Category: literary life

For some time now, I’ve had the feeling that, as a faith, Islam was in the midst of interesting internal changes, and so when Mark offered me his pass to go to to the Islam Now panel, I jumped on the chance. The panel was moderated by Zachary Karabell, with Adam Shatz (literary editor at The Nation) and Reza Aslan (author No god but God) discussing.

I appreciated Shatz taking issue with the title of the panel (Islam Now), which confirmed the notion that there is one islam, a monolithic faith, different from the other monotheistic religions. He talked about how it was considered a pathology that, if cured, will relieve the West of terror. In reality, he said, there are many islams, represented and lived within the Muslim world as well as in the West. (This is a view, you’ll recall, that the late Edward Said had written about extensively in a Harper’s article a while back.) And I was also in agreement with Aslan when he made the point that Islam is often set apart from other monotheistic religions when in fact there is nothing in its inception, its history, and its development over a period of time that sets it apart from other faiths like Judaism or Christianity. “Islam is not different” he said, “though that doesn’t mean it’s not unique.” The discussion touched on many topics, though I do wish the panel had included a dissenting voice so that there could be more of a dialogue between different views of Islam/islams.

The Q&A period was fairly characteristic for these sorts of events. Yes, someone asked about ‘moderate’ Muslims. Immediately, all eyes were on the four or five veiled women in the audience (i.e. the ‘visible’ Muslims) waiting for them to say something. I imagined that if that person had simply asked for all Muslims in the audience to please stand up, she’d have gotten an idea of the great diversity within the faith (encompassing both the outwardly expressions of the faith and the ones you don’t see because they don’t fit the prototypical image of the Muslim) as well as an answer to her question.

And yes, someone asked about the veil. Aslan responded that it was a women’s issue, best commented on by women themselves, though he did provide a quick background into the history of its use and how it had come to be seen as a symbol of male domination. Shatz made the point that hijab is also a political and cultural symbol, embraced by a great many women who are avowed feminists.

Later, at Aslan’s book signing, I eavesdropped shamelessly on a conversation he was having with two hijab-ed women who insisted on the veracity of a particular hadith. Aslan argued that the orthodox notion that hadith are immaculately preserved information was, well, rather nonsensical and the two women disagreed. These types of internal discussions (along with many other recent developments, like Asra Nomani‘s fight to establish women-led prayers) confirmed my feeling that this was an exciting time in the history of the faith.

We arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday night and spent all day Friday catching up with family and friends. I talked so much that I came very close to losing my voice. So I was off to a late start on Saturday at UCLA. Parking was insane, as usual, which is hardly surprising in L.A. but what did surprise me was the huge number of people in attendance. I don’t know what the number is, but it must run in the thousands. The fair had been getting bigger every year, but I missed the one last year, so the difference was even clearer to me. That raises two questions: 1) Who says people are not interested in books? And 2) Who says Angelenos don’t care about books?

The shortlist of the Caine Prize for African Writing has been announced. The finalists are:

• Doreen Baingana (Uganda) for “Tropical Fish.” (This story is part of her excellent debut collection, which I hope to feature on Moorishgirl very soon.)
• Jamal Mahjoub (Sudan) for “The Obituary Tangle.”
• SA Afolabi (Nigeria) for “Monday Morning.”
• Ike Okonta (Nigeria) for “Tindi in the Land of the Dead.”
• Mutual Naidoo (South Africa) with “Jailbirds.”

The Guardian has further details about the finalists. I’m a little disappointed that North Africa is left out of the running (yet again) but still delighted by the choices.

This is an interesting, long-ish interview of Salman Rushdie (I didn’t have a problem accessing it but if you hit a subscription wall, use bugmenot.com). Rushdie talks about novelists as “bloody-minded” people, magical realism, the fatwa, why it was a victory for him, his new book, Shalimar the Clown, and a bunch of other things. Here’s a snippet.

R: [O]ther than the occasional rhetorical noise coming out of Iran – which there are unpleasant people there who occasionally say unpleasant things – there haven’t been any real, actual threats for probably seven years now.

W: Well, it’s interesting that during the years that there were threats you were still able to put out some really, well-written, critically acclaimed books. I’ve always been curious as to how that period of seclusion affected your writing habits.

R: Well, you know, I think that writers are quite often disciplined people. And I think that one of the things as a novelist that you do have is the discipline of a daily habit and a daily routine to do your work. You know, just simply because a novel is a long piece of work that if you don’t have the kind of discipline, it never gets written. I think most novelists that I know, in some degree, are very good at simply buckling down and simply getting on with it. And one of the feelings that I had very strongly during those years was that I wished to simply continue down the path I’d set for myself as a writer. And in a way, it was an aspect of my resistance, you know, to not be silenced, to not in anyway be deformed by it as a writer. I though it would have been easy for me to not write or to writer very embittered books or to writer very frightened books. And all of that seemed to me to be a terrible defeat. And I thought the best thing I can do is to go on trying to write the kind of books that I’ve always wanted to write. And go on being myself. And I guess I found in myself the bloody-mindedness to do that (laughs).

Read the rest here.

The Book Babes devote their latest column over at the Book Standard to the LBC.

MG friend Joshua Roberts, who has a new story in AGNI 61, sends along a notice of the magazine’s release party, which will take place Thursday, April 21, 2005, at 7:00 p.m. at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (949 Commonwealth Avenue.) Readers include Suzanne Berne, Gail Mazur, Ben Miller and Lan Samantha Chang. For details, go here.