Thomas Lehr: September. Mirage

translated by Mike Mitchell

Two fathers, two daughters: Martin, professor of German at Amherst and Sabrina, who writes poetry but is studying Earth Sciences at MIT; Tariq, a doctor in Baghdad and Muna, studying the archeology of a region that is seen as the cradle of civilization. Two parallel relationships in two very different parts of the world that bring out the human similarities beneath cultural differences. Sabrina dies with her mother in the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001; Tariq’s family survives three wars and Saddam Hussein’s regime intact, if not unscathed, but in the last days of the conflict, in 2004, Muna is raped by militia who have murdered her lover, and sees her elder sister and mother die in a bomb attack. 

German original published by Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, under the title September. Fata Morgana in 2010.
 
2010 the book was shortlisted for the Deutscher Buchpreis (German Book Prize).