A Country Called Amreeka U.S. History Retold through Arab-American Lives

The history of Arab settlement in the United States stretches back nearly as far as the history of America itself. For the first time, Alia Malek brings this history to life. In each of eleven spellbinding chapters, she inhabits the voice and life of one Arab American, at one time-stopping historical moment.Separately, the chapters inA Country Called Amreekatransport us; together, they offer a vital piece of the mosaic of our American history and a fresh, urgent, and exciting perspective on a teeming community whom it has become essential for us to understand.

Alia Malek is a journalist and civil rights lawyer who has worked in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, in Lebanon, and in the West Bank. She holds degrees from Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and Columbia universities. Her writing has appeared in Salon, the Columbia Journalism Review. The New York Times, and online editions of The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor. She is a contributor to the book Midnight on the Mavi Marmara and is currently editing a book of post-9/11 oral histories in the Voice of Witness series published by McSweeney's Books.