Autorentext

Abdulhaq Sodais lives in Germany and has begun a new life with his wife, Weeda, after being granted full political asylum in 2021. He speaks four languages including Dari, Pashto, English, and German. He has found work in the school system helping disabled students on the bus, and as a forklift operator, among other odd jobs. Abdulhaq continues to face discrimination as an Afghan and as a refugee in his adopted home, but is working hard to integrate into German society. His dream is to travel freely throughout the world without being harassed or denied at any border. He considers Spencer his most trusted friend and has worked ceaselessly with him to tell this story on behalf of all refugees who are unable to tell their own.

Klappentext

In an Afghan village, a boy learns his letters under a mullah's stick and dreams of a life free of the Taliban; in Virginia, a cadet learns to read a map and lead a platoon into combat.

Years later, on a wind-scoured ridgeline overlooking Zabul Province, helicopters roaring overhead, Afghan interpreter Abdulhaq Sodais and US Army Lieutenant Spencer Sullivan must learn to trust each other if they hope to survive.

In 2021, when the United States withdraws from Afghanistan, the Taliban reassert their rule, disappearing, torturing, and killing US collaborators, including Abdulhaq's fellow interpreters. Yet Abdulhaq's applications for asylum in America are repeatedly denied.

With the Taliban closing in, Abdulhaq embarks on a cross-continental trek toward freedom. Caught up in the global refugee crisis, Abdulhaq must surrender himself to safehouses and human smugglers while Spencer fights his own war back in the United States to honor America's promise.

Not Our Problem, a war memoir and refugee story revealed in alternating voices, follows an Afghan refugee and an American soldier across borders and continents, tracing the long distance between a promise and its keeping--interrogating a world in crisis while celebrating how friendship can outlast the war that created it.