The Girl Who Fell to Earth website
PUBLISHERS
USA (Incl. Canada) – Harper Perennial
REVIEWS
“This is a tale of strangers in strange lands… [Al-Maria] offers us an original outlook on ancient ground — what any artist hopes to achieve.”
Dalia Sofer, The New York Times
“Sophia’s unusual upbringing has pushed her to the outer edges of modern identity. She’s not so much split between two cultures in a schizoid way — she’s more of a moon that oversees both at the same time: 1980s Washington State working class culture meets Qatari bedouin culture with absolutely no buffering between the two. The book left me with the very rare and highly prized sensation of being communicated to by someone who may, in fact, be alien. I was also left with a visceral impression about bedouin and Arab culture that all the think pieces and weekend magazine pieces can’t deliver. This book can easily alter the way you see the early twenty-first century.”
Douglas Coupland
“Riveting … the author’s account of living with her extended family and noting class differences really shines. … What makes Al-Maria’s story unique is not only its rare insider’s glimpse of modern Bedouin life, but the outsider’s sensibility that magnifies her exquisite observational gifts. Frank, funny and dauntless.”
Kirkus Review, *****
“Daring, witty, and brimming with the unexpected, Sophia Al-Maria’s riveting memoir is as much about America as it is the Arab world. Chronicling a coming of age between Washington State, Doha, and Cairo, this bracing first book startles and illuminates.”
Yasmine El Rashidi, New York Review of Books
“[A] funny, insightful memoir… Al-Maria’s narrative is laced with keen observations on Bedouin culture, class distinctions, sexual rules, and everyday life in the Middle East and America. Her story is a satisfying trek through a complex cross-cultural landscape toward a creative and satisfying life.”
Publishers Weekly
“A wise, witty, and occasionally heartbreaking memoir. . . Through lucid, often magical prose, Al-Maria explores whether she can reconcile the two worlds swirling in her blood.”
Keija Parssinen, author of The Ruins of Us
“As a young teen, Sophia is on the classic quest to find her father
(and herself), and her wry, eloquent narrative does a great job of blending the viewpoints of the 12-year old then and the adult writer now, while the intersection of contemporary cultures explodes the comfortable stereotypes, old and new.”
Hazel Rochman, Booklist
“There is much to beguile you: a desperate search for identity, a frenzied motion between two worlds, the sheer love that impels that transit. It’s hard to look away from a heart cracked in two.”
Marie Arana , The Washington Post
Readers favorite, December 2012: Elle Magazine
“The book is a twist on the traditional bildungsroman, a story of growing up: of weird beginnings, fraught parental relations, rebellion and finding one’s way.”
Ashley Nelson, San Francisco Chronicle
“This he book takes are very different turn from most Arab-American memoirs…The Girl Who Fell to Earth strikes out further. It is an Arab-American woman’s memoir where roots are in two places, but emancipation is found mostly in Qatar and Egypt.”
Lynx Qualey, Egyptian Independent
“The Girl Who Fell To Earth deftly succeeds in creating a decentered genre. Wisely billed as a “memoir,” this book hinges on not just its own content, but instead begs you to follow the main character after she, like Icarus, has flown away.
Adam Kleinman, e-flux
