geographical center implied by the book's title, the author's own indecisiveness leaves the reader stranded in the middle of an ocean of conflicting feelings and contradictory allegiances. Perhaps this accurately reflects the inner state of the author's condition regarding the subject of his book, but this reviewer was hoping for something more definitive and illuminating.

Tamim Ansary is an Afghan-American who was born in Afghanistan of Afghan and American parents. The book chronicles his life from the time of his childhood in Afghanistan to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The day after the attack he wrote an email to relatives and friends expressing his personal feelings about that incident. Soon afterward the recipients of this email forwarded it to others and in a short time thousands of people had received it. Ansary got many email replies from people he had never met and because of this interest he decided to write this book. The email is included in the book at the end.

Ansary describes village life in Afghanistan as being one in which the public and private lives of the people are very separate, where family groupings are strong and nurturing and where children feel safe and well cared for. At first the reader enjoys the descriptions of Ansary's older relatives and the protective, loving situation he lived in. But his father was an engineer who was involved in the politics of the country and the events surrounding the deposing of the King of Afghanistan had a direct impact on Ansary's life.

Through this early part of his life, his family was moved from the village to a compound where a large construction project that his father was in charge of. It was at this compound that he first met American children. He had hoped that in meeting them he would finally find people of his own kind. He had been rejected by many Afghani children because of his mixed heritage and hoped the American children would accept him. To his surprise the American children considered him Afghani and rejected him as well.

This scenario becomes the leitmotif for the whole book. Ansary is constantly uncomfortable wherever he is. He eventually travels to the US for his degree, is constantly fighting his Afghani/Islamic heritage with the style of life of college students in the 60's and 70's. Unable to completely commit to either he wanders and tries several times to build bridges to both groups.

Ultimately he arranges a deal to go to the Middle East on a fact-finding trip for a possible writing assignment. His travels through North Africa and Europe are plagued with mis-adventure that is always attributed to the Islamic origin.

Eventually, totally disenchanted with his travels and rejecting of any of his Afghani or Islamic roots he returns to the US and marries. Even then he is caught up in trying to make ties with the Afghan community in his home area, indicating that his loyalties are still not fully developed. But again, this proves to be more complex than he might have hoped and eventually he pulls away from these attempts as well.

In the end, Ansari stayed in the US, and leads a fairly typical middle class life, the one glitch being his devoutly Muslim brother whom he rarely sees. But the ambivalence is always there and is very clearly expressed in the email he sent out on September 12, 2001.

I cannot give this book a very high recommendation, it left me confused about the author's own feelings about the events in his life and in the world around him. There are some few interesting facts about life in a village of Afghanistan and about the internal politics of the country during the pre-Taliban time. But, in general this book can be skipped without missing any great insights on Afghanistan, the Taliban, September 11, Islam, or life in the US.

*******

David-Iman Adler is Canalway Trail Partnership Director for the New York Parks and Conservation Association.

05/15/2002