Two Sisters

  • Author Åsne Seierstad
  • Narrator Gunnar Cauthery
  • Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
  • Run Time 16 hours and 2 minutes
  • Format Audio
  • Genre Terrorism, armed struggle.
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What to expect

One morning in October 2013, nineteen-year-old Ayan Juma and her sixteen-year-old sister Leila left their family home in Oslo. Later that day they sent an email to their parents. 'Peace, God's mercy and blessings upon you, Mum and Dad ... Please do not be cross with us...'

Leila and Ayan had decided to travel to Syria, 'and help out down there as best we can'. They had been planning for months. By the time their desperate father Sadiq tracks them to Turkey, they have already crossed the border. But Sadiq is determined to find them.

What follows is the gripping, heartbreaking story of a family ripped apart. While Sadiq risks his own life to bring his daughters back, at home his wife Sara begins to question their life in Norway. How could her children have been radicalised without her knowledge? How can she protect her two younger sons from the same fate?

Åsne Seierstad - with the complete support of the Juma family - followed the story from the beginning, through its many dramatic twists and turns. It's a tale that crosses from Sadiq and Sara's original home in Somalia, to their council estate in Oslo, to Turkey and to Syria - where two teenage sisters must face the shocking consequences of their decision.

Critics Review

  • Hauntingly written, this book is both a masterpiece and a masterclass in investigative journalism

    Christina Lamb, Sunday Times

  • A modern tragedy. And a universal one … None of us truly knows what teenagers think, behind their closed doors, nor what tomorrow will bring

    The Times

  • Meticulously documented, full of drama … filled with smuggling, violence, ever-changing loyalties and tension … this is a tale fluently told, and a thriller as well

    Kate Adie, Literary Review

  • Intricate, compelling

    Observer

  • Åsne Seierstad is the supreme non-fiction writer of her generation. Her latest work is haunting, luminously written and compelling. A brilliant book. Two Sisters isn’t only the story of how a pair of teenage girls became radicalised but an unsparing portrait of our own society – of its failings and its joys

    Luke Harding, author of Collusion

  • Two Sisters is a masterwork. Brilliantly conceived, scrupulously reported and beautifully written, this book is compulsive reading … Seierstad fixes her lens on one of the most disturbing conundrums of our time – what leads ordinary people to become terrorists?

    Jon Lee Anderson

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