Patmeena Sabit — Good People: A Novel - with Donna Hemans

Zorah Sharaf could do no wrong. Zorah Sharaf brought shame upon her family. What’s the truth? Depends on who you ask.After fleeing a war-torn Afghanistan, the Sharaf family resettles as refugees in Northern Virginia. After many years of hard work, the father has become a successful businessman. Now they live in the most exclusive neighborhood, their growing family attending the most prestigious schools. Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father’s eye.When an unthinkable tragedy strikes, everyone is left reeling and the family is thrust into the court of public opinion. There is talk that behind closed doors the Sharafs’ happy household was anything but. Did the Sharaf family achieve the American Dream? Or was the image of the model immigrant family just a façade?A kaleidoscopic, urgent narrative, told through the perspectives of those who know the family best, and those who only think they do, Good People is a riveting, provocative, and unforgettable story of community, family, and identity in our increasingly divided times.Patmeena Sabit was born in Kabul a few years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. When she was a month old, her family fled the conflict and became refugees in Pakistan, joining the millions of other Afghans that had sought refuge there. They later moved to the United States and she grew up in Virginia. She currently lives in Toronto.Sabit is in conversation with Donna Hemans, the author of three novels, River Woman, Tea by the Sea, and The House of Plain Truth. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. She earned an MFA from American University and an undergraduate degree from Fordham University. She serves on the PEN/Faulkner Foundation board and is also the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers based in Washington, D.C.PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780593801062?ic_referral=SM_ykxgCBdPL_kDocz_jvCBG0TI_6AAeJWgaTWBnPXMwM1AWndjCe5r97tpsd8xDdMBY6TQ7yLGAybBv7mPNn3LWYZbbLW9ZhW8UJ-TfwkwkPpSYupqjbCC2mgOCxfPbn0vKzFw