Zeitoun - Softcover

Eggers, Dave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307399060 ISBN 13: 9780307399069

Publisher: Vintage Canada, 2010

Synopsis

A riveting account of Hurricane Katrina and a shocking tale of wrongful arrest and racism, Zeitoun is the true story of one Syrian-American, plucked from his home and accused of terrorism, written by one of America's most high-profile literary writers, now available for the first time in paperback from Vintage Canada.

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers's riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun's roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy — an American who converted to Islam — and their children, and the surreal atmosphere in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible. Like What Is the What, Zeitoun was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research — in this case, in the United States, Spain, and Syria.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"This is a beautiful book. "Zeitoun" is a poignant, haunting, ethereal story about New Orleans in peril. Eggers has bottled up the feeling of post- Katrina despair better than anyone else. This is a simple story with a lingering
radiance. My admiration for the humanist spirit of Eggers knows no bounds."
-- Douglas Brinkley, author of "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast"
""Zeitoun" is an American epic. The post-Katrina trials of Abdulrahman
Zeitoun would have baffled even Kafka's Joseph K. Though Zeitoun's story could have been a source of cynicism or despair, Dave Eggers's clear and elegant prose manages to deftly capture many of the signature shortcomings of American life while holding onto the innate optimism and endless drive to more closely match our ideals that Zeitoun and his adopted land share. Juggling these contradictions, Eggers captures the puzzle of America." -- Billy Sothern, author of "Down in New Orleans"
""Zeitoun" is a gripping and amazing story that highlights so much about the tragedy of Katrina, post-9/11 life for Arabs and Muslims, and the beautiful nature of American multi-cultural society."
-- Yousef Munayyer, policy analyst, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
""Zeitoun" is an instant American classic carved from fierce eloquence and a haunting moral sensibility. By wrestling with the demons of xenophobia and racial profiling that converged in the swirling vortex of Hurricane Katrina and post-9/11 America, Eggers lets loose the angels of wisdom and courage that hover over the lives of the beleaguered, but miraculously unbroken, Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun. This is a major work full of fire and wit by one of our most important writers."
-- Michael Eric Dyson, author of "Come Hell or High Water"

About the Author

DAVE EGGERS is the author of seven books, including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity!, How We Are Hungry, What Is the What and The Wild Things as well as co-writer of the film Away We Go, starring Jon Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. He is the editor of McSweeney's, a quarterly magazine and book-publishing company, and is cofounder of 826 Valencia, a network of nonprofit writing and tutoring centers for young people. His interest in oral history led to his 2004 cofounding of Voice of Witness, a nonprofit series of books that use oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. As a journalist, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire and The Believer.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Canada
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0307399060
• ISBN 13: 9780307399069
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 368