Favorite Quotes: "The Conference of the Birds" by Farid Attar

Image of folio from Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Afkham Darbandi & Dick Davis translated from Persian into English Farid Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr (منطق الطير). The title they chose is The Conference of the Birds. The National Endowment for the Humanities included it in its Muslim Journeys Bookshelf.

There are several translations, and the copy I read included a prologue and an epilogue, which is a revised edition of the first Darbandi & Davis published translation. The ISBN is 9780140444346, and the length is 278 pages. I thought the prologue & epilogue were valuable.

To call Darbandi & Davis translators is quite a misnomer. Their rhyming couplets are so much more than translating.

I also read a picture book version by Rabiah/Alexis York Lumbard, which I hope to write a separate blog entry about.

Review: We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders by Linda Sarsour

Author Ausma Zehanat Khan reviewed Linda Sarsour's memoir We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders in The Washington Post, April 3, 2020.

Sitting in a cafe reading Linda Sarsour’s memoir, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, I was afraid to expose the book’s cover, which shows the author in a hijab. As a Muslim woman living in the United States, I am well-acquainted with the different ways American Muslims minimize themselves in public. And for that reason I am all the more heartened by Sarsour’s fearlessness. -- read more -

I have not read the book.

Interview with Rabiah York Lumbard, Author of "No True Believers"

Alexis York Lumbard aka Rabiah York Lumbard agreed to Muslim Media Review's request for an interview about her first novel, No True Believers. You can see all of her works and contact her through her website.

The Young Adult (YA) Genre

Given that most authors who write YA aren’t themselves young adults, what are successful YA authors doing to connect with young readers?

They dig deep inside themselves and remember what it was like to be a teen. They also listen to their teen readers. Being a listener is critical in any form of art.

What separates YA novels & short stories from “adult” literature? Is it language level? Is it that the protagonist(s) must be young adults? For example, why isn’t Crime and Punishment a YA novel?