In her debut novel, Wahhaj tackles themes of grief, identity, family, and more with the story of Beena Nasir Uddin, a Bengali American woman. It’s 2003 during the war with Iraq, when Beena, who is completing a Ph.D. program in Houston, Texas, learns that her mother and brother were killed in a bomb blast in her hometown of Dhaka. A parallel story is told about Beena’s father, Nasir, and his experience growing up in poverty in Iraq. The Children of This Madness (7.13 Books) is a complex tale about the search from home.
