Tag Archives: Religious differences

May 16, 2013 · 1:13 pm

The Blind Man’s Garden by Nadeem Aslam

Blind Man's GardenWho needs films when writers like Nadeem Aslam can create such eloquent canvases that no celluloid could ever hope to project? Blind Man’s Garden takes you deep into the tragic ‘war on terror’ and shows you the very lives of the individuals who must live through (or not) the shattering decisions of faraway leaders, governments, and regimes.

Mikal and Jeo grow up as brothers in a small town in Pakistan – Jeo is the son of former schoolmaster Rohan who takes in Mikal and his older brother Basie when they lose their own parents. When Jeo, training to be a doctor, secretly decides to go to Afghanistan in hopes of caring for the human collateral damage from the post-9/11 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Mikal immediately decides to join him.

Both young men leave behind their shared family, including the same beloved, Naheed – she who loved Mikal first, but married Jeo at last. The brothers embark on a Odyssean journey to nowhere fueled by a fierce hope to return home. With all their fates unknown, Naheed mourns and waits, her mother Tara desperately fights what she believes is inevitable, and Rohan attempts to save another man’s young boy as he was unable to save his late wife from eternal damnation. The family, splintered by ideologies and violence gone awry, will never be the same again … and yet somehow, a much-transformed new family will inevitably survive …

In spite of needing to finish Aslam’s fourth and latest novel because of a looming interview deadline (I know, lucky me!), I lost all my usual reading alacrity as I approached book’s end, so as to avoid actually reaching that final page. Now as I ready myself for the authorly exchange, I’m bereft that that preparation cost me any lingering comfort of knowing I still had more Aslam to read. Alas, I must settle into waiting mode for his next novel; and patience was never, ever my virtue.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2013

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Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Afghan, British Asian, Pakistani

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April 30, 2013 · 9:33 am

Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton

Religion for AtheistsI refer to myself as a ‘recovering Catholic,’ and yet I can’t stay out of churches for long. I enter as a tourist – admiration for architecture seems to be genetically coded into our extended family – but I linger to breathe deeply, clear the mind temporarily, and just be. While I may have discarded most of the religious tenets from youth, I still find precious moments of peace in these so-called holy spaces.

Here in his penultimate title, the ever-irreverent Alain de Botton recognizes that power of religious architecture, and suggests that even better would be to create secular temples with similar goals: “they would all be connected through the ancient aspiration of sacred architecture: to place us for at time in a thoroughly structured three-dimensional space, in order to educate and rebalance our souls.” Build and we will come, for sure!

Beyond holy architecture, in the vein of ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,’ de Botton wants to “reverse the process of religious colonization: … to separate ideas and rituals from the religious institutions which have laid claim to them but don’t truly own them.” While fundamentalists might be ready to issue a fatwa, de Botton’s message is hardly threatening: ignore the dogma and let’s find ways to be better people living better lives.

Divided into revealing one-word chapters – “Kindness,” “Tenderness,” “Perspective,” and so on – de Botton uses his usual charming erudition to reclaim the best of religion: “many of the problems of the modern soul can successfully be addressed by solutions put forward by religions … Religions are intermittently too useful, effective and intelligent to be abandoned to the religious alone.” Ready to learn? Choose the page; while Kris Dyer’s excellent narration can’t be faulted, you won’t want to miss the photos and illustrations – many of them are downright illuminating, ahem!

Of de Botton’s mutiplying shelf of philosophically questioning, cleverly revealing treatises, Religion is perhaps not among his strongest – it’s lighter in research and depth than many of his others. His choice to draw on just three religions (“primarily Christianity and to a lesser extent Judaism and Buddhism”) feels a bit as if he’s avoiding that other elephantine monotheistic faith (did I mention fatwa?); his explanation as to why he chose those three among the “world’s twenty-one largest religions” doesn’t quite convince. That said, if you want to tickle and expand your brain, you can never go wrong with de Botton. Trust me; have faith.

