Wasafiri 108: House of Wisdom
Featuring Bina Shah, Hamja Ahsan, Nisha Ramayya, Latifa Ayad and more, House of Wisdom: Libraries and Literatures of Islam collects writing that uses the libraries that were the hallmark of Islamicate empires around the globe as its cornerstone to reflect creatively and critically on Islamic literary culture.
Contents
Editorial
LIBRARIES AND LITERATURES OF ISLAM Rehana Ahmed and Nadia Atia
Articles
‘KEYS TO PARADISE’: LIBRARIES, LITERATURE, AND LITERACY IN PALESTINE Lindsey Moore 42 INDEXING WAR: THE CRAFT OF THE CATALOGUE IN SINAN ANTOON’S THE BOOK OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE Annie Webster 58 ARCHIVING ISLAM IN NADEEM ASLAM’S LIBRARIES Rehana Ahmed 88 COLLECTION NO LONGER ON DISPLAY: RESTORING MEDIEVAL ENGLAND’S ARABIC BOOKS TO VIEW Eleanor Myerson
Life Writing
THE LIBRARY TO COME Hamja Ahsan
Interviews
‘REPRESENTING ANYTHING LIMITS YOU, MAKES YOU SMALLER’: A CONVERSATION WITH AHDAF SOUEIF AND KAMILA SHAMSIE Rachel Gregory Fox 83 LIBRARIES, LEARNING, AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN ISLAMIC HISTORY: AN INTERVIEW WITH NUR SOBERS-KHAN Ghazouane Arslane
Art
THE POWER OF BOOKS: WAFAA BILAL’S 168:01 AND EDMUND DEWAAL’S LIBRARY OF EXILE Nadia Atia
Fiction
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JESSICA MANSOUR Latifa Ayad 51 THE BOOK SMUGGLER Bina Shah 69 ROSE AND LEMONGRASS TEA Mohammed Barber
Poetry
FAILING TO WRITE YOU A GHAZAL Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan 31 ONCE, THERE WAS A VERSION Alycia Pirmohamed 67 THE LIBRARY IN LAHORE Moniza Alvi 78 THREE FOR AHMAD JAMAL TRIO AT THE PERSHING (1958) Nisha Ramayya 97 PRAYER Zaffar Kunial 98 PRAYER & BREATH Nadine Aisha Jassat
Reviews
REVIEW ESSAY: WRITING AS SENSE-MAKING: TEXTUAL RESPONSES TO MUSLIM MIGRATION AND DISPLACEMENT Voices of the Lost – Hoda Barakat, trans. by Marilyn Booth God 99 – Hassan Blasim, trans. by Jonathan Wright Homeland Elegies – Ayad Akhtar Sophia Brown 104 Cut from the Same Cloth? Muslim Women on Life in Britain–Sabeena Akhtar, ed. Layla AlAmmar 105 Creative Radicalism in the Middle East: Culture and the Arab Left after the Uprisings – Caroline Rooney Sinéad Murphy 107 Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City – Samira Shackle Claire Chambers 108 The Fortune Men – Nadifa Mohamed Asha Rogers 110 Specters of World Literature: Orientalism, Modernity, and the Novel in the Middle East – Karim Mattar Katharina Herold 112 Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe – Diana Darke Chris Moffat 113 The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett Tallulah Griffith 115 We Are All Birds of Uganda – Hafsa Zayyan Farha Tahera Quadri 116 Angular Desire: Selected Poems & Prose – Srinivas Rayaprol, Graziano Krätli, and Vidyan Ravinthiran, eds. Vaibhav Iype Parel
