In her 2007 memoir, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells the amazing story of a geographic odyssey that took her from her native Somalia to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Kenya and finally to a seat in the Dutchparliament— and of her parallel spiritual journey from Muslim to atheist.

Some of "Infidel" is shocking. With harrowing matter-of-fact-ness, she describes the day when she was 5 years old and her grandmother hired a man to circumcise her, her 4-year-old sister and 6-year-old brother with a pair of scissors while their parents were away from home.

There also was the Quran teacher in Nairobi who hit her so hard he fractured her skull; her journey alone to The Netherlands to escape a forced marriage; the brutal murder on a street in Amsterdam of her friend, filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, by a radical Islamist enraged by the "Submission" movie they had made together.

But "Infidel" is most interesting as a coming-of-age tale, of a life transformed by reading and exposure to Western ideas. "Infidel" is the October book for The Buffalo News Book Club.

In a telephone interview from Washington, D. C., where she is a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and lives with round-the-clock security, Hirsi Ali laughed as she recalled the first book she read in English at school in Kenya.

"Believe it or not, it was Chicken Licken. You call it Chicken Little. I came from Ethiopia and learned the English alphabet when I was 10, going on 11." She laughed again. "I couldnt read Jack and the Beanstalk because there was a lot of text."

She and her sister Haweya hungered for books. "When I came to Holland, theres a flood of literature, you can choose anything you want." But in Kenya, "we were desperate, we read everything because there was nothing to read. You got books that were passed from hand to hand, that were so worn out, the last page, always the end of the book was missing. My sister and I would go to bookshops and we couldnt afford these books and wed stand in the bookshop and read the last chapter and then put it back."

She read Nancy Drew, Charlotte Bronte, Harlequin romances. She cherished a Modern Biology book. "I used to cuddle the book, go to bed with it, and then it got stolen," she says.

"Infidel" documents her elation at the freedom she could enjoy in Holland, away from family and clan, as she bought her first pair of jeans, rode a bicycle, went to a swimming pool, became friends with non-Muslims, cut her hair. She learned Dutch and eventually gained admission to Leiden University, where she read Darwin, Freud, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire. "Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to the history of ideas," she notes.

"Infidel" takes her through the Sept. 11 terror attacks, her rejection of Islam, her loss of Dutch citizenship, and her first visit to the United States. She was named one of Time magazines 100 most influential people of 2005.

"Infidel" is beautifully written; Hirsi Ali reveals that she actually "told it in English. I talked to the woman who recorded it exactly as Im talking to you now."

A follow-up to "Infidel," titled "Nomad," comes out in February. "People ask a number of questions that keep coming back. Wherever I go, people say, OK, can you tell us something about how things are between you and your family, the plight of Muslim women, why Western feminists are silent about it, and on and on it goes. I tried to single out a number of those questions and answer them."

She also is planning an anthology of the books that changed her life. "Its not one book that did it, it was a very gradual process." The anthology would include "the books from the time I mastered English alphabet, up until now, these are the books that have stayed in my memory and the circumstances under which I read them."

Most recently, she has been reading Leo Tolstoys "Anna Karenina." "Im reading him in English, Im reading him in America. Maybe thats what America does, it collects the world."

After a lifetime of wandering, Hirsi Ali says: "America feels like home to me. The wonderful thing is that what holds this nation together is not ethnicity, its not color, not religion. Its a set of ideas that understand human nature, that freedom is absolute, that you have to build institutions that make life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness a possibility for as many humans as possible." The highest achievement of Western culture, she believes, is "the separation of church and state."

She first became aware of a double standard in the West, tolerating second-class status for some women in the name of multiculturalism, when she worked in Holland as a translator for Somali immigrants. Its a cause that still consumes her. Her foundation at www.ahafoundation.org, shines a spotlight on such issues as the woman in Sudan who faced punishment for wearing trousers; the continued practice of female circumcision and forced marriages of underage girls, practices that persist among certain immigrant populations.

"Girls are pulled out of school at age 12, 13" to marry older men, she says. "If their teachers dont notice, if their fellow students dont notice their absence, anything can be done with them." Her goal, Hirsi Ali says, is to alert Western institutions "to violence practiced in the name of culture, in the name of religion. Its principles-based violence against women."

Hirsi Ali will turn 40 in November. "I would like to realize the dream of having a family, of belonging once more, of traveling less," she says.

And another dream: "I just want to be alive when this revolution that I believe in in the Muslim world is going to change profoundly. I get some hope from the demonstration of women in Afghanistan, the demonstration of men and women in Iran, the woman in Sudan who did not get lashed, who did not have to pay the fine. She was able to demonstrate to the whole world how ridiculous these laws are. Thats just starting with a pair of trousers. Thats my dream, to be around when this huge change occurs and to know that Im a part of it."

As always, we are interested to hear your thoughts on "Infidel," as well as any suggestions you may have for future Book Club choices. E-mail the club at: bookclub@buffnews.com. Or, write to us at: The Buffalo News Book Club, P. O. Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240.

Infidel

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Free Press

384 pages (paperback $15)