A MAP OF HOME is an enthralling, unconventional coming-of-age tale. Nidali, the quick-witted protagonist, tells her story of growing up as a Palestinian-Egyptian-Greek American-Born girl in Kuwait with a quirky mother and at-times hot-tempered father. It is hard not to see the parallels between Nidali’s life and Randa’s. Both were born in the US but quickly swept off to live in her parents’ native land – settling in Kuwait, like many middle-class Arabs at the time. And like so many of those who came looking for a better life, fled when Saddam invaded in the 90’s. Both Randa and her character find themselves in Egypt for a brief period of time only then to move back to the US, a country where they were born but could not recall. Randa settled in Austin and to this day considers it the only place that has ever felt like home. After receiving her MFA in Ann Arbor, she is moving back to the city she is so fond of – just in time for the publication of this paperback edition.