The Convert, Deborah Baker
The Convert, Deborah Baker
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Convert
A Tale of Exile and Extremism

Author: Deborah Baker

Narrator: Christina Moore

Unabridged: 8 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 08/03/2012


Synopsis

What drives a young woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of exile in Pakistan? The Convert tells the story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore, one of the most trenchant and celebrated voices of Islam' s argument with the West. A cache of Maryam' s letters to her parents in the archives of the New York Public Library sends the acclaimed biographer Deborah Baker on her own odyssey into the labyrinthine heart of twentieth-century Islam. Casting a shadow over these letters is the mysterious figure of Mawlana Abul Ala Mawdudi, both Maryam' s adoptive father and the man who laid the intellectual foundations for militant Islam. As she assembles the pieces of a singularly perplexing life, Baker finds herself captive to questions raised by Maryam' s journey. Is her story just another bleak chapter in a so-called clash of civilizations? Or does it signify something else entirely? And then there' s this: Is the life depicted in Maryam' s letters home and in her books an honest reflection of the one she lived? Like many compelling and true tales, The Convert is stranger than fiction. It is a gripping account of a life lived on the radical edge and a profound meditation on the cultural conflicts that frustrate mutual understanding.

About Deborah Baker

Deborah Baker is the author of Making a Farm; In Extremis, which was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography; A Blue Hand; and The Convert, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in India and New York.


Reviews

Wow,what a fascinating subject! This book tells the story of a Jewish American woman Peggy Marcus who converted to Islam when she was 27,became Maryam Jameelah and left her comfy life in America and began a new one in Pakistan,she did this to live as a true Muslim as per her account. The author Debora......more

Goodreads review by Alex

This is an excellent read, somewhat of a mystery too. A detective story. The book is gripping and really heats up towards the end. It is fascinating history unearthed, and gives one an apercu into a radically different way of viewing the world. I have argued with many friends over the causes of 9/11......more