Tidbit: Make sure to check out de Botton’s “A Manifesto for Atheists: Ten Virtues for the Modern Age” in full. While you’re waiting for the page to load, here’s an abridged version to get you started …

  1. Resilience. Keeping going even when things are looking dark.
  2. Empathy. The capacity to connect imaginatively with the sufferings and unique experiences of another person.
  3. Patience. We should grow calmer and more forgiving by getting more realistic about how things actually tend to go.
  4. Sacrifice. We won’t ever manage to raise a family, love someone else or save the planet if we don’t keep up with the art of sacrifice.
  5. Politeness. Politeness is very linked to tolerance, the capacity to live alongside people whom one will never agree with, but at the same time, can’t avoid.
  6. Humour. Like anger, humour springs from disappointment, but it’s disappointment optimally channelled.
  7. Self-Awareness. To know oneself is to try not to blame others for one’s troubles and moods; to have a sense of what’s going on inside oneself, and what actually belongs to the world.
  8. Forgiveness. It’s recognising that living with others isn’t possible without excusing errors.
  9. Hope. Pessimism isn’t necessarily deep, nor optimism shallow.
  10. Confidence. Confidence isn’t arrogance, it’s based on a constant awareness of how short life is and how little we ultimately lose from risking everything.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012

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Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Audio, .Nonfiction, British, Nonethnic-specific

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April 16, 2013 · 12:45 pm

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

ZeitounClearly I waited too long to read this book, even though it sat ready on my shelves and on my iPod for years. Before I lament further, you should know that if you choose to go audible, Firdous Bamji doesn’t disappoint; he remains one of the very few narrators whose name will make me pick up a book over that of the title and author.

So why the whinge-ing? I’m one of those readers who doesn’t like family trees in the beginning of books because I don’t want to know that Tom and Sally get married before they’re even born. I don’t like maps with the route clearly marked because then I’ll know that Joe got out of Dodge but didn’t make it to Paradise. What’s the point of reading to the final page if you already know what happens?

All that means that if you read the news, then you might already know what happens after the events contained in Dave Eggers‘ ‘best of’-lists-making, much lauded, true (-enough) Katrina title, Zeitoun. If you are one of the blessed few who know nothing, then please do NOT start a google search! I fervently wish I could have read this without bias …

As a story, Zeitoun is exciting and engaging, with only a few minor faltering moments (a few too many pages of waiting – for Katrina, for news, for answers). A Syrian Muslim by birth, an American citizen by choice, a successful New Orleanian businessman by tenacity, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, who is known by his easier-to-pronounce last name, runs a painting contracting company with his American wife Kathy, who became a hijab-wearing convert to Islam before she met Zeitoun. The company’s ubiquitous logo sports a rainbow – the significance of which was originally unknown to Zeitoun – which inadvertently attracted gay clients, although other potential clients stayed away and a few workers even left the company. Once made aware of the symbolism, Zeitoun stayed firm: “Anyone who had a problem with rainbows, he said, would surely have trouble with Islam.”

When Katrina hit, Kathy and the couple’s four kids had already left New Orleans. Zeitoun stayed back to keep an eye on the business, the family’s home, and their many other properties. He boarded his canoe in the disastrous aftermath helping others, saving the lives of both people and pets. And then, without cause or warning, he was arrested in one of his own rental houses. He was held in the Greyhound bus station-turned-makeshift-jail without being charged for three days, then sent to Hunt Correctional Center – a maximum-security prison – for 23 more, where he was not allowed even a single phone call.

Meanwhile, Kathy and the kids were in Phoenix with Kathy’s childhood best friend, desperately searching for any news about Zeitoun, all the while fielding frantic worrying from Zeitoun’s internationally dispersed family. The personal losses Zeitoun suffered after Katrina were exponentially magnified by the theft of his basic civil rights as an American citizen fueled by post-9/11 paranoia at the hands (fists, feet, pepper-spray) of the very people the U.S. Government sent to protect the disaster victims. Lest you think Zeitoun was a lone target, Eggers includes even more “absurd” stories, topped by the arrest of Merlene Maten, a 73-year-old diabetic woman held at Hunt’s sister prison for retrieving a sausage out of her own cooler from her own parked car.

Zeitoun should have been a moving tale about a local hero within a shared witnessing of outrage against the miscarriage of justice in the wake of a natural disaster. If the story could have ended in 2009 when the book was published, it surely would have remained a beacon of hope and inspiration. Alas, history (or should I say, ‘his story’) will prove otherwise.

