Writer Samia Serageldin talks about growing up in the tumultuous Middle East and immigrating to the U.S., where she realizes the American dream—until one September morning in 2001. Samia discusses navigating her way in a post-9/11 world, and reads excerpts from her story “Muslims in the Cul-de-Sac” (featured in Eno Publishers’s 27 Views of Chapel Hill: A Southern University Town in Prose and Poetry).

Samia Serageldin is a founder and editor of the online magazine, South Writ Large: Stories, Arts and Ideas from the Global South. Her novels are The Cairo House and The Naqib’s Daughter. She is co-editor of and contributor to the anthology Mothers & Strangers: Global Essays on Motherhood from the American South. Samia’s story, “Muslims in the Cul-de-Sac” was originally published in her short story collection, Love Is Like Water. In 2016 Samia was named one of “10 Remarkable Women in Arab American Prose” by Arab America. She is currently working on a novel based on her experience of living through the 2011 revolution in Egypt