KDL Recommends > Staff Picks > May 2009
KDL Recommends
Wanting Mor
ISBN: 9780888998583
Title: Wanting Mor
Author: Rukhsana Khan
KDL Description:
Jameela, a young girl living in war-torn Afghanistan, struggles to find her place in the world after her mother dies and she moves to Kabul with her drunken father where she clashes with her stepmother and ends up in an orphanage.
Amazon Description:
Jameela and her family live in a poor, war-torn village in Afghanistan. Even with her cleft lip and lack of educational opportunities, Jameela feels relatively secure, sustained by her Muslim faith and the love of her mother, Mor. But when Mor dies, Jameela’s father impulsively decides to start a new life in Kabul. Jameela is appalled as he succumbs to alcohol and drugs, then suddenly remarries, a situation that soon has her a virtual slave to a demanding stepmother. After she’s discovered trying to learn to read, Jameela is abandoned in a busy market, eventually landing in an orphanage run by the same army that killed so many members of her family. Throughout it all, the memory of her mother sustains her, giving Jameela the strength to face her father and stepmother when fate brings them together again. Inspired by a true story, and set in a world far removed from that of Western readers, this powerful novel reveals that the desire for identity and self-understanding is universal.