Skip to product information
1 of 1

Click to look inside

Terrorist by John Updike

Regular price
Checking stock...
Regular price
Checking stock...
World of Books

At World of Books, you’ll find millions of preloved reads at great prices, from bestsellers to hidden gems. Every book you buy saves money and helps reduce waste, so you can read more for less while giving stories a second life.

The feel-good place to buy books
  • Free US shipping over $15
  • Buying preloved emits 41% less CO2 than new
  • Millions of affordable books
  • Give your books a new home - sell them back to us!

Terrorist by John Updike

From one of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century--and the author of the acclaimed Rabbit series: "A chilling tale that is perhaps the most essential novel to emerge from September 11" (People) about an eighteen-year-old devoted to Allah, who's convinced he's discovered God's purpose for him. 

"The most satisfactory elements in Terrorist are those that remind us that no amount of special pleading can set us free of history, no matter how oblivious and unresponsive to it we may be."--The New York Times Book Review


The terrorist of John Updike's title is eighteen-year-old Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, the son of an Irish American mother and an Egyptian father who disappeared when he was three. Devoted to Allah and to the Qur'an as expounded by the imam of his neighborhood mosque, Ahmad feels his faith threatened by the materialistic, hedonistic society he sees around him in the slumping New Jersey factory town of New Prospect. Neither Jack Levy, his life-weary guidance counselor at Central High, nor Joryleen Grant, his seductive black classmate, succeeds in diverting Ahmad from what the Qur'an calls the Straight Path. Now driving a truck for a local Lebanese furniture store--a job arranged through his imam--Ahmad thinks he has discovered God's purpose for him. But to quote the Qur'an: Of those who plot, God is the best.

In 1954, John Updike graduated from Harvard College and spent a year at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford, England. He was a member of The New Yorker's staff from 1955 until 1957. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his works. Updike earned the Rea Prize for Short Fiction in 2006, and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his Early Tales (1953-1975). In January 2009, he passed away.

SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780345493910
ISBN 10 0345493915
Title Terrorist
Author John Updike
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Random House USA Inc
Year published 2007-05-29
Number of pages 320
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.