Zeitoun

Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in the late summer of 2005, causing what is generally described as the worst natural disaster in American history. But that phrase was never quite accurate�not because the disaster wasn�t �the worst,� but because it wasn�t entirely natural. Katrina and its aftermath gave rise to some of the finest journalistic investigation and writing that the country has seen in decades. We now understand the extent to which human error left New Orleans vulnerable in the first place. We know that the response to the disaster by the federal and state authorities was both inadequate and, where it existed at all, deeply flawed. And we know that the tragedy in New Orleans was heightened by the behavior of many individuals acting alone�some of it criminal, some of it ignorant, some of it merely selfish, and some of it backed by the power of a badge.

But we also know that the catastrophe gave us moments of redemptive power and enduring grace � moments in which individuals somehow transcended the tragedy of their circumstances and stood squarely for the most fundamental human values. In his book Zeitoun, Dave Eggers tells the story of one such man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-born contractor who happens to be Muslim, and who lives in New Orleans to this day with his American-born wife, Kathy, and his five children. The arc of the story is, in a sense, simple. As Katrina hit and the waters began to rise, Zeitoun�s family was evacuated to safety. He himself remained behind to help in any way he could � because he felt he simply must. In an old canoe, Zeitoun paddled around the neighborhood. He saved an old woman who had been in the water for an entire day. He paddled on, saving other people. To still others he brought supplies of food and water. And then, suddenly, without warning, in a house he himself owned, he was arrested by a SWAT team and held incommunicado on suspicion of being a looter, perhaps even a terrorist. Months elapse before Zeitoun is released, and before his family reunited.

So: a simple arc. But the story is by no means simple. Or to put it another way, it is as simple as any profound exploration of human character and motivation; as simple as any study of human courage; as simple as any investigation of an ordinary individual confronted with forces, natural and man-made, that threaten to turn his world upside down. Eggers unfolds the story in prose that is calm, clean, utterly restrained � the book offers a master class in creative nonfiction, and a reminder that the highest art is achieved when the artistry seems to disappear. Zeitoun is that rare thing, a book that is destined to be both loved and taught, and a book with the potential to being change to our lives, one stroke of the paddle at a time.

-Cullen Murphy, 2010 finalist judge
Editor at Large of Vanity Fair
2008 Nonfiction runner-up for Are We Rome?

NOTE: Funds from the sale of Zeitoun go to the Zeitoun Foundation, which was established by the Zeitoun family, Dave Eggers, and McSweeney�s magazine. The foundation is dedicated to �the continued rebuilding and social advancement of New Orleans� and to the promotion of understanding �between people of disparate faiths around the world, with a concentration on relations between America and the Muslim world.