Book Summary and Reviews of Just Another Jihadi Jane by Tabish Khair

Just Another Jihadi Jane by Tabish Khair

Just Another Jihadi Jane

by Tabish Khair

  • Published:
  • Nov 2016, 176 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A novel about friendship, faith, and alienation, Just Another Jihadi Jane tells the tale of Islamist radicalization from the inside.

Two children of Muslim immigrants in England's industrial north - thoughtful Jamilla and rebellious Ameena - become best friends, and find in religion and social media a community as welcoming and encouraging as their public education is estranging. After Jamilla's father dies and her brother marries, the two girls leave England and join the Islamist cause in Syria. The intellectual and emotional poverty as well as the violence they find there creates a story as gripping as it is heart-wrenching.

As did All Quiet on the Western Front, Tabish Khair's novel reminds a new generation that heroism and sacrifice are not limited to one side in a conflict, and that the first victims of a murderous regime are those who live within it.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Was this intense, enlightening novel really written not by a British Muslim girl but a male Indian novelist who lives in Denmark? It seems impossible. Required reading for anyone interested in trying to understand our mad, bloody world." - Kirkus

This information about Just Another Jihadi Jane was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Tabish Khair

Tabish Khair was born in 1966 and educated mostly in Bihar, India. He is the author of several critically acclaimed novels and poetry collections. Winner of the All India Poetry Prize as well as fellowships at Delhi, Cambridge, and Hong Kong, his novels - The Bus Stopped (2004), Filming: A Love Story (2007), The Thing About Thugs (2010), and How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position(2014) - have been translated into several languages and shortlisted for major literary prizes including the Encore Award (UK), the Crossword Prize, the Hindu Best Fiction Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asia (India), and the Man Asian Literary Prize (Hong Kong). He lives in Arhus, Denmark.

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