Ironically, in this morning’s New York Times‘ leading article about yesterday’s horrific tragedy, “Blasts at Boston Marathon Kill 3 and Injure 100,” an unnamed “Saudi man” gets two mentions as having been singled out, in spite of repeated claims that no suspects are yet in custody. Over at the Times‘ Op-Ed page, in “Living Through Terror, in Rawalpindi and Boston,” a medical resident writes, “And then, as we worked our way through the dazed throngs in Back Bay, I realized that not only was I a victim of terror, but I was also a potential suspect. As a 20-something Pakistani male with dark stubble (an ode more to my hectic schedule as a resident in the intensive-care unit than to any aesthetic or ideology), would I not fit the bill?” Any doubts? Read Zeitoun.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2009

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April 11, 2013 · 5:19 pm

Between the Assassinations by Aravind Adiga

Between the AssassinationsFor fans of Aravind Adiga‘s unforgettable 2008 Booker Prized first novel, The White Tiger, who were perhaps not as enthralled with his 2011 follow-up, Last Man in Tower, might I suggest you look backward a few more years to his very first book? Introduced to eager readers just after Adiga’s Booker win, Between the Assassinations was actually written before Tiger in spite of getting to the presses a little later.

With intriguing cleverness, Assassinations is an interlinked short story collection, presented as something like a tourist guide, introduced with a town map and a note, “Arriving in Kittur.” Located between Goa and Calicut on India’s southwestern coast, the three months following the monsoon season which ends in September “are the best time to visit Kittur. Given the town’s richness of history and scenic beauty, and diversity of religion, race, and language, a minimum stay of a week is recommended,” the guide advises.

That seven-day set-up which Adiga used with such success in The White Tiger, works equally well here. Presented as a ‘what-to-do’ schedule during seven days and nights in Kittur, Adiga embellishes each suggested go-to location with a related narrative. On arriving the first day into the railway station, Adiga offers the story of a young Muslim boy who initially works in a nearby “tea-and-samosa place” and moves from job to job – for awhile counting all the incoming and outgoing trains for a seemingly fancy stranger – unsure of his coming future.

On Day Two, you might go to Lighthouse Hill and see what happens when a bookseller who’s already been arrested 21 times for offering illegally photocopied books begins to sell Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. In the evening, you might visit the Market and Maidan, and meet Keshava who came from a small village two years ago, only to learn how disposable human life can be in a big city. On Day Four, Umbrella Street – Kittur’s commercial center – will introduce you to Chenayya who is not so young, who needs all his energy to deliver furniture throughout the city. On Day Five while you stroll by the Cathedral of Our Lady of Valencia, you might meet George who is convinced a “princess” will save him from a life of drudgery. On Day Seven at the Salt Market Village, perhaps you’ll see Murali, who at 55, might be coming to the realization that he has wasted his privileged life for an uncompromising cause when what he really longs for is a family of his own.

Populating streets, buildings, and neighborhoods with an array of characters with multiple stories – hopeful and bittersweet both – Adiga presents a multi-dimensional view of a bustling town on the verge of drastic change, caught at the crossroads of inescapable backgrounds and fresh new ideas. If you choose to visit Kittur aurally, rest assured that narrator Harsh Nayyar literally breathes life into Adiga’s workers and dreamers, politicians and escapists, students and fathers. Go ahead, take the trip – travel couldn’t be easier: by book or by iPod, Kittur awaits.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2009

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Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Audio, .Fiction, .Short Stories, British Asian, Indian

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April 5, 2013 · 10:04 am

Jerusalem: A Family Portrait by Boaz Yakin and Nick Bertozzi, based on a story by Boaz Yakin and Moni Yakin, with art director Chris Sinderson

Jerusalem famly portraitSome years back, during a discussion about what was then the latest tragic news coming out of the Middle East, a friend’s mother softly remarked about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, “The absolute worst arguments happen among families.” She (the widow of conservative rabbi) was referring specifically to the shared Abrahamic ancestry of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. From Cain and Abel onward, too much of history – and not just religious history – has proven the truth in Mommy’s simple statement.

Welcome to Jerusalem, “… a stubborn little slab of reality that nevertheless shimmers like a mirage before the eyes of both the made and the sane, united them into a single brotherhood of dreamers, murderers, and poets.” The ‘family’ of the subtitle is the Halaby clan, originally from Syria, who arrive in the foothills of Jerusalem in 1893. A half century later, the family is bookended by two sons with four sisters in between: the elder, Yakov, is a wealthy community leader; Izak, six years younger, is always on the verge of ruin, mostly at the hands of his own brother. Yakov’s childhood animosity – ”… overcome by jealousy at the attention lavished on his brother, [Yakov] vowed never to allow Izak a moment’s peace” – remains a trenchant reality, even into middle age.

