Just Another Jihadi Jane

A GRIPPING NOVEL THAT COMMENTS MOVINGLY ON OUR LIVES TODAY. IT BRILLIANTLY ENGAGES PREJUDICES AND PRECONCEPTIONS AND TURNS THEM UPSIDE DOWN. ?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.

Tabish Khair was born in 1966 and educated in Gaya, a small town in Bihar, India. He is the acclaimed author of 7 novels—of which Interlink published three: The Body by the Shore, Just Another Jihadi Jane, and How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position—and 2 poetry collections. Winner of the All India Poetry Prize, his novels have been shortlisted for more than a dozen major prizes, including the Man Asian, the DSC Prize and the Encore Prize. An Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark and has also been awarded guest professorships or honorary fellowships at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Leeds University (UK), Delhi University (India), York University (UK), Cambridge University (UK), and others.