The Royal Abduls - Paperback

by Ramiza Shamoun Koya (Author)

Ramiza Shamoun Koya reveals the devastating cost of anti-Muslim sentiment in The Royal Abduls, her debut novel about a secular Indian-America family. Evolutionary biologist Amina Abdul accepts a post-doc in Washington, DC, choosing her career studying hybrid zones over a faltering West Coast romance. Her brother and sister-in-law welcome her to the city, but their marriage is crumbling, and they soon rely on her to keep their son company. Omar, hungry to understand his roots, fakes an Indian accent, invents a royal past, and peppers his aunt with questions about their cultural heritage. When he brings an ornamental knife to school, his expulsion triggers a downward spiral for his family, even as Amina struggles to find her own place in an America now at war with people who look like her. With The Royal Abduls, Koya ignites the canon of post-9/11 literature with a deft portrait of second-generation American identity.

Front Jacket

Ramiza Shamoun Koya's debut novel follows the lives of an evolutionary biologist and her ten-year-old nephew in post-9/11 Washington, D.C. Omar's mother is white, his first-generation American father never walks to talk about India or what it means to be Muslim, and Omar struggles to find a cultural identity that fits. When Amina arrives from the West Coast for a hybrid zone lab job, Omar's parents begin relying on her for childcare. Despite the demands of her male-dominated workplace and her preference for solitude, she becomes close to her nephew. As Amina's hesitant romance with a Sikh cricket coach blossoms, Omar's parents' marriage fractures and leaves him vulnerable to finding answers in dangerous places. The Royal Abduls, a family drama about the lives of secular Muslims post-9/11, engages with the difficulties of maintaining relationships in a fragmented America.

Author Biography

Ramiza Shamoun Koya has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and her fiction and nonfiction has appeared in publications such as Columbia Review, Lumina, Washington Square Review, and Mutha Magazine. She has been a fellow at both MacDowell Colony and Blue Mountain Center. Her father was born in Fiji, her mother in Texas, and she was born in California. She lives with her daughter and two cats.