Yassin M. Aref - Son of Mountains

Son of Mountains

While he was in Rensselaer County Jail awaiting sentencing, Aref wrote a memoir. Stephen Downs helped him put the story into standard English, and editor Jeanne Finley did further editing. The book was published in March 2008. Son of Mountains is the non-fiction story of the life of Aref, an Iraqi Kurd who grew up under the rule of Saddam Hussein and later risked his life opposing him. Aref traverses the landscape of his childhood in Iraqi Kurdistan under Saddam; details the decision to leave Kurdistan for Syria, where he and his wife and children, although poor, make a new life, and then as UN refugees come to the United States; describes his brief residence in America as an immigrant and imam at a small mosque before his arrest, prosecution, and conviction in the “terror case”; and records his experiences over 18months at the Rensselaer County Jail.