Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations

Description

Ayaan Hirsi Ali caused a worldwide sensation with her gutsy memoir Infidel. Now, in Nomad, she tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made against her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical and emotional journey to freedom - her transition from a tribal mindset that restricts women's every thought and action to life as a free and equal citizen in an open society. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of Islam with Western values. Hirsi Ali recounts the many turns her life took after breaking with her family and how she struggled to throw off restrictive superstitions and misconceptions that initially hobbled her ability to assimilate into Western society. She writes movingly of her reconciliation, on his deathbed, with her devout father, who had disowned her when she renounced Islam after 9/11, as well as with her mother and cousins in Somalia and in Europe. Nomad is a portrait of a family torn apart by the clash of civilizations, but it is also a touching, uplifting and often funny account of one woman's discovery of today's America. This is Hirsi Ali's intellectual coming of age, a memoir that conveys her philosophy as well as her experiences, and delivers an urgent message and mission - to inform the West of the extent of the threat from radical Islam, both from outside and from within our open societies. She calls on key institutions of the West - including universities, the feminist movement and the Christian churches - to enact specific, innovative remedies that would help other Muslim immigrants to overcome the challenges she experienced and to resist the fatal allure of fundamentalism and terrorism.

Author, activist, academic, original thinker, former MP, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a polarizing figure who enrages conservatives and liberals alike for her fearless take on political Islam. She is the author of three renowned books, The Caged Virgin, Infidel, her global best-selling autobiography, and Nomad, the sequel. She is in high demand as a speaker - when she toured here in 2010 she appeared on wall to wall media. She is a natural for writer's festival and for tours and as her topic continues to dominate the news she will continue to be in demand for years to come. She lives in the US with her husband, Niall Ferguson, and their son.