Velshi Banned Book Club: ‘Internment’ by Samira Ahmed

Set “15 minutes into the future,” ‘Internment’ by Samira Ahmed follows 17-year-old Layla Amin and her family after they are systematically stripped of their rights and forced into an internment camp in the desert for Muslims. The novel grapples with the fragility of freedom, the cost of resistance, complicity, tragedy, and the strength of community. ‘Internment’ is not a subtle read, and that is by design. Ahmed is quick to make direct comparisons and references to painful moments in time. “Everything that takes place in ‘Internment’ – virtually everything – is something that has existed in history,” says Ahmed.