The Silence and the Roar follows a young man living in an unnamed Middle Eastern country that is in chaos. The book doesn't explicitly take place in Syria, but the similarities between its setting and author Nihad Sirees' home country are undeniable.

Sirees' work has been banned from publication in Syria, where he's considered an opponent of the government — another point at which Sirees' story and that of his protagonist, Fathi Chin, intersect.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We're going to take a moment now to talk about a word - yep, one word. Maybe you use it all the time or maybe you feel people use the word and it drives you up the wall. I'm talking about the word literally.

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On-air challenge: Every answer is a word containing an A and a Z. Given anagrams of the remaining letters, name the word. For example, given "leg," the answer would be "glaze".

Last week's challenge: Eight people are seated at a circular table. Each person gets up and sits down again — either in the same chair or in the chair immediately to the left or right of the one they were in. How many different ways can the eight people be re-seated?

Answer: 49

Venezuela's elections commission announced Saturday that voters will go to the polls on April 14 to choose a successor to President Hugo Chavez, who died this week after a battle with cancer.

The nation's constitution mandated that an election be called within 30 days of Chavez's death on March 5, but the scheduled date falls outside of that window. Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's vice president, was sworn in as interim leader on Friday.

The recent meteor blast in Russia has brought renewed attention to the risk posed by meteors on a collision course with Earth. NASA and the European Space Agency are working on a plan to develop a rocket that could collide with an asteroid and knock it off course. Dr. Andrew Cheng of the John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, who is leading the initiative, talks about it with host Jacki Lyden.

Louie talks with Gregory Rocha, Associate Professor of Political Science at UTEP, about a variety of local, state, and national issues.  Rocha discusses Congressman Beto O'Rourke's recent display of bipartisanship on the House floor.  He also discusses how the U.S. might diplomatically handle the death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.  Plus, Rocha talks about the El Paso mayoral race and the challenges facing the candidates.  Aired March 9, 2013.