Book Description

This is the new FOURTH EDITION of SIKANDER. Winner of the Grand Prizes in each of the 2010 Los Angeles Book Festival and the 2011 Paris Book Festival, SIKANDER is the tale of the son of a Pakistani middle-class family. It's 1986. Seventeen-year-old Sikander, dreams of studying and living in America, but after a family quarrel, he leaves his Peshawar, Pakistan home. Encountering mujahideen warriors, he joins them in their fight against the occupying Soviets in neighboring Afghanistan. American assistance is stepped up with advanced weapons, like the Stinger missile, and the mujahideen are able to neutralize the Soviet military advantage. After just two years following Sikander's arrival, a Soviet withdrawal begins. Amid the turmoil, Sikander finds love and marries a young, sharp-witted Afghan village girl. With the fighting all but over, the couple decide to move to Sikander's Pakistan home where he hopes to reconcile with his family. But his dream of living in America endures. It's a dream that is shattered in the aftermath of 9/11 and in seeking to help his Afghan relatives, Sikander, now a successful entrepreneur, finds himself on an unavoidable collision course with the America of his dreams. SIKANDER takes us from the pricey suburbs of Peshawar to the primitive war-torn landscape of Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, to the placid serenity of Scotland, through the camps of Guantanamo, and finally, corporate America. It is a 21 year journey through freedom and captivity, love and loss, wealth and poverty, dignity and humiliation, and transgression and redemption. A rare glimpse of a non-radical mainstream Muslim's experience of the West, SIKANDER is a journey of growth, self-discovery, and hope. It will touch the humanity of its readers. Along with the two Grand Prizes, SIKANDER has collected numerous other awards inkling Best Fiction in the Hollywood Book Festival and the Beach Book Festival and Best Multicultural Fiction in the National Indie Excellence Book Awards for 2011.