Jameela Green Ruins Everything by Zarqa Nawaz
CBC Books | | Posted: December 28, 2021 5:23 PM | Last Updated: July 13, 2023
Jameela Green has only one wish. To see her memoir on The New York Times bestseller list. When her dream doesn't come true, she seeks spiritual guidance at her local mosque. New imam and recent immigrant Ibrahim Sultan is appalled by Jameela's shallowness, but agrees to assist her on one condition: that she perform a good deed.
Jameela reluctantly accepts his terms, kicking off a chain of absurd and unfortunate events. The homeless man they try to help gets recruited by a terrorist group, causing federal authorities to become suspicious of Ibrahim, and suddenly the imam mysteriously disappears.
Certain that the CIA have captured Ibrahim for interrogation via torture, Jameela decides to set off on a one-woman operation to rescue him. Her quixotic quest soon finds her entangled in an international plan targeting the egomaniacal leader of the terrorist organization — a scheme that puts Jameela, and countless others, including her hapless husband and clever but disapproving daughter, at risk.
A hilarious black comedy about the price of success, and a biting look at what has gone wrong with American foreign policy in the Middle East, Jameela Green Ruins Everything is a compulsively readable, yet unexpectedly touching story of one woman's search for meaning and connection. (From Simon & Schuster)
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Zarqa Nawaz is a film and TV producer, writer and former broadcaster based in Regina. She is best known for being the creator of the hit CBC comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie. She is also the author of the memoir Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Nawaz also wrote the 2022 CBC TV series called Zarqa.