During the violent, tumultuous 1940s leading up to the declaration of an independent state of Israel in 1948, the Halaby brothers and their families live vastly different lives. Yakov manages to maintain stability and comfort – luxury, even – all the while tormenting Izak, even causing his brother’s imprisonment when Izak is unable to keep up with loan payments. While Izak is virtually powerless, his angry, often cruel, wife desperately tries to keep her family together. Their sons’ reactions to their threatened lives vary significantly: one joins hands with his Muslim neighbors to serve the Communist Party, one leaves the family to fight abroad, one becomes entangled with an extremist anti-British underground network, and the youngest grows his reputation as a street hoodlum. The neverending conflict beyond the disparate Halabys is magnified within their relationships with one another … in spite of glimmering moments of haunting hope, tragedy proves inevitable – again and again and again.

“Inspired by stories told to him by his father,” author Boaz Yakin – perhaps better known as a filmmaker (Now You See Me, Prince of Persia, Remember the Titans) – unwinds the Halaby history with unflinching detail, brought to the page by veteran graphic illustrator Nick Bertozzi whose images never stand still. As in too many families in conflict, winners and losers prove indiscernible … the only truth is that people suffer, and always, the children most of all.

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2013

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Filed under ..Adult Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Graphic Novel/Manga/Manwha, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Israeli, Jewish, Middle Eastern

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March 27, 2013 · 11:00 am

The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam

Wasted VigilIn both content and form, The Wasted Vigil is a book of extremes. For readers who have experienced Nadeem Aslam before (and the apt word really is ‘experience’), you’ll recognize (and be awed by) his mesmerizing prose … allow me a moment to share this early quote about books and reading (of course): “Each beloved book has more than one copy – some small with the text crowded into perhaps too few pages, others where the print and the page are both generously proportioned. … Sometimes there is a need to take pleasure in a favourite book for its story line alone, and the smaller editions facilitate this because the eye moves fast along a closely printed page. At other times one wishes to savour language – the rhythm of sentences, the precision with which a given word has been studded into a phrase – and on such occasions the larger size helps to slow one down, pause at each comma. Dawdling within a landscape.”

Here in his landscape of extremes, Aslam wields his language like a weapon, his mellifluous prose in cutting contrast to the horrific acts witnessed in the name of god, patriotism, honor, truth, and even love. Each of Aslam’s main characters experiences that all-encompassing sort of love, even as that love is destroyed – or, at the very least, fatally shattered – by the most inhumane atrocities.

Vigil weaves in and out of the neverending turbulent decades of Afghanistan’s modern history, its citizens brutalized by the British, Soviets, Taliban, and the Americans. Outside Jalalabad, by a lake believed to be haunted by angry djinn, in a remote house filled with the spirit of missing loved ones, four lost souls gather – their lives criss-crossed and overlapping with tragedy. The home belongs to Marcus, a British ex-pat doctor now 70, who lost his Afghan wife and his hand to the Taliban. He welcomes a Russian woman Lara, recently widowed, who searches for answers to her soldier brother’s disappearance during the Soviet invasion.

While Marcus is out on yet another possible search for a grandson he has never met, he unexpectedly runs into David, a former CIA operative whose life once evolved around Marcus’ only daughter Zameen, now dead. The trio grows into a temporary foursome when an injured young fundamentalist Muslim, Casa, is saved by the very westerners he has been taught to abhor, and trained to destroy.

Basil Sands’ excellent narration breathes life into four disparate characters – and others, as well – as they attempt to find, if not the truth, then a sense of peace with what has happened to family, friends, an entire country. But the house and its occupants are caught between two vicious warlords – one sanctioned by the U.S. government – and they cannot prevent imminent destruction from reaching their doors …

In various interviews, Aslam, who is Pakistani-born, UK-domiciled and educated since his teen years, has spoken about traveling extensively through Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to write Vigil, as well as interviewing some 200 Afghan refugees living in Britain. His international, peripatetic background places Aslam simultaneously on both ‘sides’ of incomprehensible conflict; surely, that unique dissonance imbues Vigil with its unfathomable opposites – its terror and beauty, its deception and truth, its abhorrent hatred and unconditional love.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2008

