Muhammad book on hold in the UK

Oktober 25, 2008 at 3:52 pm (Buku Islam, Muhammad, Novel) ()

Sumber BBC News via Yahoo! Alerts

Sherry Jones

Sherry Jones has been heavily criticised for her book

The author of a controversial novel about the Prophet Muhammad has postponed its UK publication.

American writer Sherry Jones has also cancelled her promotional tour next week for The Jewel of Medina.

The novel, which focuses on Muhammad’s relationship with his child bride Aisha, has been dismissed by one academic as “softcore pornography”.

A member of staff at its UK publisher in London was recently targeted in a suspected petrol bomb attack.

Three men have since been arrested and charged with conspiring to damage Martin Rynja’s home and office.

Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas, was quoted in the US media as saying the book took “sacred history” and turned it into “softcore pornography”. Baca entri selengkapnya »

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Mafia book author in ‘great danger’ from mob: Rushdie

Oktober 25, 2008 at 2:32 pm (Membaca, Novel, Salman Rushdie) ()

Sumber: Yahoo! News via Yahoo! Alerts Thu Oct 16, 1:17 pm ET

PARIS, Oct 16, 2008 (AFP) – British writer Salman Rushdie, who lived in hiding for years after an Islamic death threat, said Thursday that the Italian author of a book on organised crime is in far greater danger than he himself ever was.

“I met Roberto Saviano in New York in April. He’s an extremely pleasant, very intelligent man, but he’s in great danger,” he told France Info radio.

Saviano, the author of “Gomorrah,” said Wednesday he plans to flee his native Italy after learning that the Naples-area organised crime gang, the Camorra, wants him dead by the end of the year.

Rushdie said that “in April in New York, the FBI believed he was already in danger, because there is the mafia in the United States too.”

“Things are worse” for Saviano than for him, Rushdie said. “The mafia poses a much bigger problem than the one I had to face.”

Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses,” published 20 years ago, earned him an Islamic death threat and forced him to live in hiding under police protection for nearly a decade.

Some 1.2 million copies of Saviano’s book have sold in Italy.

Filmmaker Matteo Garrone’s screen version of the book won a major prize at the Cannes film festival in May and is in the running for an Oscar.

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Muhammad-related novel published without incident

Oktober 20, 2008 at 12:07 pm (Buku Islam, Muhammad, Novel) (, )

Sumber : Daily Magazine via Yahoo! Alert, Posted on Tue, Oct. 14, 2008

By Nicholas K. Geranios,  Associated Press

SPOKANE, Wash. – Sherry Jones’ The Jewel of Medina reached bookstores Oct. 6 amid fears that the book about the Prophet Muhammad’s child bride might lead to violence and threats. But the author said she had received no threats and was spending the day quietly, except for talking to reporters and being photographed.Jones’ novel is about Aisha, who according to tradition was 9 when she became the wife of the Prophet Muhammad, and later a political and military leader in her own right.

“I’m going to a dinner party tonight, but it’s not in my honor or anything,” Jones said. Baca entri selengkapnya »

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3 men in court charged with publisher attack plot

Oktober 4, 2008 at 6:43 am (Buku Islam, Muhammad, Novel, Salman Rushdie) ()

Sumber :Charlotte Observer via Yahoo! Alert By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer, Posted: Friday, Oct. 03, 2008

LONDON Three men charged with plotting to attack the publisher of a novel about the Prophet Muhammad’s child bride made a brief court appearance Friday after being charged with plotting to damage the offices of Gibson Square publishers.

Ali Beheshti, 40, Abrar Mirza, 22, and Abbas Taj, 30, Beheshti also were charged with possession of a weapon designed or adapted for the discharge of a noxious liquid or gas – reportedly a gasoline bomb. No one was injured in the incident.

The suspects were returned to jail and their next court appearance is set for Oct. 17.

They were arrested early Sept. 27 under anti-terrorism laws, but were not charged with any terrorist offenses. Baca entri selengkapnya »

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Book ban ends rare Arab-Israeli cultural exchange

Oktober 4, 2008 at 5:57 am (Buku Islam, Membaca, Muslim, Sejarah) ()

Sumber : Yahoo! News via Yahoo! Alerts, By Joseph Nasr Tue Sep 30, 10:41 PM ET

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) – For 15 years Israeli Saleh Abbasi has traded books between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors, fostering a rare cultural link.

But in August Israeli authorities suddenly refused to renew his trading license because he was trading with “enemy” states Lebanon and Syria, frustrating both Abbasi’s business and the Arab and Israeli readers he has helped interest in each other’s literary traditions.

“How can the People of the Book be against books?” Abbasi asked, evoking the Jewish Bible as the first monotheistic holy text. “Books are a bridge to peace between cultures.” Baca entri selengkapnya »

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Walking on eggshells

Oktober 4, 2008 at 4:57 am (Membaca, Novel, Salman Rushdie) ()

Sumber : Guardian.co.uk via Yahoo! Alert, By Kenan Malik, guardian.co.uk, Articles History

Inayat Bunglawala is wrong; a culture of self-censorship is the real legacy of the reaction to The Satanic Verses By Kenan Malik

Inayat Bunglawala thinks I talk “pure twaddle”. Why? Because I suggested in an article about the firebombers who last week attacked the offices of the publishers Gibson Square that part of the problem is that too many liberals have come to accept that it is “morally unacceptable to give offence”.

