Where have I been? Why didn’t I notice this book before?
I was doing research at the library today for a syllabus I’m designing and stumbled on a description of The Poet Game, by Salar Abdoh. The novel is about the 1993 bombing of the WTC, and about the Iranian man who is sent to infiltrate the Muslim radicals who are responsible. It dates from a couple of years ago (2000), but I’m surprised that it hasn’t gotten more write ups after what happened last year. It’s unusual to have a “terrorist thriller” written by an Iranian, but I’ll have to check it out before forming an opinion… Here’s a piece on the author and the book:
“Everyone with ears, eyes and a television has a September 11 story to tell but Salar Abdoh — a teacher at City University in New York — has one that’s better than most. Forget TV: ears and eyes were all he needed when, a little after 9am on that morning, he heard an explosion near where he was teaching an English class. Very near, in fact.
‘I was almost at the foot of the World Trade Centre when it happened and for a second I thought I was going to bite the dust. But I wasn’t afraid, I was fascinated by this ball of flame coming towards me. People were saying this and that, that an aeroplane had hit the building, but right away I knew what had happened.’
Abdoh knew because a year earlier he had published The Poet Game, a spy novel set in New York in the aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.”