The Night Counter
by ALIA YUNIS

Each night, the legendary Scheherazade visits Fatima Abdullah, the fiery matriarch of a sprawling Arab American clan, to learn her family’s stories. Shifting between the United States and Lebanon, Alia Yunis crafts a striking and surprising tapestry of modern Arab American life, imbued with great humanity and imagination.

At age 85, Fatima Abdullah knows when her time will come. In fact, it should be in just nine days, on her 1001st nightly visit with the immortal Scheherazade. Fatima has told Scheherazade her life stories each night, knowing that on the 1001st night her storytelling will end. But Fatima has many loose ends to tie up first. She must find a wife for her openly gay grandson, teach Arabic to her pregnant teenage great-granddaughter, make amends with her estranged husband, and decide which of her ten troublesome children should inherit her family’s home in Lebanon—a house she hasn’t seen in 70 years—all while under the surveillance of two bumbling FBI agents eager to expose Al–Qaeda in Los Angeles.

With delightful characters and inventive writing, Alia Yunis presents the heartwarming story of a family just as crazy as yours.

A U.N. diplomat’s daughter, ALIA YUNIS has worked as a journalist and filmmaker in Los Angeles and the Middle East. Currently a professor of communications at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, Yunis is a PEN Emerging Voices fellow. This is her first novel.