Not so, said Inayat. “If anyone has given ground in this debate,” he suggested, “it is surely those who once believed in banning books because they regarded them as being ‘offensive’.”

Inayat himself has certainly given ground. Once a campaigner against The Satanic Verses, he now believes that no one has the right not to be offended. Inayat’s welcome change of heart should not, however, blind him (or us) to the fact that much of the rest of the world has been marching in the opposite direction. Baca entri selengkapnya »

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The Given Day

Oktober 4, 2008 at 4:38 am (Book Reviews, Novel, Uncategorized) ()

Dennis Lehane’s ambitious new novel evokes a dark chapter of US history.

Sumber : The Christian Science Monitor, By Carlo Wolff | September 29, 2008 edition

A war-fatigued nation confronts an overheated economy, a tangle of vengeful terrorist organizations, rising joblessness, and racial tension. It sure sounds contemporary but The Given Day, Dennis Lehane’s wildly ambitious new novel, is set in Boston toward the end of World War I.

Lehane is best known for “Mystic River” and “Gone, Baby, Gone,” Boston-based police thrillers that double as morality tales even as they peer into the hearts of dysfunctional families and build on complex layers of honor.

But this time, in his eighth novel, Lehane dips back into the past. It’s an enthralling journey and one that reaffirms the imagination and narrative vigor of Lehane.

“The Given Day” mixes fact and fiction in epic fashion by swirling such historical figures as Babe Ruth, Communist author John Reed, J. Edgar Hoover, and Calvin Coolidge in with fictional characters. The primary focus of the book is the failed Boston police strike of 1919. Baca entri selengkapnya »

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Rushdie: no regrets over ‘The Satanic Verses’

Oktober 4, 2008 at 4:20 am (Muhammad, Novel, Salman Rushdie) ()

Sumber : Yahoo! News via Yahoo! Alert, Wed Oct 1, 7:06 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) – Author Salman Rushdie has no regrets about writing “The Satanic Verses“, he said in comments published on Wednesday, 20 years after the release of the book which earned him an Islamic death threat.

Rushdie, who lived in hiding under police protection for nearly a decade, made the comments amid concern over an attack in London on the publisher of a controversial new book about the Prophet Mohammed.

The Indian-born writer said he would regret not having written a book taking on major religious and philosophical questions.

“The question I’m always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history or does history make us? Do we shape the world or are we just shaped by it?” he said in an interview with Australian broadcaster Clive James.

“The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question and one that I have always tried to ask.

“In that sense I wouldn’t not have wanted to be the writer that asked it,” he added, in comments published on James’ website.

Rushdie, who was raised as a Sunni Muslim, has lived since 1989 under the shadow of an Iranian fatwa — or religious decree — calling for his death over his controversial book published the previous year. Baca entri selengkapnya »

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Attack targeted book on Islam

Oktober 4, 2008 at 4:05 am (Buku Islam, Membaca, Muhammad, Novel) ()

Sumber : Stuff via Yahoo! Alert Sunday, 28 September 2008

Terrorism arrests in North London have been linked to plans to publish in New Zealand and Britain a controversial book on the prophet Muhammad and his child bride.

The arrests are connected to a fire at a property in Islington, north London, which is used as the home and office of Martin Rynja, a publisher whose company, Gibson Square, plans to publish in New Zealand the book The Jewel of Medina, The Telegraph reported.

The blaze may have been started by a petrol bomb pushed through the letterbox.

Initially, three men, aged 22, 30 and 40, were detained at around 2.25am. Two were stopped by armed officers in Lonsdale Square, and the third was seized when a car was stopped by armed police near Angel underground station. The men were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

A major publishing group, Random House US, announced in May this year that it was dropping its plans to publish the debut novel by American journalist Sherry Jones, of Spokane, Washington, following warnings that it could incite acts of violence from radical Muslims. Baca entri selengkapnya »

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The Heretic’s Daughter

Oktober 4, 2008 at 3:34 am (Book Reviews, Kathleen Kent, Membaca, Novel) ()

A debut novel about the Salem witch trials draws on the author’s own ancestry.

Sumber : The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! Alerts, By Yvonne Zipp | October 2, 2008 edition

If you live in Salem, Mass., chances are good your ears are burning right now. Not since the heyday of Nathaniel Hawthorne (or possibly Stephen King) has the town attracted so much fictional attention.

First up was this summer’s bestselling debut “The Lace Reader,” which set a witch hunt in modern Salem. This fall features two debut novels set during the hysteria of 1692, when men and women were hanged on the say-so of little girls.

One of these, The Heretic’s Daughter, by Kathleen Kent, goes inside the home of one of the accused. Martha Carrier, if preacher Cotton Mather is to be believed, was the “Queen of Hell.” To her 9-year-old daughter, Sarah, she was a tough-minded farmer’s wife who didn’t suffer fools at all. And being an outspoken woman in 1690s Massachusetts could get you killed.

“Where there are women, there are witches,” her cousin Margaret tells Sarah. (A feminist slant is almost de rigueur for those wanting to write about the Salem witch trials.) Baca entri selengkapnya »

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