All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World

*Winner of the Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book*

An American woman determined to learn the Arabic language travels to the Middle East to pursue her dream in this “witty memoir” (Us Weekly).

Join Zora O’Neill for a grand tour through the Middle East, to laugh with her in Egypt, delight in the stories she passes on from the Gulf region, and find yourself transformed by her experiences in Lebanon and Morocco. She’s packed her dictionaries, her unsinkable sense of humor, and her talent for making fast friends of strangers. From quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets to the lively buzz of crowded medinas, from families’ homes to local hot spots, she brings a part of the world that is often flattened by news headlines into real and colorful relief.

A natural storyteller with an eye for the deeply absurd and the deeply human, O’Neill explores the indelible links between culture and communication. A powerful testament to the dynamism of language, All Strangers Are Kin reminds us that learning another tongue leaves you rich with so much more than words.

“Zora O’Neill is a wonderful writer, a hakawati who can spin a tale with the best of them.” —Rabih Alameddine, author of The Hakawati and An Unnecessary Woman

“Wry, witty, and charmingly erudite, this lovely book goes through the looking glass of the Arabic language and emerges with a radiant image of the Arab world.” —Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Life Without a Recipe, Crescent, The Language of Baklava, and others