FREE delivery July 19 - August 3. Details

Only 5 left in stock.

As an alternative, the Kindle eBook is available now and can be read on any device with the free Kindle app. Want to Listen? Try Audible.

[{"displayPrice":"$72.83","priceAmount":72.83,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"72","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"83","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"3%2Bp6o4TZ0%2FdMp2VCdL2POfQ8cFEZIeBmTyqwpXyOsxQ%2FseKQk91CMGM0M%2BRqKbZSjHYyz52VuxXsFwSXbF5%2FKR7gO0QBaJjGnWbR9bXrOFFWLxs8%2FGD3BoERZ6QPop8RhZtemCeR6lb2e2ecdSuL9N8fRsXtoRA2%2BKV7NxTnVhYL%2B%2Fp4vq5QB5TTIaZhI4%2BX","locale":"en-CA","buyingOptionType":"NEW"},{"displayPrice":"$29.93","priceAmount":29.93,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"29","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"93","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"6utIxIASThgOoXN2tQmRErNzWy4SmKQp18MUyTUSNFbcQGjpObBO9FlAH3B0Q%2F50iJTO3XAvYrtZMVJb02Syq6Pw7O51FiKAR6GyEh7relz1mjBNAkTHg0RWY6zYkm7r0MuQfXtNSnO6BAoqNyAI4lWKB8skYWr4LJc4lojzX988Kki2qtHWuwYABAwgEBFx","locale":"en-CA","buyingOptionType":"USED"}]

$$72.83 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from Canada and sold by Northern Shipments.

FREE delivery July 18 - 28. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Acceptable | Details

Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore US

Share <Embed>

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

Follow the Author

Ayad Akhtar

American Dervish: A Novel Audio CD – Unabridged, Jan. 9 2012

by Ayad Akhtar (Author), Author (Reader)

467 ratings

See all formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

$11.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Library binding

"Please retry"

$33.11

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$19.50

$12.10

Mass Market Paperback

"Please retry"

$22.01

—

$20.54

Audio CD, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$72.83

$29.82

$25.00

Enhance your purchase

From Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar, a stirring and explosive debut novel about an American Muslim family in Wisconsin struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world.

Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes.

American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life.

Language

English
Publisher

Little, Brown & Company
Publication date

Jan. 9 2012
Dimensions

13.97 x 2.54 x 14.92 cm
ISBN-10

1611136172
ISBN-13

978-1611136173
See all details

Product description

Review

"Akhtar, the star and director of the 2005 terrorism drama The War Within, offers what promises to be one of the most complex treatments of Muslim immigration and fundamentalism to come from an American-born (albeit first-generation) writer."―Boris Kachka, New York Magazine

"Whether you believe religion is a precious gift from God or the greatest scourge of mankind, you will find yourself represented in these pages. With brilliant storytelling and exquisitely balanced points of view, Ayad Akhtar creates characters who experience the rapture of religion but also have their lives ripped apart by it."―Manil Suri, author of The Death of Vishnu and The Age of Shiva

About the Author

Ayad Akhtar is a screenwriter, playwright, actor, and novelist. He is the author of the novel American Dervish and was nominated for a 2006 Independent Spirit Award for best screenplay for the film The War Within. His plays include Disgraced, recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; The Who & The What and The Invisible Hand, both of which received Off-Broadway runs and are being produced around the world; and Junk, produced at Lincoln Center in 2017 He lives in New York City.

Start reading American Dervish: A Novel on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown & Company; Unabridged edition (Jan. 9 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1611136172
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1611136173
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 204 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.54 x 14.92 cm

Customer Reviews:
467 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Ayad Akhtar

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

5 star		56%
4 star		32%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

How are ratings calculated?

Top review from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Ade

Good book!

Reviewed in Canada on June 15, 2012

Very powerful book, impressive. Style is nice, makes u want to read more. A nice example of contemporary writing and culturally insightful.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Boudu

The Oneness of All

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

I originally came to Akhtar's novel because of similarities I read in one review to LP Hartley's `The Go-Between' & certainly Hayat, the ten year old lead protagonist, does commit an act which has far-reaching consequences in the way that he does not intend. `The Go-Between' was about class/social barriers in 1900 England. `American Dervish' is about perhaps an even more incendiary issue, that of religion & cross-cultural relationships, in early 1980s middle America.

The very personal story in the novel can almost be seen as representative, as pointed out in earlier perceptive reviews, of the complex, long-standing relationship between Islam & Judaism, connected by history and sharing so much in common (prophets), but soured by recent grievances over territorial issues.

With regards to the novel itself, it is a page-turner, full of deft characterisation, the dialogue capturing a range of voices, from those of a vibrant, soulful woman, Mina, to those of children, the curious Hayat & the more innocent Imran, as well as the unctuous members of the local Muslim community in Milwaukee. The book itself is more cinematic in tone than literary, and would probably lend itself to adaptation quite easily though this is not to devalue its emotional power and the complexity of Mina's very personal interpretation of Islam.

The novel is filled with several dramatic confrontations, indicative of Ayad Ahktar's background as an actor/playwright, and I felt it did occasionally lurch towards melodrama. Having read a piece on Ahktar & his work, his acclaimed play `Disgraced', he is conscious of his audience & I found `American Dervish' poignant at times, some scenes emotionally intense(the parting between the Shahs & Mina, the scene in the hospital), if a little manipulative. But they worked because they pulled my heartstrings.

