Two Sisters
On sale
13th March 2018
Price: £19.99
One morning in October 2013, nineteen-year-old Ayan Juma and her sixteen-year-old sister Leila left their family home in Oslo. Later that day they sent an email to their parents. ‘Peace, God’s mercy and blessings upon you, Mum and Dad … Please do not be cross with us…’
Leila and Ayan had decided to travel to Syria, ‘and help out down there as best we can’. They had been planning for months. By the time their desperate father Sadiq tracks them to Turkey, they have already crossed the border. But Sadiq is determined to find them.
What follows is the gripping, heartbreaking story of a family ripped apart. While Sadiq risks his own life to bring his daughters back, at home his wife Sara begins to question their life in Norway. How could her children have been radicalised without her knowledge? How can she protect her two younger sons from the same fate?
Åsne Seierstad – with the complete support of the Juma family – followed the story from the beginning, through its many dramatic twists and turns. It’s a tale that crosses from Sadiq and Sara’s original home in Somalia, to their council estate in Oslo, to Turkey and to Syria – where two teenage sisters must face the shocking consequences of their decision.
Leila and Ayan had decided to travel to Syria, ‘and help out down there as best we can’. They had been planning for months. By the time their desperate father Sadiq tracks them to Turkey, they have already crossed the border. But Sadiq is determined to find them.
What follows is the gripping, heartbreaking story of a family ripped apart. While Sadiq risks his own life to bring his daughters back, at home his wife Sara begins to question their life in Norway. How could her children have been radicalised without her knowledge? How can she protect her two younger sons from the same fate?
Åsne Seierstad – with the complete support of the Juma family – followed the story from the beginning, through its many dramatic twists and turns. It’s a tale that crosses from Sadiq and Sara’s original home in Somalia, to their council estate in Oslo, to Turkey and to Syria – where two teenage sisters must face the shocking consequences of their decision.
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Reviews
Intricate, compelling
A modern tragedy. And a universal one ... None of us truly knows what teenagers think, behind their closed doors, nor what tomorrow will bring
Simply magnificent ... One of the most important books of our time
Åsne Seierstad is the supreme non-fiction writer of her generation. Her latest work is haunting, luminously written and compelling. A brilliant book. Two Sisters isn't only the story of how a pair of teenage girls became radicalised but an unsparing portrait of our own society - of its failings and its joys
Two Sisters is a masterwork. Brilliantly conceived, scrupulously reported and beautifully written, this book is compulsive reading ... Seierstad fixes her lens on one of the most disturbing conundrums of our time - what leads ordinary people to become terrorists?
Hauntingly written, this book is both a masterpiece and a masterclass in investigative journalism
Meticulously documented, full of drama ... filled with smuggling, violence, ever-changing loyalties and tension ... this is a tale fluently told, and a thriller as well