Westport Library to host author of dual biography

Westport Public Library will host author and journalist Deborah Scroggins as she discusses her new novel, "Wanted Women -- Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui." The talk will take place Sunday at 2 p.m. in the library's McManus Room, 20 Jesup Road.

The dual biography tells the story of Ali, the Somali-born author of the international best-selling "Infidel," who faced death threats as she spoke out against the subjugation of Islamic women, and Siddiqui, the American-educated Pakistani scientist with alleged links to al-Qaeda.

Through the prism of these two women's lives, Scroggins examines what brought each woman to their ideological choices, what those choices tell us about women's rights in the Islamic world, and how these realities link to the war on terror.

Scroggins has more than 20 years of reporting experience and has written for Vogue, Granta, the Nation, the Sunday Times Magazine and other publications.

She is the author of "Emma's War," a book about a young British aid worker and tarnished idealism in the Sudan.

She has won two Overseas Press Club awards, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award as a foreign correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and was named Georgia Author of the Year by the Georgia Writers Association.

The event is free and open to the public.

For more information, call 203-291-4800 or visit www.westportlibrary.org.