Come Back to Afghanistan
Akbar, Said Hyder and Susan Burton. Come Back to Afghanistan. Bloomsbury, 2006. $14.95ISBN9781596910683 (pap.); Bloomsbury, 2005. $24.95. ISBN 978-1582345208.
Genre: Memoir
Themes: Post 9/11 life in Afghanistan, family, the Taliban, tribes, government and travel.
Author information: Said Hyder Akbar was a high school student when he decided to follow his father to his homeland of Afghanistan in 2003. He is currently a student at Yale University. Akbar has started his own company to rebuild schools and pipelines in a rural province in Afghanistan.
Susan Burton is a writer and contributing editor to the NPR radio program This American Life .
Plot Summary: A chronicle of Akbar’s experiences and reactions of three summers in Afghanistan observing and helping his father set up a provincial government.
Booktalk: After 9/11, Said’s father was asked to come back to Afghanistan by Hamid Karzai to help rebuild the war-torn country. Said, a high school student at the time, followed his father. Armed with a tape recorder (used for the radio documentaries for This American Life ) he captured everything he saw and heard, from life on the streets to secret meetings. The result is a heart-warming look at a country most know very little about. We come to care deeply for the people we are introduced to and the future of their beautiful mountainous country.
Curriculum tie-ins:
History:
- Research the history of Afghanistan.
- Discuss how landscape affects government.
- Discuss the interference of other countries in a country’s rebuilding effort.
- Discuss what democracy and freedom mean to you.
- Research and discuss Islam and sects.
English
- Read a novel set in Afghanistan and compare it to this memoir.
- Pick one memorable time in your life and write about it.
- Turn this piece of writing into a story or a poem.
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