September 6, 2013
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The United Nations Association of New York and the Institute of International Education (IIE) invite you to an evening of discussion with Qais Akbar Omar, an author who will be presenting his recently published book, A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story. The event will take place at IIE's headquarters in New York City (809 United Nations Plaza) on Monday, September 30 at 6pm. 

In a rare memoir of Afghanistan to have been written by an Afghan, A Fort of Nine Towers reveals the richness and suffering of life in a country whose history has become deeply entwined with our own.

For the young Qais Akbar Omar, Kabul was a city of gardens where he flew kites from his grandfather's roof with his cousin Wakeel while their parents, uncles, and aunts drank tea around a cloth spread in the grass. It was a time of telling stories, reciting poetry, selling carpets, and arranging marriages.

Then civil war exploded. Their neighborhood found itself on the front line of a conflict that grew more savage by the day. With rockets falling around them, Omar's family fled, leaving behind everything they owned to take shelter in an old fort—only a few miles distant and yet a world away from the gunfire. As the violence escalated, Omar's father decided he must take his children out of the country to safety. On their perilous journey, they camped in caves behind the colossal Buddha statues in Bamiyan, and took refuge with nomad cousins, herding their camels and sheep. While his father desperately sought smugglers to take them over the border, Omar grew up on the road, and met a deaf-mute carpet weaver who would show him his life's purpose.

Later, as the Mujahedin war devolved into Taliban madness, Omar learned about quiet resistance. He survived a brutal and arbitrary imprisonment and, at eighteen, opened a secret carpet factory to provide work for neighborhood girls, who were forbidden to go to school or even to leave their homes. As they tied knots at their looms, Omar's parents taught them literature and science.

Omar has said, "When you create a carpet you have a medallion, a border and small patterns that fill the gaps. I try to apply that to my story. The medallion is my family, the small patterns around the medallion is what happened to us."

In this stunning coming-of-age memoir, Omar recounts terrifyingly narrow escapes and absurdist adventures, as well as moments of intense joy and beauty. Inflected with folktales and steeped in poetry, A Fort of Nine Towers is a life-affirming triumph.

To RSVP, please contact IIE at mclark@iie.org

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UNA-NY Book Talk
Monday, September 30, 2013
6:00-7:30pm
Institute of International Education
809 United Nations Plaza 
(1st Ave between 45-46th Streets)


 
 
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