AUTHOR

“Growing up bicultural is like straddling a crack in the earth.”
                         West of Kabul, East of New York, p. 279

Tamim Ansary was born in Kabul to an American mother and an Afghan father. He spent his early childhood in a family compound in Kabul. In 1959, his family moved to Lashkargah, a dessert town in southwestern Afghanistan, as part of an American-funded irrigation project. In 1964 he wrote to Colorado Rocky Mountain school to ask for a scholarship. At age sixteen, he left Afghanistan with his mother and siblings in order to attend that school.

After finishing college and moving to San Francisco, Ansary travelled through North Africa and Turkey in 1980. His goal was to learn about Islam and get as close to Afghanistan as possible without returning to that country which was then torn by war with the Soviet Union.

He made his living as a journalist and children’s book author. On September 12, 2001 he wrote an e-mail to some friends about conditions in Afghanistan. The e-mail reached millions of people and prompted him to write this book.

The author "Tamim Ansary" during his visit to LaGuardia Community College

Link to author's website: www.mirtamimansary.com

Growing up bicultural: an interview with Tamim Ansary: http://www.asiasource.org/arts/tamimansary.cfm

See the e-mail that travelled around the world: read the e-mail.