The True American

Imagine that a terrorist tried to kill you. If you could face him again, on your terms, what would you do? Raisuddin Bhuiyan is a Bangladesh Air Force officer who dreams of immigrating to the US and working in technology. But days after 9/11, an ‘American terrorist’ named Mark Stroman walks into the Dallas minimart where Bhuiyan has found temporary work and shoots him, maiming and nearly killing him. Ten years after the shooting, a pilgrimage plants in Bhuiyan the seeds of a strange sentiment: mercy. He longs to meet Stroman and speak to him about the attack. He publicly forgives Stroman in the name of his religion. Then he wages a legal and public relations campaign against the State of Texas and Governor Rick Perry to have his attacker spared from the death penalty. Ranging from Texas’s juvenile justice system to the crowd of pilgrims at the Hajj in Mecca; from young military cadets in Bangladesh to elite paratroopers in Israel; from a wealthy household of chicken importers in Karachi to the sober residences of Texas, The True American is an exploration of the American dream in its many dimensions.