SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
University Affairs Office
1801 E. Cotati Avenue
Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609
(707) 664-2057
e-mail: jean.wasp@sonoma.edu
University Affairs Office
1801 E. Cotati Avenue
Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609
(707) 664-2057
e-mail: jean.wasp@sonoma.edu
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2003 File #372
Contact: Jean Wasp, Media Relations, (707) 664-2057
West of Kabul, East of New York" Author Will
Tell of Life as an Afghan-American in May 27 Lecture
Tamim
Ansary, whose life spiraled into celebrity status in the wake of 9/11 when
his privately written e-mail about Afghanistan to 20 friends spread through
the Internet to touch millions of people around the world, will be speaking
at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 27 in the Cooperage. The event is sponsored by SSU's Lifelong Learning Institute and is open to the public. A $5 donation is requested.
Ansary's e-mail discussed the attack on the World Trade Center and the then impending US bombing of his home country Afghanistan from his perspective as an Afghan-American.
He has since written eloquently on the plight of Afghanistan as its peoples struggle to rise from the cultural and moral devastation incurred there by the Soviet invasion in 1979, the rise of the Taliban, and the US military bombing campaign to rout Al Queda terrorists in 2001.
In his writings and public lectures, Ansary evokes the cost--in human and moral terms--of policies driven by the tenets of economic and political "progress" throughout the world.
A new edition of his recently published book "West of Kabul, East of New York" has garnered accolades in newspaper book reviews throughout the United States.
It is at once a warm, personal memoir about his growing up in Afghanistan, as well as a searing depiction of a later journey through the Islamic world that hellped clarify his duel identity as an Afghan-American.
Tamim Ansary has published numerous essays and books for children and is a columnist for Encarta. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and their two children.
For further information, contact Barbara Brooks, Lifelong Learning Institute, (707) 664-2691.
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NOTE TO EDITORS: For an interview with Tamim Ansary, please contact Jean Wasp, (707) 664-2057.