The novel itself is in the tradition of a Bildungsroman, the coming of age story of ten year old Hayat, as he comes to terms with Islam and a multiple identity as a Pakistani-American, the secular & the religious. Through Hayat, the first person narrator, we explore the transforming quality of religion, but also its more negative side, about how it can indoctrinate an impressionable young mind. `Allah's light' eventually guides Hayat to a very different revelation, an insight into the human heart & a journey - foreshadowed by his own `night journey'/dream in hospital - from a willing, often literal acceptance of things (hellfire, anti-semitism) to a new scepticism.

`American Dervish' is very much about the push-pull dynamic & tension characters experience as a consequence of a dual identity and the hope embodied by Hayat & his inter-faith relationship at the end of the novel is counterbalanced by the tragedy that ultimately leads to the physical and mental disintegration of his beloved Aunt Mina in the novel. The charismatic Mina, who has sought sanctuary in the US with her son after getting divorced in Pakistan, transforms an unhappy household, bringing light & love, and falls in love with Nathan, a Jewish colleague of Hayat's father. Already febrile, this mix is intensified by Hayat's infatuation for his Aunt and his jealousy of her new found happiness. He is a young boy conscious of feelings that he does not understand.

The novel casts a critical eye over Islam in America, of the religious intolerance and hypocrisies practiced by the local Muslim community in Milwaukee, such as the dark satire on Imam Souhef's rather bizarre sermon (showing how even the most tenuous of links can be used as a vehicle to peddle hatred, an interesting philosophical premise simply winds up as pandering to the lowest common denominator, anti-Semitism), the shared complicities, even by wives, but the book should not be seen as a diatribe against Islam. Rather, I see Akhtar's portrayal of Hayat's beloved Aunt as representing Islam in a positive light & that under fairer, less patriarchal circumstances, such a woman possessed the intelligence to become a maulavi herself (imam). The independent Mina practices `ijtihad', a personal interpretation of Islam, humane & compassionate. Dragged down by fate & circumstance, she ultimately becomes the eponymous 'American Dervish', whose suffering and pain brings her closer to Allah - and where it should be perhaps remembered that `sufism' (mysticism) emerged as a reaction to the more austere teaching of Islam.

I did like the characterisation of Hayat's parents, Naveed & Muneer, their volatile relationship, and Muneer's bitterness towards her husband's drinking & womanising, though she ultimately realises that their marriage is one of equals and a proper marriage in name rather than the virtual act of self-sacrifice made by Mina. Though their marriage, too, is a comment that same-faith marriages contain the same inherent problems as any marriage: the need to communicate; and ironically, Mina & Nathan are perhaps more emotionally compatible than Hayat's parents despite their cultural differences.

I did like the easy-going, irreligious Naveed though, perhaps the other extreme of Muslim experience in America (he is aloof from the community, preferring a Western lifestyle), and, ironically, his rare acts of intolerance are usually directed towards Islam/fellow Muslims and one in particular, an ironic reversal of the Rushdie affair.

Browsing other reviews, on the both UK & US amazon pages, I did feel some of the criticism about the authenticity of the characters and situations perhaps had a ring of truth. The ill-fated lovers from warring faiths, Hayat's later relationship with Rachel are perhaps more wish-fulfillments & the well-intentioned hopes of an author trying to posit a solution - the need for more tolerance & understanding of people of different backgrounds through the personal. Upon reflection, I really do wonder how likely, or how possible this is in a world where people do categorise/compartmentalise one another and frequently lead separate lives side by side.

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

american dervish

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2012

Verified Purchase

nice book,makes you smile and cry in the same time, it's quite sad story but force you to think deeply about it and make your own opinion,sometimes it's hard to decide on which side you are, or what way is better one. I couldn't wait to finish work so I could read it. It's a real page turner and I would recomend it to everyone who likes to read books which make them think about it even long after you finished reading it:-)

2 people found this helpful

Charlotte

I really loved this commercial literary novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2015

Verified Purchase

I don't think this sold very well. I have no idea why - it is a great novel. Read it! Well-written, great characters, thought-provoking and moving. And a page-turner too.

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Did not get what I ordered

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 21, 2020

Verified Purchase

I was very disappointed that the book I received was LARGE PRINT. Nowhere was this indicated when I ordered the book and I am now too busy to return. This is not what I wanted and I feel deceived.

Carlo Lagorio

Good book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Very interesting inside story about what means to grow up as muslim in a western country.
So far there are not so many books like this one.

See all reviews

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	Amazon Business Everything for your business	Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands

Warehouse Deals Open-Box Discounts	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust	Blink Smart Security for Every Home

Buy new: $72.83$72.83 FREE delivery: July 19 - Aug 3 Ships from: Northern Shipments Sold by: Northern Shipments

Buy used: $29.93

Follow the Author

American Dervish: A Novel Audio CD – Unabridged, Jan. 9 2012

Enhance your purchase

Product description

Review

About the Author

Product details

About the author

Ayad Akhtar

Customer reviews

Top review from Canada

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Buy new:

$72.83

FREE delivery: July 19 - Aug 3

Ships from: Northern Shipments

Sold by: Northern Shipments

Buy used:

$29.93