Revolutions of the Heart: Literary, Cultural, & Spiritual
Yahia Lababidi
Paperback
9781725264946
This is a genre-bending book where literature, social activism, and mysticism intersect. In this follow-up to Lababidi's first essay collection, Trial by Ink: From Nietzsche to Bellydancing (2010), the author is undergoing an inner change, as is the world around him. The multifaceted meditations in Revolutions – essays, poems, aphorisms, conversations, and even fiction – explore the edifying power of art, Islamophobia and its antidotes, the Egyptian Revolution and its aftermath, American popular culture, and much else in our complex modern world.
A series of rich conversations with Lababidi, and his various provocative interlocutors, shed more intimate light on the subjects under discussion. At times serious, playful, and seriously playful, these exuberant exchanges chart the personal evolution of Lababidi from angst-ridden existentialist thinker, besotted with the life of the mind, to someone chastened, drawn to Sufism and seeking to surrender before the primacy of spiritual life.
On a political level, as the work of an immigrant and Muslim (living in Trump's divided America and our wounded world), Revolutions is a book of hope and healing, arguing for nuance and compassion, as it attempts to present art as a form of cultural diplomacy and tool for transformation.
Select Contents
ESSAYS, APPRECIATIONS, REFLECTIONS
The Books We Were
Poetry and Journalism of the Spirit
Seeking the Light Through Literature
C.S. Lewis & the Spiritual Tipping Point
Radical Love: Mysticism in Islam
What Makes for Good Conversation
Short Meditations on Inspiration and Hope
Does a Sex Beast Lurk in the Breast of Men?
The Failure of Misanthropy
Irish Singer, Sinead O’Connor, Converts to Islam
Review By Fire: Writings on the Arab Spring
CONVERSATIONS & FICTIONS
Questions & Aphorisms: Idris Shah Foundation
“If It Weren’t For My Wound…” with Rob Vollmar
The City and the Writer: In Cairo
Aphorisms: A Brief Art - With Yuna-D’Inca
Trial by Ink: A Conversation with Tyler Malone
Dear Eighty-Year-Old Self
The Softer Light of Middle Age
The Limits of Love
For Millennials
The Hazards of Shaving: A Study in Vanity