When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous 47-year-old Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm. He traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe passing on supplies and helping those he could.  A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared.  Eggers' riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun's roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy - an American who converted to Islam - their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and in the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible.  Like Eggers' earlier work, What Is the What, Zeitoun was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research -- in this case, in the United States, Spain, and Syria.

All new students are asked to read Zeitoun and be prepared to participate in a small group discussion of the book with your resident assistant (RA) and student academic adviser (SA) during the January new student orientation program.