A captivating travel memoir set in the Middle East about cross-cultural dissonance and a quixotic quest to find home.
While travelling to his grandfather's ancestral town in rural eastern Turkey, journalist John Zada is mistakenly hauled off an overnight bus at a military roadblock and pulled into a dragnet searching for outlawed rebels. During that abrupt encounter Zada experiences a series of vivid flashbacks from his life and travels in the Middle East, which led him to that dangerous moment.
The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey: An East-West Memoir is a collection of interlocking travel stories tied to a decades-long quest through the Arab World to find cultural belonging and a deeper sense of home. Born to westernized Arab parents, and driven by his discontent with North American life, Zada throws himself headlong into the Middle East to find what he believes to be the missing part of himself.
That journey, first as student and then as a roving journalist, takes him from the cosmopolitan boulevards of Cairo, Beirut and Dubai to the far-flung mountains of Kurdistan and the Sahara Desert. Along the way he works on a counter-terrorism film in Saudi Arabia, gets caught in the crossfire of the Israel-Hezbollah war, and bar hops with Egypt's mani-pedi Don Juan. Mirroring the author's adventures is his lifelong mentor, Kamal Bey: a spinner of yarns with a secret government job who, like Zada, is also caught between two worlds.
A kaleidoscopic memoir that is also a travelogue and work of reportage evoking the writing of Ryszard Kapuściński, The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey is at its heart a reverse-diaspora story. Its pastiche of surreal and remarkable tales serves as an oblique warning about the danger of identity obsessions.
About the Author :
John Zada is an author, journalist and photographer based in Toronto, Canada. He's lived and worked extensively in the Middle East and has produced work for the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CBC, Al Jazeera, BBC, explore, Literary Review of Canada, Los Angeles Review of Books and others.
Review :
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF 2025 * WINNER OF A 2026 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARD FOR TRAVEL * FINALIST 2026 ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARD
"A breathtaking travelogue that invites readers to rethink what 'home' really means." - Kirkus Reviews
"A travelogue bursting with dazzling anecdotes... Zada has conjured a literary triumph." - Tahir Shah, author of The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca
"This is a thoroughly absorbing odyssey of heritage, heart, and self-discovery... illustrating how travels are but journeys to the self." - BookLife
"One of the most astounding travel books I've read in years. A bric-a-brac of remarkable real-life tales of adventure. Captivating and profound." - Robert Twigger, author of Red Nile: A Biography of the World's Greatest River
"A poignant and delightful memoir about being torn between two worlds. Unlike most writers, Zada conveys the Middle East as both an insider and outsider-giving us rare access to a place seen from varying perspectives at once." - Tarquin Hall, author of the Vish Puri mysteries series
"A dazzling, cinematic memoir and work of reportage that crosses borders, culture, and identity. At once humorous and profound, Zada's writing probes the paradoxes of East and West, and finds belonging in the elusive space where the two worlds entwine." - Trina Moyles, author of Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival
