The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam

The tenth parallel--the line of latitude seven hundred miles north of the equator--is a geographical and ideological front line where Christianity and Islam collide. More than half of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims live along the tenth parallel; so do sixty percent of the world's 2 billion Christians. Here, in the buzzing megacities and swarming jungles of Africa and Asia, is where the two religions meet; their encounter is shaping the future of each faith, and of whole societies as well. An award-winning investigative journalist and poet, Eliza Griswold has spent the past seven years traveling between the equator and the tenth parallel: in Nigeria, the Sudan, and Somalia, and in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The stories she tells in The Tenth Parallel show us that religious conflicts are also conflicts about land, water, oil, and other natural resources, and that local and tribal issues are often shaped by religious ideas. Above all, she makes clear that, for the people she writes about, one's sense of God is shaped by one's place on earth; along the tenth parallel, faith is geographic and demographic. An urgent examination of the relationship between faith and worldly power, The Tenth Parallel is an essential work about the conflicts over religion, nationhood and natural resources that will remake the world in the years to come.

About the Author :
Eliza Griswold is the author of six books of poetry and nonfiction, including Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America which was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam is a New York Times bestseller that was awarded the J. Anthony Lukas Prize. She writes for the New Yorker and is the Ferris Professor and Director of the Program in Journalism at Princeton University. Tavia Gilbert is a Grammy-nominated voice actor, an Odyssey Award-winning director, the narrator and director of more than 1000 audiobooks, and the writer and producer of multiple international award-winning podcasts. She has been awarded dozens of Earphones Awards, and she is a sixteen-time Audie Award finalist and a three-time Audie Award winner, including for Best Female Narrator. Her creative consulting and production company, Talkbox Productions, amplifies world changing voices through audio-first storytelling.

Review :
"A beautifully written book, full of arresting stories woven around a provocative issue--whether fundamentalism leads to violence--which Griswold investigates through individual lives rather than caricatures or abstractions." -- "New York Times Book Review" "A compelling portrait of embattled human communities yearning for more-than-human succor." -- "Booklist (starred review)" "An American poet and experienced journalist, the author brings to her book a sharp eye for telling details and a keen sense of place." -- "Washington Post" "Far more than a travelogue, her book is a richly textured fugue that dramatizes the dizzying interplay between notions--faith, morality, identity--and nations...Given our world today, Griswold's book is as timely as ever.'" -- "Los Angeles Times" "Griswold keenly investigates how the global clash of religions especially takes its toll on women and children. She visits religious leaders on both sides and debates finer points of their arguments. An important ongoing venture in the West's attempts to understand the conflicts of this region." -- "Kirkus Reviews" "Griswold's courageous pilgrimage changes the way we think about Christianity and Islam by exploding any simplistic 'clash' narrative. She returns us to the most basic truth of human existence: that the world and its people are interconnected." -- "Archbishop Desmond Tutu, New York Times bestselling author" "Though not a scholar of Islam, Griswold has a profound grasp of the misinterpretation and manipulation of Islam...Always maintaining a journalist's objective view, Griswold, a published poet, nevertheless enchants the reader with her lush, flowing prose." -- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"