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Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise: A Jihadist's Own Story by Khaled Al-Berry (Hardback, 2009)

This is an autobiographical account of a journey into extremism. In 1986, when this autobiography opens, the author is a typical fourteen-year-old boy in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Attracted at first by the image of a radical Islamist group as 'strong Muslims,' his involvement develops until he finds himself deeply committed to its beliefs and implicated in its activities. This ends when, as he leaves the university following a demonstration, he is arrested. Prison, a return to life on the outside, and attending Cairo University all lead to Khaled al-Berry's eventual alienation from radical Islam. This book opens a window onto the mind of an extremist who turns out to be disarmingly like many other clever adolescents, and bears witness to a history with whose reverberations we continue to live. It also serves as an intelligent and critical guide for the reader to the movement's unfamiliar debates and preoccupations, motives and intentions. Fluently written, intellectually gripping, exciting, and often funny, The World Is More Beautiful than Paradise provides a vital key to the understanding of a world that is both a source of fear and a magnet of curiosity for the West.

Place of Publication
Cairo
Spine
20mm
Translated by
Humphrey Davies
Author Biography
KHALED AL-BERRY was born in Sohag, Egypt in 1972. He has a degree in medicine from Cairo University, and currently works as a journalist and writer in London, where he has been living since 1999. HUMPHREY DAVIES is the translator of The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany and Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury, for which he was awarded the Banipal Prize for Literary Translation.
Format
Hardback
Language
English
Author(s)
Khaled Al-Berry
Date of Publication
15/12/2009
Subject
Political Ideologies & Parties
Imprint
The American University in Cairo Press
Country of Publication
Egypt
Genre
Political Ideologies & Parties

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