Talking Through the Door - (Arab American Writing) by Susan Atefat-Peckham (Hardcover)

About the Book

A collection of works by Middle Eastern Americans. The authors are either immigrant or first-generation Americans and represent a wide range of Middle Eastern backgrounds. The selected pieces, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and prose poetry, explore themes of ethnic experience in contemporary America embracing and exploring inner conflict and struggling to make amends with 20th and 21st century eastern and western demands.

Book Synopsis

The writers included here are descendants of multiple cultural heritages and reflect the perspectives of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds: Egyptian, Iranian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Libyan, Palestinian, Syrian. They are from diverse socioeconomic classes and spiritual sensibilities: Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and atheist, among others. Yet, they coexist in this volume simply as American voices.

Atefat-Peckham gathered poetry and prose from sixteen accomplished writers whose works concern a variety of themes: from the familial cross-cultural misunderstandings and conflicts in the works of Iranian American writers Nahid Rachlin and Roger Sedarat to the mysticism of Khaled Mattawa's poems; from the superstitions that govern characters in Diana Abu-Jaber's prose to the devastating homesickness of Pauline Kaldas's characters. Filled with emotion and keen observations, this collection showcases these writers' vital contributions to contemporary American literature.

Review Quotes

A very valuable reference tool representing a wide variety of contributors with different sensibilities and priorities. It brings together considerable talent, some well-established, some new voices, and offers a good balance of poetry and prose.-- "Samia Serageldin, author of Cairo House: A Novel"

This anthology does readers an immense service by highlighting a little-understood and underrepresented part of the population in the United States.-- "Alpana Sharma, professor of English, Wright State University"

About the Author

Susan Atefat-Peckham (1970-2004) was assistant professor of English at Georgia College and State University. She wrote That Kind of Sleep and Black Eyed Bird, and her poems have appeared in several journals, including Borderlands, Texas Poetry Review, and the Literary Review.