Bracing cold whips my eyes, but I do a 'yippee' anyway. 'The minute classes are over the next day, I take a test ride down to the village, bundled up in a jacket and black balaclava designed to make me look male. The titular bike is a strong metaphor for Theresa's desire to explore both the people and locale surrounding the school: I especially appreciate that the writing is well edited for content with virtually error-free text. A subplot involves the practice of female genital mutilation this is handled with dignity and does not include gratuitious descriptions of the practice. The plot, with its many unexpected twists and turns, keeps the reader turning the page. The writing is compelling and the dialogue hits just the right tone. Jendi and I agreed that The Kurdish Bike was the strongest book in this year's contest.

These bonds sustain Theresa through a challenging year of growth and acceptance. Along the way, she enters into intense friendships with Ara, a Kurdish widow, and her daughter Bezma. She buys a bike and sets out to explore the war-torn countryside. When she takes a job as a teacher at a for-profit school in Kurdish Iraq, she faces extreme challenges of a different sort, including a school administrator who demands inflexible teaching methods, cultural restrictions on women's freedom, and language barriers. In Alesa Lightbourne's literary novel The Kurdish Bike, narrator Theresa Turner is an American woman in late middle age who is recovering from a divorce that left her penniless. North Street Book Prize 2017 (view all the winners)

Critiques for Poems, Stories, and Essays.

Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest (no fee).

Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest.

The Manhattan Book Review also gave it five stars, and called it a 'must-read' for anyone interested in the Middle East. San Francisco Book Review gave the book five stars and compared it to The Kite Runner. Theresa's greatest challenge will be balancing respect for cultural values while trying to introduce more enlightened attitudes toward women - at the same time seeking new spiritual dimensions within herself.īased on true events, The Kurdish Bike is gripping, tender, wry and compassionate - an eye-opener into little-known customs in one of the world's most explosive regions - a novel of love, betrayal and redemption. Befriended by a widow in a nearby village, Theresa is embroiled in the joys and agonies of traditional Kurds, especially the women who survived Saddam's genocide only to be crippled by age-old restrictions, brutality and honor killings. With her marriage over and life gone flat, Theresa Turner responds to an online ad, and lands at a school in Kurdish Iraq.

'Courageous teachers wanted to rebuild war-torn nation.' Gold Medal, Best Regional Fiction, Independent Publishers Book Awards 2017

The Kurdish Bike by Alesa Lightbourne