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Amriika

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The main character in this book, Ramji, finds himself in exactly the same situation in 1995 in Los Angeles as he had been in 1970 in Boston: harbouring a suspected bomber. In one case it had been an American middle-class radical woman, in the second case a young man, who had at one time been an anti-Iranian activist supported by the American government, and has now, as an outraged Muslim, bombed a bookstore in the Midwest.

After the shocking events at the World Trade Center, this book seems to have an eery timeliness to it. While not exactly predicting terrorism in the magnitude in which it recently occurred, this book does take a hard look at why America is often both loved and hated; more importantly, it shows how slippery the slope can be, in today's world, between political commitment and sympathy for the causes behind terrorism, and the barbaric act of terrorism itself. On the way it shows the conflicts within the world of Islam as well.