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
INDEXING WAR: THE CRAFT OF THE CATALOGUE IN SINAN ANTOON’S THE BOOK OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Annie Webster
ARCHIVING ISLAM IN NADEEM ASLAM’S LIBRARIES
Rehana Ahmed
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
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
THE BOOK SMUGGLER
Bina Shah
ROSE AND LEMONGRASS TEA
Mohammed Barber
Poetry
FAILING TO WRITE YOU A GHAZAL
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan
ONCE, THERE WAS A VERSION
Alycia Pirmohamed
THE LIBRARY IN LAHORE
Moniza Alvi
THREE FOR AHMAD JAMAL TRIO AT THE PERSHING (1958)
Nisha Ramayya
PRAYER
Zaffar Kunial
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
Cut from the Same Cloth? Muslim Women on Life in Britain – Sabeena Akhtar, ed.
Layla AlAmmar
Creative Radicalism in the Middle East: Culture and the Arab Left after the Uprisings – Caroline Rooney
Sinéad Murphy
Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Contested City – Samira Shackle
Claire Chambers
The Fortune Men – Nadifa Mohamed
Asha Rogers
Specters of World Literature: Orientalism, Modernity, and the Novel in the Middle East – Karim Mattar
Katharina Herold
Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe – Diana Darke
Chris Moffat
The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
Tallulah Griffith
We Are All Birds of Uganda – Hafsa Zayyan
Farha Tahera Quadri
Angular Desire: Selected Poems & Prose – Srinivas Rayaprol, Graziano Krätli, and Vidyan Ravinthiran, eds.
Vaibhav Iype Parel
