All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World

They say that Arabic takes seven years to learn and a lifetime to master. O'Neill had put in her time. Steeped in grammar tomes & out-dated textbooks, she faced an increasing certainty that she was not only failing to master Arabic, but also driving herself crazy. She took a decade-long hiatus, but couldn't shake her fascination with the language or the cultures it had opened up to her. So she decided to jump back in-this time with a new approach.

Join O'Neill for a grand tour through the Middle East. You will laugh with her in Egypt, delight in the stories she passes on from the United Arab Emirates, & find yourself transformed by her experiences in Lebanon & Morocco. She's packed her dictionaries, her unsinkable sense of humor, & her talent for making fast friends of strangers. From quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets to the lively buzz of crowded medinas, from families' homes to local hotspots, she brings a part of the world that is thousands of miles away right to your door.

A natural storyteller with an eye for the deeply absurd & the deeply human, Zora O'Neill explores the indelible links between culture & communication. A powerful testament to the dynamism of language, All Strangers Are Kin reminds us that learning another tongue leaves you rich with so much more than words.

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Zora O’Neill is a freelance travel & food writer. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, & Condé Nast Traveler, & she has written or contributed to more than a dozen titles for Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, & Moon. She lives in Queens, New York.