Green Apple 9th Ave Book Talk “Country of Origin” (SF)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Join us on Monday, May 16th at 7pm PT when Dalia Azim celebrates her novel, Country of Origin, with Olga Zilberbourg at 9th Ave!

Masks and Proof of Vaccination Required

Praise for Country of Origin

“Azim’s evocative debut…gradually reveal[s] hidden layers of the story, enriching her characters and illuminating the heart of a country and people. The result is insightful and nuanced.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Evocative and moving, Country of Origin shows the struggles of two families caught up in the tumult of recent history. Love, loss, betrayal, migration, all of these are deftly explored in this fine first novel. Dalia Azim has given us a true and powerful story of the ties that bind and the ties that break, and our endless negotiation between the two.” —BEN FOUNTAIN, author of Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution

“I picked this book up, not expecting the mystery, courage, and riveting adventure I would find in its pages. I put it down three days later, changed as the best books change you: stronger, and of wider, wilder vision. Among the best novels I’ve read in years.” —DEB OLIN UNFERTH, author of Barn 8

About Country of Origin

Country of Origin is a multigenerational family saga that cuts between political revolution in 1950s Egypt and the personal revolutions of four family members whose lives intersect around the disappearance of one of their own.

Seventeen-year-old Halah Ibrahim has always known a privileged life and never had cause to question it until Cairo goes up in flames. Not only does she start to doubt her father and his role in the new military-backed government—but she ultimately decides to flee to America with a young soldier she hardly knows, an impulsive act that has far-reaching consequences on both sides of the ocean. A powerful and universal debut novel about family, identity, and independence, Country of Origin is as much about a nation’s coming-of-age as it is about secrets and lies, love and truth.

About Dalia Azim

Dalia Azim’s work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Aperture, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Glimmer Train (where she received their Short Story Award for New Writers), Other Voices, Alcalde, and Sightlines, among other places. She lives in Austin, TX, where she is the manager of special projects at the Blanton Museum of Art. Previously she worked as a researcher at the Dedalus Foundation and as a curatorial assistant at the Museum of Modern Art. She graduated with a dual degree in art and literature from Stanford University and grew up in Canada and Colorado.

About Olga Zilberbourg

Olga Zilberbourg’s English-language debut Like Water and Other Stories (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. This collection received warm reviews from The Common, Los Angeles Review of Books, NYU’s Jordan Center, The Manchester Review, Rain Taxi, among others, and was named a finalist in the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book Award.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.