Archive - January 9, 2013

Land of the Tuk-Tuk by Henry Pelifian (Thailand 1975-77) AuthorHouse, $19.95 280 pages February 2012 Reviewed by Robert Hamilton (Ethiopia 1965-67) Henry Pelifian’s Land of the Tuk-Tuk is a compilation of several different stories sharing the same book cover.  These include: 1.     the partial story of the fictional protagonist Jack Dakasian, Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Bangkok, Thailand; 2.     the love story of Jack and his former student Amara Worathai, and Jack’s determination later to woo and marry her; 3.     the story of Jack in Isfahan, Iran, teaching helicopter repair in English to Iranian military mechanics in, it appears, 1979, and just prior to the revolution which swept the Shah from power and the return of the Muslim cleric Ali Khomeni; 4.     the story of the Armenian genocide and other atrocities inflicted upon Jack’s family in Turkey in the early 20th century and their migration to the U.S.; 5.     Jack’s outrage at . . .

The January 14, 2013 issue of The New Yorker has a long, long informative  “Letter From Cairo” piece by Peter Hessler (China 1996-98). Entitled “Big Brother–Where is the Muslim Brotherhood leading Egypt?” the article gives a history lesson on the Muslim Brotherhood and sums up where the Brotherhood (and the nation) are today. Peter, as many of you know, lives in Cairo with his wife and young family. This coming April his next book, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West, will be published.