{"product_id":"the-summers-9780299341046","title":"The Summers","description":"Ronya Othmann's debut novel narrates the coming of age of Leyla, a Yazidi-Kurdish-German girl. She spends the school year in her mother's home country of Germany but travels every summer to her father's home village in Syria, near the Turkish border. She knows its smells and tastes. She knows its stories. She knows where the Yazidi villagers keep their suitcases hidden, should they need to escape again. And she watches from afar, horrified, as ISIS troops move on the village, threatening the lives of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Leyla's sexual awakening proves far less traumatic than her growing disenchantment with her German classmates and friends, who appear completely indifferent to the fate of her Yazidi community. Thoughtful and poignant, \u003ci\u003eThe Summers\u003c\/i\u003e addresses issues of gender, sexuality, cultural difference, politics, and identity. Othmann draws readers into multiple worlds, ultimately revealing the hopes and dreams that bind us all together when forces threaten to tear us apart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRonya Othmann is an author, poet, and journalist whose work deals with themes of migration, homeland, and war. She has earned numerous awards, including the Leonhard and Ida Wolf Memorial Prize of the City of Munich and the MDR Literature Prize. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Gary Schmidt, chair and professor of German at Coastal Carolina University, is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Nazi Abduction of Ganymede: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Postwar German Literature\u003c\/i\u003e, cotranslator of \u003ci\u003eWhat Makes a Man: Sex Talk in Beirut and Berlin\u003c\/i\u003e, and coeditor of \u003ci\u003eQuertext: An Anthology of Queer Voices from German-Speaking Europe\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Wisconsin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50554871382290,"sku":"9780299341046","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_1a539678-5807-472e-96c8-6e54959269cd.jpg?v=1731724792","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-summers-9780299341046","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}