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February 27, 2013 · 9:09 am

Odette’s Secrets by Maryann Macdonald

Odette's SecretsI’m compelled to start backwards with a number: 84. As children’s writer (more than 25 times over) Maryann Macdonald explains in her ending “Author’s Note,” 84% of French children survived the horrors of World War II; in fact, “more children survived in France than in any other European country.” Macdonald, rightfully asks, “How did this happen?” When she happened on a copy of Doors to Madame Marie, the autobiography of Odette Meyers, one of the French children who managed to survive, at the American Library of Paris, she knew she had a story to tell …

“My name is Odette,” Macdonald’s compelling novel-in-verse for younger readers begins. “I live in Paris, / … My hair is curly. / Mama ties ribbons in it. / Papa reads to me and buys me toys. / I have everything I could wish for, / except a cat.” Odette is just 8 when “[a] funny-looking many with a mustache / shouts a speech. / His name is Hitler” – and war begins.

Life changes quickly, as Jewish homes are raided and destroyed, Odette’s father joins the French Army, and all Jewish people over the age of 6 must prominently display the yellow star on their clothing. “‘What makes us Jews?’ / I ask Mama one night,” for Odette’s family doesn’t go to synagogue, and “Mama and Papa don’t believe in religion.” The best answer she can understand is that “All our relatives are Jews, / so we are Jews.”

While living in constant fear, Odette and her mother’s greatest ally is Madame Marie, the apartment building’s caretaker with her husband, Monsieur Henri. The couple will save mother and daughter from the middle-of-the-night round-ups, protect Odette when her mother must flee, then securely deliver Odette to the messenger who will take her to shelter in the French countryside.

Safety for Odette comes at the cost of her very identity. No one can know that she’s Jewish, and so she must learn to be just like the other village children – by reciting the same prayers, invoking the same saints, going to Mass every Sunday. For a young child who grew up without religion, her new exposure to Catholicism brings her both comfort and conflict. “I know the reason I feel safe in the country. / It’s because here, / I am not a Jew. / In Paris, I am a Jew.”

Hidden in plain sight, Odette survives war, although she can never wholly escape its horrors. She is bullied and attacked by the same children who were her friends, and she falls silent from the relentless fear and trauma. She will not know who – or what – she is, living a lie, in order to live.

Like The Hidden Girl‘s Lola Rein, Odette’s survival depended heavily on the assistance and protection of non-Jews; unlike Lola who was forced into hiding – much of the time buried in a dark hole – only Odette’s identity was shrouded while she lived openly, attempting to be just like any other village child. Only when the war finally ends can Odette reclaim her true self: “Secrets stand in my way. / They stop me from knowing who I am. / I am a Jew. / I’m sure of it. / And I will always be one.”

Truly, the courage of children knows no bounds.

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2013

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Filed under ..Middle Grade Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Poetry, European, Nonethnic-specific

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February 15, 2013 · 9:13 am

Message to Adolf (Part 2) by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian

Message to Adolf 2Official word of warning: this is NOT your kiddies’ manga. Both in subject matter and graphics, Message is definitely for mature audiences. So if you have younger ones in the house, be careful not to leave the book lying around. The “godfather of manga” has plenty of other titles for the young ‘uns … his iconic Astro Boy, in spite of darker undertones parents might recognize, is a great place for the kiddies to get to know manga-godpapa.

But back to Adolf: not to keep telling you what to do – but I definitely need to here … make sure you read Part 1 of this two-volume epic work before venturing forth. To start in the middle is not recommended: if nothing else, check out the orange cover for Part 1, then compare it to this pink cover here: der Führer is degenerating before your eyes, and you’re going to need to know why before you open Part 2.

Der Führer – who we clearly know to be evil incarnate – is only one of the three Adolfs in the midst of losing his humanity. Part 2 begins with Adolf Kaufmann still able to agonize over his murderous spree: “In a few years, I’ll probably be like the SS or Gestapo, able to kill Jews without batting an eye … no, with a smirk on my face!” he writes in a letter marred by tears and sweat that he will never be able to send to his Japanese mother. Holding on to what conscience he has left – and smitten for the first time in his life – he risks his own safety to send a young Jewish girl, Elisa, to Kobe, Japan, in the care of his childhood (Jewish) best friend, Adolf Kamil.

Kaufmann is handpicked by the Führer himself to be his ”Apprentice Secretary.” He rises rapidly through the ranks of the SD [the Nazi intelligence agency, Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers]; his blind loyalty gives him chilling, murderous efficiency. Meanwhile, in Japan, Kamil and his mother welcome Elisa, who becomes an integral part of their shrunken family. In spite of grave danger, Kamil and Ms. Ogi keep working to disperse the secret documents that could possibly destroy Hitler, out to the rest of the world.

