The Book of Khartoum
The Book of Khartoum

Author: Ali al-Makk

Publisher: Comma Press

Published: 2016-04-28

Total Pages: 93

ISBN-13: 1905583729

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Khartoum, according to one theory, takes its name from the Beja word hartooma, meaning meeting place . Geographically, culturally and historically, the Sudanese capital is certainly that: a meeting place of the Blue and White Niles, a confluence of Arabic and African histories, and a destination point for countless refugees displaced by Sudan s long, troubled history of forced migration. In the pages of this book the first major anthology of Sudanese stories to be translated into English the city also stands as a meeting place for ideas: where the promise and glamour of the big city meets its tough social realities; where traces of a colonial past are still visible in day-to-day life; where the dreams of a young boy, playing in his fathers shop, act out a future that may one day be his. Diverse literary styles also come together here: the political satire of Ahmed al-Malik; the surrealist poetics of Bushra al-Fadil; the social realism of the first postcolonial authors; and the lyrical abstraction of the new Iksir generation. As with any great city, it is from these complex tensions that the best stories begin. "An exciting, long-awaited collection showcasing some of Sudan's finest writers. There is urgency behind the deceptively languorous voices and a piercing vitality to the shorter forms. These writers lay claim over the contradictions and fusions of the capital city - Nile and drought, urbanization and village ties, what is African and what is Arab." - Leila Aboulela

The Song of Ascents
The Song of Ascents

Author: Tom Hiney

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2022-06-01

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1642292222

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The Truth is bigger than we are, and if it comes for us, everything might break open. "It falls from heaven," writes Tom Hiney. "It can fall at four in the morning when you are cold with insomnia, and it can refuse to fall when advertised. It has a life of its own, and sometimes appears with a special intensity." God calls, whether we are ready or not. The Song of Ascents tells the stories of lives laid bare by love, stories that, over the years, gradually spurred acclaimed English biographer Tom Hiney up the ragged mountain of his own conversion to Roman Catholicism."These stories," he says, "are about people turning to God in horrible moments, with faltering human hearts like mine, and finding Him to be faithful." Written in lean, vigorous prose, the book is a visceral study of faith, in which the holiness of other men and women leads the writer to realize that, despite everything, anything is possible with God, even joy. A medieval king awaiting a Viking invasion (King Alfred), a Jesuit evangelist at the court of Akbar (Father Monserrate), a West African prince in 1890s Indiana (Samuel Morris), and a composer in Communist Poland (Henryk Górecki), as well as a trapped Arctic whaling vessel (the Diana), a lost explorer (David Livingstone), a disobedient general (Charles Gordon), and an aging war hero (the author's own father)—all these become unlikely companions in Hiney's messy, fumbling journey to Christ. The Song of Ascents is about coming to faith through stories, including the humanly incredible storytelling of the Church's unique, heavenly, and inevitable destiny.