My Fathers Paradise, Ariel Sabar
My Fathers Paradise, Ariel Sabar
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

My Father's Paradise
A Son's Search For His Family's Past

Author: Ariel Sabar

Narrator: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Unabridged: 12 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/04/2021


Synopsis

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography

"Sabar offers something rare and precious—a tale of hope and continuity that can be passed on for generations." —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.

Yona's son Ariel grew up in Los Angeles, where Yona had become an esteemed professor, dedicating his career to preserving his people's traditions. Ariel wanted nothing to do with his father's strange immigrant heritage—until he had a son of his own.

Ariel Sabar brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, discovering his family's place in the sweeping saga of Middle-Eastern history. This powerful book is an improbable story of tolerance and hope set in what today is the very center of the world's attention.


About Ariel Sabar

Ariel Sabar is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Harper's Magazine, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He is the author of My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Family's Past, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Amy on January 19, 2019

One of the reasons I love Goodreads, and my main group specifically, is that I pick up things I wouldn’t have picked up. This is one of those gems, I never would have touched. For one, I am not drawn to non-fiction, or autobiographical memoir type things. Wrap me up in a good story! I just wouldn’t......more

Goodreads review by M.M. Strawberry on November 14, 2019

Wow, what a fascinating and educational read! Although this is a bio/autobiography of the author and his family, particularly his father and paternal grandparents, this is also very educational in terms of the history and future of the Aramaic language, and Jews in Kurdistan/Iraq and their culture a......more

Goodreads review by Judy on January 31, 2009

If you are an American Jew, the offspring of immigrants, a linguist, a student of the Mideast crisis, or an ex-teen who's finally dropped the attitude, you should read this book. And if I'm not mistaken, that would be all of us. I've scarcely considered the plight of the Sephardic Jews of Western Asi......more