Description

Children of Dust chronicles Ali Eteraz’s coming of age in an Islamic fundamentalist society, detailing the ways in which people internalize and submit to religious extremism and social alienation. This is a harrowing narrative of abuse and violence in rural Pakistan, as well as an exploration of the rise of religious fanaticism.

Having seen his country dominated by the ideology of the Taliban, his extended family caught up in a fight for survival and becoming a target of Al-Qaeda himself, Eteraz discusses how he managed to reconcile himself with the violence he experienced as a youth without becoming consumed by it. As a human rights lawyer and activist, he also reflects on the possibilities of reform in fundamentalist Islam.

Ali Eteraz is a writer, activist and international lawyer who has worked at the United States Department of Justice. He is the founder of an Islamic think tank dedicated to legislative and legal reform in the Muslim world. He writes for the Huffington Post and the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” section, and has been a guest blogger on Jewcy.com. His essays on Islam have appeared in Killing the Buddha, Counterpunch, Agonist, The Revealer and Identity Theory. He lives in Las Vegas, New York and Kuwait. His website is www.alieteraz.com.

“Throughout his meandering spiritual journey, Eteraz’s faith has given him great pride and contentedness but has also been a source of deep shame, anger and frustration. This emotional struggle is the backdrop for his memoir, Children of Dust, which chronicles his childhood in Pakistan, his family’s immigration to the United States and finally his return to Asia as an adult ... compelling.”

– Washington Post