The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey Into the Syrian Jihad, Åsne Seierstad

Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey Into the Syrian Jihad

Åsne Seierstad

Critic Reviews

Good

Based on 13 reviews on

BookMarks logo

The riveting true story of two sisters' journey to the Islamic State and the father who tries to bring them home

Two Sisters
, by the international bestselling author Åsne Seierstad, tells the unforgettable story of a family divided by faith. Sadiq and Sara, Somali immigrants raising a family in Norway, one day discover that their teenage daughters, Leila and Ayan, have vanished--and are en route to Syria to aid the Islamic State. Seierstad's riveting account traces the sisters' journey from secular, social democratic Norway to the front lines of the war in Syria, and follows Sadiq's harrowing attempt to find them.

Employing the same mastery of narrative suspense she brought to The Bookseller of Kabul and One of Us, Seierstad puts the problem of radicalization into painfully human terms, using instant messages and other primary sources to reconstruct a family's crisis from the inside. Eventually, she takes us into the hellscape of the Syrian civil war, as Sadiq risks his life in pursuit of his daughters, refusing to let them disappear into the maelstrom--even after they marry ISIS fighters. Two Sisters is a relentless thriller and a feat of reporting with profound lessons about belief, extremism, and the meaning of devotion.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Publish Date: Apr 9th, 2019
  • Pages: 432
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.60in - 5.50in - 1.30in - 1.05lb
  • EAN: 9780374538200
  • Categories: TerrorismIslamic StudiesPolitical Ideologies - Radicalism

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism, Jeffrey Toobin
Book Cover for: The Rise and Fall of Osama Bin Laden, Peter L. Bergen
Book Cover for: Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy, Talia Lavin
Book Cover for: Waco Rising: David Koresh, the Fbi, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias, Kevin Cook
Book Cover for: American Caliph: The True Story of a Muslim Mystic, a Hollywood Epic, and the 1977 Siege of Washington, DC, Shahan Mufti
Book Cover for: Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of Isis, Azadeh Moaveni
Book Cover for: Nine Lives: My Time as Mi6's Top Spy Inside Al-Qaeda, Aimen Dean
Book Cover for: Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire, Pankaj Mishra
Book Cover for: Antisemitism: Here and Now, Deborah E. Lipstadt
Book Cover for: Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, Rebecca Solnit
Book Cover for: Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism, Seyward Darby
Book Cover for: The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Book Cover for: Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else), Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
Book Cover for: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington
Book Cover for: Waco Rising: David Koresh, the Fbi, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias, Kevin Cook

About the Author

Seierstad, Åsne: - Åsne Seierstad is an award-winning Norwegian journalist and writer known for her work as a war correspondent. She is the author of The Bookseller of Kabul, One Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal, and Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya. She lives in Oslo, Norway.
Kinsella, Seán: - Seán Kinsella is from Dublin. He has translated a variety of books by Norwegian writers such as Kjell Askildsen, Tore Renberg, and Stig Sæterbakken. He lives in Norway.

More books by Åsne Seierstad

Book Cover for: The Afghans: Three Lives Through War, Love, and Revolt, Åsne Seierstad
Book Cover for: The Bookseller of Kabul, Åsne Seierstad
Book Cover for: One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway -- And Its Aftermath, Åsne Seierstad
Book Cover for: The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War, Åsne Seierstad
Book Cover for: A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal, Åsne Seierstad
Book Cover for: With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia, Åsne Seierstad

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

Book of the Week, The Times
One of Elle's Best Books of 2018 (so far!)

"Two Sisters is a modern tragedy. And a universal one -- the sisters, like any other young person, were seeking purpose and meaning." --Anthony Lloyd, The Times

"Meticulously documented . . . Complex and compelling . . . This is a tale fluently told, and a thriller as well, about two young girls who left Norway one evening and were last heard of in the city of Raqqa" --Kate Adie, Literary Review

"Remarkable . . . hauntingly written, this book is both a masterpiece and a masterclass in investigative journalism" --Christina Lamb, Sunday Times

"Two Sisters
is a masterwork by the remarkable Asne Seierstad. Brilliantly conceived, scrupulously reported and beautifully written, this book is compulsive reading. In this real-life tale of two teenaged sisters who leave their comfortable lives in Norway to become the wives of ISIS terrorists in Syria, Seierstad fixes her lens on one of the most disturbing conundrums of our time--what leads ordinary people to become terrorists?" --Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker staff writer, and author of The Fall of Baghdad