Overview

The extraordinary story of an all-American girl s conversion to Islam and her ensuing romance with a young Egyptian man, The Butterfly Mosque is a stunning articulation of a Westerner embracing the Muslim world. When G. Willow Wilsonalready an accomplished writer on modern religion and the Middle East at just twenty-sevenleaves her atheist parents in Denver to study at Boston University, she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course that leads to her shocking conversion to Islam and sends her on a fated journey across continents and into an uncertain future. She settles in Cairo where she teaches English and submerges herself in a culture based on her adopted religion. And then she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of the Western influences in his homeland. They fall in love, entering into a daring relationship that calls into question the very nature of family, belief, and tradition. Torn between the secular West and Muslim East, Willow records her intensely personal struggle to forge a third culture that might accommodate her own values without compromising the friends and family on both sides of the divide.

Full Product Details

9781322356365

Table of Contents

Reviews

--A Seattle Times Best Book of the Year The Butterfly Mosque is replete with insights into faith, family, cross-cultural courtship and the inevitable 'clash of cultures, ' making it an absorbing read. . . . Wilson's memoir offers the reader valuable insights into the Islamic faith. . . . A remarkable journey, one that illuminates the humanity in us all. -- The Seattle Times Captivating . . . [An] excellent memoir . . . [that] deserves attention; not just for the clarity of [Wilson's] style and her shrewd observations, but for her sincerity and courage in following her own truth. -- The Globe and Mail Eloquent . . . A life-altering adventure in love, faith, and surrender . . . [Wilson] wins the reader over with her courage, her keen intelligence, her insatiable hunger for truth, and her fine writing. It is riveting to watch a liberal, fiercely independent young American transform into a Muslim and an Egyptian daughter-in-law. . . . Much more than a coming-of-age story, Wilson's memoir explores expatriates and anti-Westernism, economics and fundamentalism, Egyptian culture and feminism . . . [and] builds a bridge between the East and the West through her writing. -- Charlotte Observer Wilson's book, particularly in these treacherous times of mistrust and paranoia, is a masterpiece of elegance and determination. . . . Wilson has written one of the most beautiful and believable narratives about finding closeness with God that makes even the most secular reader wince with pleasure for her. . . . A natural-born storyteller. -- The Denver Post Wilson skillfully conveys the terms of complex sociological discord. . . . Her careful examination and forthright wit make her an ideal ambassador to those who haven't . . . separated [Islam] from its attendant terrorist factions and stereotypes. . . . Wilson has the objective sensitivity to understand the attitudes and arguments facing her; she's multicultural, eloquent and humbly pers

Author Information

G. Willow Wilson was born in New Jersey in 1982 and raised in Colorado. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed comics Air and Vixen. She divides her time between Cairo and Seattle. Visit Willow's website at gwillowwilson.com

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