Even after Hitler falls (you won’t find the the version the school books taught you here), Kaufmann and Kamil’s battles continue, moving through Europe, Japan, and finally to the Middle East. Even the end of a world war can’t sever their gruesome bond. Lies, betrayal, vengeance, rape, suicide, murder, all drive up the body count – and through it all, the indestructible Sohei Toge continues to record the tragedy: “This is the story of three men named Adolf,” the epics ends – just as it began, “They each followed a different course in their lives, but they were bound together by one thread of destiny. Now that the last Adolf lies dead, I present this tale to our descendants.”

And so the story starts again, rising from the ashes of a faraway graveyard. Dare we hope that somehow, history will not repeat itself again … and again and again …?

Readers: Adult

Published: 2012 (United States)

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Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Graphic Novel/Manga/Manwha, .Translation, Japanese

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February 12, 2013 · 9:59 am

A Kid’s Guide to Arab American History: More Than 50 Activities by Yvonne Wakim Dennis and Maha Addasi

Kid's Guide to Arab American HistoryHere’s a common occurrence at our house: I can’t go to bed without a book, which usually means I’m a constant barrage of ‘Did you know that …? Were you aware that …?’ to the ever-patient hubby who’s trying to read something of his own. This is one of those titles, filled with surprising facts, little-known tidbits, and plenty of information all of us need to know.

In the opening “Note to Readers,” co-author Yvonne Wakim Dennis – who is hapa of Native American and Syrian descent – explains how she’s used her writing to “set the record straight about Native peoples”; her previous titles include A Kid’s Guide to Native American History and Children of Native America Today. Now the other half of her heritage beckons: ”Over the years, I had become more angry and dismayed at the untruths and stereotypes aimed at Arabs and Arab American people.” The pen, as they say, is mightier than the sword! Together with her co-author Maha Addasi (White Nights of Ramadan, Time to Pray), Dennis definitely has a more accurate story to tell: “My very Syrian grandparents would be proud that I wrote a book that tells a bit about their history in America, and my very Cherokee/Sand Hill grandparents would be proud that I walk in balance and honor all of my ancestors.”

“Pick up any newspaper from a newsstand on any given day, and you are guaranteed to see news about the Arab world, most of which is negative,” the introduction soberly reminds us. “In spite of what the media portrays, Arab Americans are patriotic and loyal to the United States.” Here’s an even more sobering thought: without Arab inventions and discoveries, the world wouldn’t have “trigonometry, parachutes, coffee, cameras, universities, cotton …” and so much more. Here on U.S. soil, without Arab Americans, you wouldn’t have iNuthin’ because Steve Jobs (as well as his sister, the mesmerizing writer Mona Simpson) was Syrian American. Looking for other influential Arab Americans? Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, actor Danny Thomas, designer Norma Kamali, activist Ralph Nadar, and animal-specialist Jack Hanna too, all have Arab roots.

Arab Americans hail from 22 countries, from Algeria to Yemen, with Egypt, Mauritania, Qatar, and Tunisia in between. Almost 4 million Arab Americans live in all 50 states, with the largest Arab American populations in Detroit, LA, NYC, Chicago, and right here in D.C. Through a combination of history, storytelling, and 50-plus activities for your hands, feet, and brains, co-authors Addasi and Dennis celebrate and illuminate America’s own centuries-old Arab heritage – a vast mosaic of diversity and distinction. From dancing the Dabkeh, making your own oil soap, sewing a kaftan, designing your own Girgian candy bag, adults and children will find plenty to do together, all while gaining a better understanding of our Arab American neighbors, colleagues, and friends.

The delightful and informative ‘aha’-moments throughout are many … but (oh, there’s always that ‘but’!) one small change I might suggest for future editions is a layout modification. Each chapter has a narrative overview that is embellished with various stand-alone sections and boxes that provide additional information, including historic moments, an ancient tale, biographies, etc. All that is definitely helpful and not to be overlooked, but also rather disruptive when trying to read through any given chapter. Such interruptions should be relatively easy to fix … a bit of page-reshuffling and graphic adjustments to restore the narrative flow. That said, the inaugural edition has more than enough to learn from, appreciate, and plain old enjoy.

