Bloomsbury 185 pp. $19.95
Walking on eggshells
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 »
The Given Day
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 »
Rushdie: no regrets over ‘The Satanic Verses’
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 »
Attack targeted book on Islam
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 »
The Heretic’s Daughter
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 »
Why reading is not fundamental
A professor of literature extols the virtues of nonreading
Sumber : The Christian Monitor, By Marjorie Kehe | January 28, 2008 edition
I must admit that I hadn’t read more than a few sentences of Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You
Haven’t Read before I found myself thinking, “There’s no way he really believes this.” After all, how likely is it that a French intellectual (psychoanalyst and professor of French literature at the Sorbonne) is going to publicly suggest that too much reading may not be good for you? And that there is a certain virtue to nonreading? And yet that’s exactly the way that Bayard begins his trim little treatise (which is, by the way, laced with references to literature).
And so I certainly felt wary as I inched into the preface. “We still live in a society, on the decline though it may be,” notes Bayard, “where reading remains the object of a kind of worship.” It is to break through this mind set, Bayard explains, that “throughout this book, I will insist on the risks of reading – so frequently underestimated – for anyone who intends to talk about books, and even more so for those who plan to review them.”
Okay, so he’s being clever, I figured. He’s French after all, and probably very comfortable with irony. And he has certainly read Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” in which the wily Mark Anthony announces, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him,” and then does quite the opposite.
But no, long before I reached the epilogue I realized that Bayard is quite serious. (And if he’s ever read “Julius Caesar” he’s certainly not going to brag about it.) Baca entri selengkapnya »
Keluar dari Garis Kawan
Oleh Ihsan Ali-Fauzi, Direktur Program Yayasan Wakaf Paramadina
Sumber: TEMPO (Edisi 8-14 September 2008) Memoar seorang yang memutuskan keluar dari anggota jaringan Hizbut Tahrir di Inggris. Potret kecupetan berpikir.
PADA mulanya dia adalah pemuda kalem yang taat salat, mengaji, dan lembut tutur katanya kepada semua orang. Tapi, pada usia 16 tahun, ada sesuatu yang berubah: ia terlibat dalam jaringan Hizbut Tahrir di Inggris. Di matanya Islam juga ideologi yang harus mengatur semua soal, dari jenggot hingga boleh-tidaknya voting di parlemen.
Ed Husain berubah menjadi ”Islamis”. Islam ideal itu, bagi Ed Husain, tengah dikangkangi kapitalisme, sosialisme, dan ideologi sekuler lainnya, dan harus ditegakkan kembali lewat pembentukan khilafah. Dengan begitulah ”Islam sebagai solusi” bisa didesakkan ke ruang publik, termasuk dengan memanfaatkan berkah demokrasi Inggris.
Lewat buku The Islamist yang sudah diterjemahkan menjadi Matinya Semangat Jihad: Catatan Perjalanan Seorang Islamis (penerbit Alvabet) bulan lalu, Husain mengisahkan pengalamannya terpikat pada Hizbut Tahrir selama lima tahun. Ia menyelam, sebelum akhirnya memutuskan keluar dari organisasi yang mendapat ruang hidup di Inggris itu. Baca entri selengkapnya »
Teruslah Berubah, Jangan Pernah Berhenti
Oleh Rusdin Didin
Baru-baru ini, aku mendapat banyak pelajaran bermakna dalam hidup. Pelajaran yang selalu membuat pikiranku mengalir puluhan pertanyaan dalam diri. Salah satu pertanyaanku—dari sekian banyak pertanyaan—yaitu adakah perubahan dalam hidupku ini. Aku sadar dan sangat sadar bahwa waktu terus bergati, dan tak pernah mengenal kata berhenti tapi sudahkah diriku ini menjadi lebih baik. Ah…aku tersadar, aku harus sesegera mungkin mengubah gelombang hidupku. Karena aku yakin bahwa hidup ini selalu mengalami perubahan. Bukan begitu sahabat?
Dua alternatif yang pasti aku jalani dalam rangka pencapaian perubahan hidupku. Apa itu? perubahan ke arah yang baik atau sebaliknya, berubah ke arah keburukkan. Setiap hari pastilah diriku berubah. Dan dua alternatif tadi (kebaikan atau keburukkan) pastilah terjadi dalam keseharian hidupku. Bahkan, kalau aku tak mau berubah ke arah lebih baik, pastilah aku akan menjalani kehidupan yang terpuruk. Aku ingat sekali sabda baginda Rasulullah tercinta (Saw); Baca entri selengkapnya »
Menyingkap TEROR & FITNAH
Oleh Sally Setianingsih
Judul: Menyingkap TEROR & FITNAH, Penulis : Hj.Irena Handono, Penerbit: Gerbang Publishing
Tebal : 320 halaman, Cetakan : Agustus 2008
Stereotip bahwa Islam adalah agama yang penuh kekerasan, disebarkan dengan peperangan serta agama terbelakang melekat kuat pada pikiran orang-orang barat. Hal ini dikarenakan mereka tidak memahami Islam secara benar. Sejarah tentang Islam dipenuhi oleh pendapat-pendapat para orientalis yang tendensius. Pemberitaan terhadap Islam pun penuh dengan propaganda negatif.
“Padahal jika barat memahami Islam langsung dari sumbernya, tidak terpengaruh oleh segala opini negatif yang ada saat ini serta jujur terhadap sejarah maka merekapun akan menyadari bahwa segala prasangka mereka kepada Islam adalah salah.” (Karen Armstrong) Baca entri selengkapnya »
Kepentingan Penerbit, Keinginan Peresensi
Oleh Anwar Holid
HUBUNGAN peresensi dengan penerbit ternyata cukup kompleks. Ini terjadi karena dalam diri peresensi terkandung beberapa aspek pembacaan dan kepenulisan, antara lain menyatu sekaligus sebagai pembeli (konsumen), pencinta (penikmat) buku, dan kritikus buku. Sementara kepentingan penerbit biasanya lebih langsung dan jelas, ialah harapan agar terbitannya diterima khalayak (pasar), diapresiasi dengan baik, dan cukup pantas untuk dibanggakan.
Mencari pola kerja sama yang pas dan fleksibel antara penerbit dan peresensi merupakan tema pertemuan peresensi Penerbit Matahati, yang diadakan di perpustakaan Bale Pustaka, Bandung, 28 Agustus 2008. Di awal berdiri, Matahati boleh jadi paling dikenal karena menerbitkan tetralogi Kisah Klan Otori (Lian Hearn.) Mereka kini menerbitkan fiksi dan nonfiksi, mulai dari genre fiksi fantastik sampai buku manajemen motivasi diri dan wawasan dunia medis. Hadirin hampir semua sekaligus merupakan blogger, dengan rentang kecenderungan antara sebagai desainer dan komikus, penulis buku dan cerpen, jurnalis, dan pendidik Buku dan tulisan sudah mengurat dalam diri mereka. Baca entri selengkapnya »
