“Guaranteed to steal your heart, Becoming Baba is a profound meditation on what it means to build a self and a family in an often unwelcoming land. Ismail has written an American Odyssey.”
—Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of This Is How You Lose Her
Becoming Baba is a map of how far I drifted from home, and how I found my way back. It’s about resenting your parents, and then resenting yourself for being so stubborn. It’s about having kids, doing my best so they can be their best, and accepting that control is an illusion anyways.
About Becoming Baba
The son of Egyptian immigrants, Aymann grew up in a tightly-knit Islamic community, his whole world revolving around an Islamic school in Jersey City. That world shattered after 9/11, when his parents—anxious that it was no longer safe to be so explicitly Muslim—enrolled him in a local public school. In the privacy of their home, they turned to their faith for guidance on how to live, while Aymann explored his new environment, where he was the only Muslim his new friends had ever met.
And yet, Aymann was undeniably an American teenager, negotiating his place in multiple worlds, chafing against the structures of his upbringing, and resisting abandonment of the mold his parents hoped to shape him into. He eventually embarked on a career in political journalism, in part to establish his own version of things, reckoning with his past, future, and the beliefs that have shaped his life: What does it mean to be a Muslim man? More still, what does it mean to be any man—and a father to a baby boy and girl?
In time, though, he also gains a deeper understanding and appreciation for his parents’ values and sacrifices—his father’s grueling work ethic as a town car driver, and his mother’s adeptness at managing their itinerant family.
When Aymann meets and falls in love with Mira, a woman with her own ideas about the modern Muslim family, his world shifts yet again. After Mira gets pregnant with their first child, Aymann begins to reckon with his past, future, and the beliefs that have shaped his life. What does it mean to be a Muslim man? More still, what does it mean to be any man—and a father to a baby boy and girl?
In lucid, confident prose, Aymann Ismail questions the sturdy frameworks of religion and family, the legacies of his childhood, and what will become his children’s ethical and intellectual inheritance. To reckon unflinchingly with these questions offers him a road map for his young Muslim children on how to navigate the singular journey into adulthood.
Praise
“Aymann charts new territory with his brilliant and vulnerable insight into Becoming Baba. More than just becoming a dad—Becoming Baba is a rare look into the journey of coming into the enigma of our fathers. Aymann is a professional Truth Teller. Becoming Baba is his most honest work yet.”
—Noor Tagouri, journalist, founder: At Your Service
“Aymann Ismail is one of the most insightful reporters of his generation. In this beautiful memoir, he uses his powers of perception to examine his own life—as a Muslim growing up in the United States, and as son, husband and father struggling to be as true to his loved ones as he is to himself. Few books deliver on their promise to introduce you to a new world, but Becoming Baba does so on every page, making old questions new again: What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to have faith? Ismail —funny, tender-hearted, and relentlessly honest—makes finding the answers a total pleasure.”
—Suzy Hansen, author of Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World
“A soulful and entertaining love letter to Ismail’s hometown—now I get why he is so obsessed with Newark.”
—Nicolas Heller (@newyorknico)
“A delight, told with great candor and wisdom…feels universal….At times, I found myself chuckling and then, later, nodding in agreement as Aymann brilliantly chronicles the challenges of finding your faith and finding your footing as a parent.”
—Asma Khalid, White House correspondent for NPR and co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast
“A Muslim American’s search for love, faith, and family, Aymann Ismail’s Becoming Baba will grab your heart and feed your soul.”
—Moustafa Bayoumi
“Aymann delivers an unflinchingly honest coming-of-age memoir that is equal parts personal and universal. He tells a story of family, identity, and the messy—but beautiful—journey that is learning to make peace with where you come from, all the while widening the lens on what it means to a young, American, Muslim father today.”
—Malika Bilal, senior presenter at Al Jazeera
“Becoming Baba is a beautiful, poignant, and timely read. Aymann Ismail elegantly captures the nuances of being a Muslim, an immigrant, and a father in America. This is a critical book for our time.”
—Zainab Salbi, humanitarian and author of Between Two Worlds: Escape From Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam and Freedom Is an Inside Job
“A love letter to the American dream—complete with all its frustrations, pains and joys. Ayman shares the push and pull that so many immigrant families face between settling in the United States while still honoring family and religious traditions, and he so with honesty and wit…an entertaining journey to becoming Baba.”
—Dean Obeidallah, host of Sirius XM’s The Dean Obeidallah Show