The Night Counter One of The Chicago Tribune’s Hot Summer Reads
The Night Counter One of The Chicago Tribune's Hot Summer Reads
All my life I have written down on forms “Chicago” when asked for birthplace. So this is particularly sweet for me. Not that I know Chicago well–I’ve only been there once since we moved when I was five. But I’ve always thought I was lucky to be born in such a cool city, despite my rather limited and rather uncool memories: Mostly what I remember is playing around a fountain with my brother (which I now know is in Grant Park), drawing on the walls of the tiny bedroom he and I shared in the cramped apartment we lived in, and the basement of Marshall Fields (at least I think it was the basement), where there was a big, long candy counter with green and red and yellow chewy things and old man on a bench that was quietly eating his orange slice candies trying to ignore my staring. He eventually smiled and offered me one out of the bag. I took it and smiled back–the only thing my mother said as I chewed was “you better have told him thank you.” I’m old enough to remember when it was okay to take candy from strangers.
Alia Yunis is a writer, journalist and filmmaker. She is currently producing and directing “The Golden Harvest,” a feature length documentary about how olive oil has shaped the Mediterranean culture, cuisine and history for 6,000 years, through war and peace. Her debut novel, The Night Counter (Random House) has been critically acclaimed by the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and several other publications. It was also chosen as a top summer read by the Chicago Tribune and Boston Phoenix. The Boston Globe has called it “wonderfully imaginative…poignant, hilarious.” Alia was born in Chicago and grew up in the U.S., Greece, and the Middle East. She has worked as a filmmaker and journalist in several cities, especially Los Angeles. Her fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including The Robert Olen Butler Best Short Stories collection, and her non-fiction work includes articles for The Los Angeles Times, Saveur, SportsTravel Magazine, and Aramco World. She currently teaches film at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi.
Alia Yunis 
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