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Book in brief
A guidebook to SufismThirty-five years after its debut, Mystical Dimensions of Islam remains the main reference to Sufism, a major form of Islamic mysticism
A
guidebook to Sufism
Thirty-five years after its debut, Mystical Dimensions of Islam remains the main reference to Sufism, a major form of Islamic mysticism. The latest edition introduces the seminal work of German scholar Annemarie Schimmel to young readers and those who are interested in the transnational phenomenon of Sufism, from its birth through the 19th century.
Schimmel elaborates the origins, development and historical context of Sufism and observes its form as reflected in Islamic poetry, inviting readers into the mood, the vision and the path of the Sufi.
A renowned Islam scholar, the late Schimmel who died in 2003 wrote eighty books, including And Muhammad is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety and A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry.
Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Mizan, 2013) by Annemarie Schimmel
Banks delivers in short story collection
Russell Banks has long been criticized as being too depressing, too edgy, too dark. But one could argue that life is also many of those things and struggle is often a key to hope and future happiness. These are the moments that Banks chooses to focus on in A Permanent Member of the Family, his new collection of 12 short stories, six of which haven't previously been published.
All the stories are set in the northeastern United States and most shine a harsh light on broken or damaged relationships ' dishonesty, adultery, divorce. Dark? Yes. Depressing, perhaps. But Banks' prose is rhythmic and poetic. His insights are surprising, like in 'Transplant', where the heart donor's widow wants to meet the recipient, or in 'Searching for Veronica', where a man meets a woman in an airport bar and she shares stunning secrets about herself with a stranger, or in 'Lost and Found', where a bored conventioneer has a flirtation with the hotel events coordinator.
Unlike many short stories, Banks tells gratifying, sewed-up tales. Readers may be left wanting more from the characters he creates, but he doesn't leave his stories unraveled. True to form, he ties them up, not neatly, but thoroughly and satisfyingly.
A Permanent Member of the Family (Ecco) by Russell Banks. ' AP
Latest Jodi Picoult release is short story
Jodi Picoult's latest publication is a short story on a large subject: Race.
'We tend to get very itchy and uncomfortable talking about race and to me it's exactly what we ought to be talking about,' the author of best-sellers such as My Sister's Keeper and Nineteen Minutes said in a recent telephone interview.
Picoult's The Color War just came out through Byliner, an online publisher that releases brief works of fiction and nonfiction, with authors ranging from Jon Krakauer to Margaret Atwood. The Color War, an 8,000-word narrative priced at US$1.99, tells of a young boy from the city sent to a Bible camp who becomes fascinated by a white counselor, Melody. Picoult said she first thought of the story 20 years ago, when she was teaching in Concord, Mass., outside of Boston, and kids were bused in for what was presumably a better education.
'I wanted to focus on that dichotomy between the good-hearted white person who is trying to offer charity and yet maybe is pushing on someone who does not want it or need it,' Picoult says. 'Maybe charity is not just about what you can give, but what you can learn from a certain person. That's something which comes up in this story.' ' AP
Forest 'war' in Siberut
Despite diplomacy lipstick from the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration, it is a common knowledge that the government has poor control over the country's forests. The latest case involves forest area of Siberut Island on the western part of Sumatra and home to Mentawai tribe.
Two Indonesian scholars, Darmanto and Abidah B. Setyowati, have been observing land disputes and conflicts surrounding the island's forests and the Mentawai people who live in it for generations. The book elaborates the classic case of government's top-down approach in the forest that disregards the existence of the tribe.
While giving licenses to cut down trees and other production activities in the island, the government treats the Mentawai tribe as 'encroachers' who, just like other forest people, own no legal papers to live in the forests.
Darmanto is a Siberut resident who is currently a Ph.D fellow at Leiden University while Abidah is a Ph.D fellow at Rutgers University. Siberut has been the object of their studies since 2003.
Berebut Hutan Siberut (Rushing over Siberut Forests) (KPG, 2013) by Darmanto and Abidah B. Setyowati
