Author Description

<p>In her first story collection, Jarrar employs a particular, rather than rhetorical approach to race and gender. Thus we have "How Can I Be of Use to You," with its complicated relationship between a distinguished Egyptian feminist and her young intern, demonstrating that gender politics are never straightforward, and both generations&#151;old and new&#151;take advantage of each other. There's also a healthy dose of magic surrealism, as in the wild and witty story "Zelda the Halfie" which follows a breed of half Ibexes/half humans and their various tribulations. The writing is peppered with gorgeous imagery: a moon reflected in an ice cream scoop, breath that runs ahead of its body, and two apartments in a high rise whose tenants precisely mirror each other.</p><p><B>Randa Jarrar </B>is the author of a highly successful novel, <I>A Map of Home</I>, which received an Arab-American Book Award and was named one of the best novels of 2008 by the <I>Barnes & Noble Review</I>. She grew up in Kuwait and Egypt, and moved to the United States after the first Gulf War. Her work has appeared in the <I>New York Times Magazine</I>, the <I>Utne Reader</I>, Salon.com, <I>Guernica</I>, the <I>Rumpus</I>, the <I>Oxford American</I>, <I>Ploughshares</I>, and more. She blogs for Salon, and lives in California.</p>