You want to look American you want to be American.' It was very confusing." ' Then I had all these other people who were extended family - and also in the Arab community - saying, 'No, no, no. "I had my father, who said, 'This is absolutely who you are. "Growing up, I was given very mixed messages," says Abu-Jaber on a visit to San Francisco. Relatives on her father's side, though, looked at her pale skin and green eyes, and called her "the light one." Abu-Jaber's mother is Irish Catholic.
During her childhood in upstate New York, her father (who is from Jordan) told her she was "absolutely" Arab. Photo By LEA SUZUKI / The San Francisco Chronicle LEA SUZUKIĪll her life, novelist Diana Abu-Jaber has dealt with conflicting messages about her Arab identity. Abu-Jaber, who grew up in New York and Jordan (where her father is from), is on a book tour for "Crescent," which her publisher says "captures the lush sensuality of Middle Eastern culture with its storytelling tradition and its delectable, finely spiced dishes." Photo taken on 05/09/04, in San Francisco, CA. The Chronicle talks to Abu-Jaber during a visit to San Francisco. She�s written several acclaimed novels, and she teaches now at Portland State University. Written in a lush, lyrical style reminiscent of The God of Small Things, infused with the flavors and scents of Middle Eastern food, and spiced with history and fable, Crescent is a sensuous love story and a gripping tale of risk and commitment.Facebook Twitter Email Diana Abu-Jaber has become one of the most notable Arab authors in the United States. Falling in love brings Sirene's whole heart to a boilstirring up memories of her parents and questions about her identity as an Arab American. She works as a chef in a Lebanese restaurant, her passions aroused only by the preparation of fooduntil an unbearably handsome Arabic literature professor starts dropping by for a little home cooking.
Thirty-nine-year-old Sirine, never married, lives with a devoted Iraqi-immigrant uncle and an adoring dog named King Babar.
Praised by critics from The New Yorker to USA Today for her first novel, Arabian Jazz ("an oracular tale that unfurls like gossamer"), Diana Abu-Jaber weaves with spellbinding magic a multidimensional love story set in the Arab-American community of Los Angeles. An Arab-American novel as delicious as Like Water for Chocolate.
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