—Ayad Akhtar,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Homeland Elegies
“At a time when many would rather ban or bury the truth, Ali-Khan bravely faces it in this bracing and necessary book.”
About the Book
Sofia Ali-Khan’s parents emigrated from Pakistan to America, believing it would be a good country. With a nerdy interest in American folk history and a devotion to the rule of law, Ali-Khan would pursue a career in social justice, serving some of America’s most vulnerable communities. By the time she had children of her own—having lived, worked, and worshipped in twelve different towns across the nation—Ali-Khan felt deeply American, maybe even a little extra American for having seen so much of the country.
But in the wake of 9/11, and on the cusp of the 2016 election, Ali-Khan’s dream of a good life felt under constant threat. As the vitriolic attacks on Islam and Muslims intensified, she wondered if the American dream had ever applied to families like her own, and if she had gravely misunderstood her home.
In A Good Country, Ali-Khan revisits the color lines in each of her twelve towns, unearthing the half-buried histories of forced migration that still shape every state, town, and reservation in America today. From the surprising origins of America’s Chinatowns, the expulsion of Maroon and Seminole people during the conquest of Florida, to Virginia’s stake in breeding humans for sale, Ali-Khan reveals how America’s settler colonial origins have defined the law and landscape to maintain a White America. She braids this historical exploration with her own story, providing an intimate perspective on the modern racialization of American Muslims and why she chose to leave the United States.
Equal parts memoir, history, and current events, A Good Country presents a vital portrait of our nation, its people, and the pathway to a better future.
To learn more about the book, check out: sofiaalikhan.com
To purchase the book, click on the image below. Participants are encouraged to obtain and secure the book at least one week before the start of Week 1.
Sofia Ali-Khan
Sofia Ali-Khan
Seriously Entertaining: Sofia Ali-Khan on "Life, Liberty & Other Pursuits"
A GOOD COUNTRY trailer
Sofia Ali-Khan | Unbound | Boston Mainstage 2017
Meet the Author
Sofia Ali-Khan is a social justice lawyer turned writer/storyteller. Her first book of creative nonfiction, A Good Country: My Life in Twelve Towns and the Devastating Battle for a White America (Random House 2022) is an examination of the deep racial segregation in twelve American towns she called home in the wake of the Trump-era attacks on and racialization of American Muslims. The stories she tells about those twelve towns are tied to national and regional movements and together form an unbroken history of the forced migrations of, and national legacy of violence against, Brown and Black people in America.
Sofia has appeared on The Moth's Mainstages in Boston and Philadelphia and more recently at the Manhattan Public Theater for the House of Speakeasy. Her writing at the intersection of politics, race, history, and Muslim America has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, TIME Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and the Sarasota Herald Tribune, among other publications. In 2022, she earned a Pushcart Prize nomination for an essay appearing in the journal Farmer-ish.
As a lawyer, she has worked for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, Prairie State Legal Services in Illinois, and the American Bar Association. Sofia became a national leader on the right to language access and practiced in the areas of welfare law, immigration, housing, community economic development, and Medicaid access, founding an offsite legal clinic for undocumented workers with health emergencies. She was a founding board member and activist with the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and has spoken to dozens of audiences on aspects of Islamic faith and history. During the Trump campaign and presidency, she created and helped implement municipal sanctuary policies. She now lives in Ontario, Canada, with her family on the traditional and rightful territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee First Nations and is at work on her first novel with support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
About the Online Book Club
In this contentious election year, many of us are wondering how we got here. What drives the fundamental sense of disunity in our society? In this course, I will guide you through the dozens of stories that make up A Good Country. In the process, you will develop a well-grounded understanding of:
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American history, taught in a captivating storytelling model, focused on the twelve towns I called home all over the country
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the national and regional movements tied to those twelve towns which continue to shape our communities and drive our politics,
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modern movements for social justice, such as Black Lives Matter and the Standing Rock protests
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what settler colonialism is, what motivated it in America, and how it defines America today,
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what that means for how America is seen in an international context,
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and American Muslims, including how we got here, why we are portrayed as the bad guys, and the critical role we play in this election cycle.
Each session will include a short, original storytelling performance that synthesizes the assigned chapters, additional resources and articles, a guided discussion, illuminating exercises, and key takeaways.
Join us for an enriching exploration of A Good Country: My Life in Twelve Towns. We will come together as a community of open-hearted learners in an online environment, allowing ourselves to be both challenged and transformed by the meticulously researched histories within the book.
A Fascinating 8-Week Experience
May 15 - July 3, 2024
Embark on an enriching and rare journey with the author and the community to delve into this award-winning book!
Your journey will include the following elements:
Dates: May 15 - July 3, 2024
Wednesdays @ 5:00 - 6:00 pm (PST) / 8:00 - 9:00 pm (EST)
The four interactive sessions are scheduled for Weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8
with the possibility of an extended (90-minute) session during the final week for integration.
Fee: $145
Join the author and fellow participants for four interactive sessions throughout this 8-week journey. These sessions are scheduled on Weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8, offering facilitated discussions, breakout sessions, Q&A opportunities, engaging exercises, and access to valuable resources. Don't miss out on this enriching experience!
Please acquire and secure the book at least one week before the commencement of Week 1.