Readers: Children, Middle Grade

Published: 2013

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Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, ..Middle Grade Readers, .Nonfiction, Arab American

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February 4, 2013 · 7:14 am

The City of Devi by Manil Suri + Author Interview

Let’s go back about seven years.

So a writer walks into a bar. It’s dark, but thankfully not smoky. The majority of the people there are more bookish (including Booker-ish!) than biker brutish. The writer finds a drink, and is standing slightly off the side with a couple of companions.

The trendy bar is the venue where the venerable Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Center (my former day job) and its co-sponsor, the Network of South Asian Professionals, are hosting a pre-event welcome reception in anticipation of the annual South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival that begins in just over 12 hours. The close friends and admirers of four notable writers (including Kiran Desai, fresh from her 2006 Booker win) and two filmmakers with a debut film each, have gathered to celebrate. Among the guests, although not slated for the Smithsonian stage (that year – his turn comes two years later), is Manil Suri.

At first sight, he’s exactly as I expected the author of an exquisite, nuanced literary novel – The Death of Vishnu, his 2001 award-winning debut about the memorable inhabitants of a Bombay apartment building – who also happens to be a university mathematics professor, might look like. He’s elegant, genteel, and soft-spoken; he has an ever-so-slight hint of nervous energy about him, but that could be because his mind is moving so quickly that the rest of his body needs to contain his excess brain cells somehow.

So much for first impressions.

By the time he takes the Smithsonian stage in 2008, he’s published the second installment of his planned trilogy, The Age of Shiva, which features a headstrong young woman who becomes an overly protective mother to her less than appreciative only son. Suri’s literary star has been highly polished over the years since his debut, as have his creative impulses. What’s making the Internet rounds just in time for his Smithsonian appearance is a most revealing – campy, shocking, delightfully entertaining – video of Suri at the Brooklyn Book Festival, garbed in elaborately embroidered red drag, channeling his inner Bollywood diva. He certainly proved he can do more than just write bestsellers and teach a mean linear algebra class.

This month, Suri completes his promised trilogy with The City of Devi. Kiran Desai provides the most prominent blurb: “The City of Devi combines, in a magician’s feat, the thrill of Bollywood with the pull of a thriller… Manil Suri’s bravest and most passionate book.” If Vishnu was subtle and controlled, and Shiva impetuous and emotional, then Devi proves to be a psychedelic, surreal overthrow of expectations and conventions.

The end of the world – at least in one part of India – is nigh. The apocalypse is coming in four days, delivered via nuclear bomb directly to the city of Bombay. For the first time in centuries, the teeming city is virtually empty as its citizens flee in hopes of finding shelter somewhere, somehow. Sarita is one of the few left behind, frantically searching for her missing husband Karun who walked out of their apartment – into global chaos – claiming he was attending a conference.

Meanwhile, a mysterious young man seems to be following her: Jaz trails Sarita, his hopes also focused on Karun… and what will happen if they actually find him? In a lawless new world in which a single religious label is enough to excuse murder, cause war, and threaten complete annihilation, Sarita and Jaz are running toward true love. Just who belongs to whom will be a wee small detail they’ll have to work out, after they survive gangs, kidnappings, glowing goddess servants, elephants, a levitating multi-armed goddess-in-training with quite the nasty temper, and an evil thug with a bit of a God-complex. Oh, and did I mention the steamy sex scenes? Somebody (or rather, some bodies) must practice how to repopulate the world after annihilation, even if reproduction isn’t the actual goal. Practice makes perfect, right?

Did you plan Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi as a trilogy from the beginning?
The plan for a trilogy happened after I wrote the first book, The Death of Vishnu. I realized there were three deities in the Hindu trinity, Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma, so why not a book for each? By the time I tried to back out of this rash announcement, my publisher was already excited about the idea, so my agent told me I was writing a trilogy whether I liked it or not. After the second book, it became clear that what I had was a triptych, rather than a trilogy (since the characters and plots were unconnected), and by the time I started writing the third, poor Brahma (who’s supposed to create the universe in a single breath) had been shunted aside by the mother goddess Devi. Devi does make more sense than Brahma, because she has a lot more worshippers than he does. Besides, in the words of Karun’s father from the book, “Creation comes from the womb, not the breath.” And, of course, there’s Mumbai, which is a common thread in all three books. The patron goddess of the city is Mumbadevi. [... click here for more]

Author interview: Feature: “An Interview with Manil Suri,” Bookslut.com, February 2013

Readers: Adult

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