BU Creative Writing

A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar (Fiction 2014) has been collecting rave reviews ever since its release in April 2013 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The following is a sampling of the critics' responses to this wonderful book:

“If you read only one book this summer, make it this one.” Oprah

“Beautifully written, with the pacing and suspense of a novel ... his richly detailed account of growing up in Afghanistan under the warlords and then the Taliban is deeply fulfilling, remarkable not least because he lived to tell the tale.” The Washington Post

“Mind-boggling yet matter-of-fact, A Fort of Nine Towers is the memoir of a childhood in '90s Afghanistan – a riveting story of war as seen through a child's eyes and summoned from an adult's memory.” The New York Times Book Review

“A Fort of Nine Towers captures a time and a place unknown to most Americans ... graphic, certainly, but it's also sweet and funny and inspiring.” The Boston Globe

“The painful, sometimes funny human complexities of such anecdotes make Omar's book more than simply an eye-opening account of a terrible period in recent history, though it's valuable enough as that.” Newsday

“Here at last is a powerful, haunting memoir that does justice to [Afghanistan’s] tough, tenacious and astonishingly good-humoured people. The best thing about it . . . is that it is a book about Afghanistan written by an Afghan.” London Evening Standard

“The book, by a young Afghan, Qais Akbar Omar, is an extraordinary memoir that portrays his coming of age during a time of madness.” The Philadelphia Inquirer

“…exhilarating and unsettling, because this is Omar's lived experience, and one that is far stranger than fiction, though written in surprisingly refined prose for a writer who taught himself English to become an interpreter for Coalition soldiers.” The Independent, London

“Qais's narrative cuts through hardened pro- or anti-war biases to record both the pain and pride that remain the hallmark of so many Afghans.” The Daily Beast

“As Omar recounts in his new memoir, A Fort of Nine Towers, life in Afghanistan is full of rich culture, family tradition and storytelling ... [it] is Omar's attempt to heal the rift in understanding between our two cultures.” Bookish

“As lyrical as it is haunting, this mesmerizing, not-to-be-missed debut memoir is also a loving evocation of a misunderstood land and people.” Kirkus Review, published in the Austin American Statesman

“... His prose is deliciously forthright, extravagant, somewhat mischievous, and very Afghan in its sense of long-suffering endurance and also reconciliation.” Publisher's Weekly

“It's as if the author, 29 at the time of writing, has closed his eyes to recall the essence of events that are burned into his memory from age 7 to young adulthood. He chooses both chilling and loving details that convey his emotion without cluttered analysis...” The New Mexican, Santa Fe

“Mr. Omar's new book, A Fort Of Nine Towers, is a poetic, funny and terrifying memoir of life in Kabul between the Soviet Army's exit and the Taliban's retreat.” The Economist

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Qais Akbar Omar (whose first name is pronounced “Kice”) manages his family’s carpet business in Kabul and writes books. In 2007, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado. He has studied business at Brandeis University and is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Boston University. Omar has lectured on Afghan carpets in Afghanistan, Europe, and the United States. He is the coauthor, with Stephen Landrigan, of Shakespeare in Kabul.

Tara Skurtu (Poetry 2013) has written a poem in memory of Trayvon Martin, which has just been published on the Huffington Post. Click here to read her poem online. Tara has also written a firsthand account of the Boston Marathon bombings for the Huffington Post.

Tara Skurtu (Poetry 2013)’s poems appear in Poetry Review, Hanging Loose, Salamander, Poet Lore, The Los Angeles Review, Hiram Poetry Review, The Southeast Review, The Comstock Review, and elsewhere. Earlier this year she was named one of Lloyd Schwartz (“Fresh Air”)’s six favorite new poets. Tara has also recently been awarded the BU Class of 2013 Academy of American Poets Prize. The contest judge was Gail Mazur; one poet in the current poetry class was selected. She is a 2013 Robert Pinsky Global Fellow in Poetry and will travel this fall to Romania.

City Structures, the gorgeous new chapbook by Sophie Grimes (Poetry 2011) is available for purchase online. Her publisher, Damask Press, has started a Kickstarter campaign to sell the book. If you visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/676925895/help-us-print-city-structures-by-sophie-grimes and pledge $10, you will be emailed a request for your address on around July 24th. The publisher will then mail you a copy of the book.

Sophie Summertown Grimes has lived and traveled in China as an Oberlin Shansi Fellow, and as a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Oberlin College and a Masters of Fine Art in Poetry from Boston University. Her poems have appeared in AGNIonline, 491 Magazine, CRATE, and Spoon River Poetry Review. Second runner-up for the 2011 New Letters Prize for Poetry, she lives and works in Chicago, where she is completing her first full book of poems. She writes poetry reviews for Publishers Weekly, freelance Chicago-centric web content, and contributes to Chicago’s own experimental journal and blog, ANOBIUM.

Congratulations again, Sophie!

Looking for a literary summer read? Simon & Schuster has just published The Rest of Us, a debut novel by Jessica Lott (Fiction 2004). Congratulations, Jessica!

The Rest of Us chronicles an affair between a young student and her older professor. Publishers Weekly has praised the book as "a finely wrought story, insightfully detailing the anguish of intense love and the struggles of an aspiring artist."

Jessica Lott is a New York City–based fiction and arts writer. Her novella Osin won the Novella Award from Low Fidelity Press, judged by Aimee Bender. In addition to Osin, she has published short fiction, essays, and art reviews in the U.S. and internationally, including the New York Times, frieze, and NY Arts; her art criticism won the Arts Writer’s Prize from the Frieze Foundation in London, and has been translated into Spanish for Errata# in Bogotá. At Boston University she won the Graduate Fiction Award, and she holds an MA in English and American Literature from Washington University in St. Louis.

More good poetry news to catch up on! Luisa Caycedo-Kimura (Poetry 2013) has just had a poem, "Lemons and Peppers," published in issue 69 of Crack the Spine. Congratulations, Luisa!

Luisa Caycedo-Kimura is a 2013 Robert Pinsky Global Fellow in Poetry and will travel to Spain this fall. Luisa was born in Colombia and grew up in New York City. A former attorney, she left the legal profession to pursue her passion for writing. Luisa has received awards for her poetry and was nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize. Her poems appear in various publications, including Connecticut Review, Louisiana Literature, PALABRA, San Pedro River Review, and Sunken Garden Poetry 1992-2011. Her poems have also been included in the writing curricula at colleges and universities.