Published by Random House, A Good Country is the winner of the 2023 Nautilus Book Award
“Astute narrative…vivid chronicles… An effective demonstration of how nearly every area of the U.S. continues to be infected by racism and inequity.”
“Far from being confined to the pages of history books, American racism is mapped out in our roads, in our churches, and in our cities, schools, and strip malls. Attorney and activist Ali-Khan, the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, weaves together her own coming-of-age with the stories of exclusion and violence that created the twelve American towns she has called home. The past is deeply, sometimes painfully, present in this honest and insightful book.”
“How can a book with such hard truths be so beautiful? Sofia Ali-Khan has woven the search for her identity and home with an exploration of the racism and economic exploitation at the center of the American myth. Remarkably, in confronting these hard truths she lifts the possibility for transformation. This book should be in the curriculum for every high school senior.
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A Good Country: My Life In Twelve Towns and the Devastating Battle for a White America
Complete Endnotes for A Good Country can be found here.
Sofia Ali-Khan’s parents emigrated from Pakistan to America, believing it would be a good country. With a nerdy interest in American folk history and a devotion to the rule of law, Ali-Khan would pursue a career in social justice, serving some of America’s most vulnerable communities. By the time she had children of her own—having lived, worked, and worshipped in twelve different towns across the nation—Ali-Khan felt deeply American, maybe even a little extra American for having seen so much of the country.
But in the wake of 9/11, and on the cusp of the 2016 election, Ali-Khan’s dream of a good life felt under constant threat. As the vitriolic attacks on Islam and Muslims intensified, she wondered if the American dream had ever applied to families like her own, and if she had gravely misunderstood her home.
In A Good Country, Ali-Khan revisits the color lines in each of her twelve towns, unearthing the half-buried histories of forced migration that still shape every state, town, and reservation in America today. From the surprising origins of America’s Chinatowns, the expulsion of Maroon and Seminole people during the conquest of Florida, to Virginia’s stake in breeding humans for sale, Ali-Khan reveals how America’s settler colonial origins have defined the law and landscape to maintain a White America. She braids this historical exploration with her own story, providing an intimate perspective on the modern racialization of American Muslims and why she chose to leave the United States.
Equal parts memoir, history, and current events, A Good Country presents a vital portrait of our nation, its people, and the pathway to a better future.
“Compelling, enjoyable, engaging, and so full of purpose and covinction...an important study of the race-avoidant instinct in this deeply raced nation. Sofia Ali-Khan’s A Good Country beautifully weaves together history and personal narrative as it unwinds the classic immigrant belief in the American dream.
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“In A Good Country, Ali-Khan takes you by the hand and walks with you through the powerful twists and turns of not only her life, but also the life of the United States. You will be transported back in time to the people who lived, loved, and died on this land in all the decades and centuries before you got here, and it will make you think again the next time you look at a map, or street sign, or even your own front door. Beautiful work.
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Resources for Book Clubs, Teachers, and Librarians
Complete endnotes for A Good Country can be found here.
A Good Country began with a plan to examine the color lines in each of the twelve towns in which I'd lived, worked, or worshipped. As I excavated the stories of how those color lines got there, I found that they were really only local examples of the national or regional white supremacist movements that make up our nation's history. The stories I tell are truly the stories of our entire nation. This map shows the path between my twelve towns in black, and highlights the many other places that are featured in the stories of their color lines in gold.
If you have a book club or library group that would like me to Zoom in for a chat, please contact me at agoodcountry@gmail.com, and I'll try to make it work.
If your book club is reading A Good Country, you might find the questions in this discussion guide help to start your discussion.
A Good Country follows the chronology of my life in twelve towns. In each chapter, I explore not only my experience there, but the story or stories of color lines I tripped over. Those events, the ones that drew the color lines of our country, do not appear in chronological order. This timeline helps to contextualize those events, and to link them together with my personal narrative. It is not meant to be a comprehensive presentation of historical events discussed in the book, but it helps to put things in perspective.
Orange tabs represent centuries. Green tabs are foundational documents. Red are wars. Yellow tabs are critical moments in the Civil Rights struggle. Blue tabs are the passage of federal laws. Purple are U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Grey are events in my personal story.
