Jerry and Rodrigo Go to War

A sharp yet honest caricature of the neocolonial, uncritical right on American college campuses.

Let me go ahead and say it upfront: I wrote that goddamn novel.

An unsympathetic, self-concerned young professor at a small university in Appalachia is on the verge of a breakthrough. His first book, Coyote Road, has become a huge success. Students are reading his book on campus. Invitations to speak are pouring in from universities and bookstores. There is just one problem: no one believes it’s his book. Some guy named Rodrigo Suarez has taken all of the credit, all of the adulation, all of the accolades, and all the attention.

Thus begins the young professor’s obsessive crusade to expose Rodrigo Suarez as a liar and a thief. In this uncomfortably plausible farce, the indefatigable Steven Salaita drops the hammer on the shallow and disingenuous discourse regarding identity politics and appropriation on American campuses.

Author Biography

Steven Salaita is a scholar and writer based in Egypt. He is the author of nine nonfiction books, most notably Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine, Israel’s Dead Soul, and the recently published memoir, An Honest Living. He currently teaches at the American University in Cairo. Daughter, Son, Assassin is his first work of fiction. His essays can be found at stevesalaita.com.