After years of studying Arabic, Zora O'Neill faced an increasing certainty that she was not only failing to master the language but was also driving herself crazy. So she stepped away. But a decade later she still couldn't shake her fascination with Arabic and returned to her studies, this time with a new approach. O'Neill embarks on a grand tour through the Middle East - to Egypt, the UAE, Lebanon, and Morocco - packing her dictionaries, her unsinkable sense of humour, and her talent for making fast friends of strangers. She travels along quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets and amid the lively buzz of crowded cities and medinas. She jumps off the tourist track, into families' homes and local hotspots, and makes a part of the world that is thousands of miles away seem right "next door. With lively prose and an eye for the deeply absurd and the deeply human, O'Neill explores the indelible links between culture and communication. All Strangers Are Kin is a powerful testament to the dynamism of language and how learning another tongue leaves you rich with so much more than words.
What happens when a middle-aged woman from the US decides to try and master her limited Arabic by travelling around the Middle East to different countries, learning some of the ins and outs of each version of the language? A bit of chaos, a bit of confusion, and an interesting history lesson thrown in. In short, you have 'All Strangers Are Kin'.
This book was a bit of a toss-up for me in regards to the actual reading. The parts where the author emphasized so much of the language were slow and confusing - not a surprise, really, since the language is one of the more complicated ones. However, the parts where the author spends more time talking about the places, the people, and the history of the different locations were far better and are what kept me going throughout. She has an easy way of writing that really works in getting her story out. Frankly, I recommend skipping the second chapter in the Egypt section, because she seems to have gone on a word-bender...the rest is good to go.
Overall, while I'm not sure that I would really recommend this to many friends, it was worth the reading time simply to get a different perspective on the culture of the area, as well as the constant wars. For me, this would be a library book rather than a purchase.
