American Taliban

Are we so walled off that we look at personal exploration and the search for self as an act to be suspicious of? There was a time when students traveled to exotic parts of the world as a way to do what young people do, that is to explore and find themselves. Today, imagine a middle class kid who travels to the Middle East on a spiritual quest and winds up there on the eve of 9/11. This is the backdrop of Pearl Abraham's new novel American Taliban: A Novel. My conversation with Pearl Abraham: