A Brand New Novel
Josephine Baker, the early-20th-century African-American dancer, comic, and singer–hugely famous in Paris. Did you know that she was also a spy for the French Resistance during WWII?
Callout
Tag Archives: free speech
Courage, Islam, the West, and THE JEWEL OF MEDINA
I remember the moment I discovered A’isha bint Abi Bakr, the youngest wife of the Prophet Muhammad. I found her in a book on women in Islam that I read after 9/11, when many of us were learning for the first time of the terrible oppression of women in Afghanistan. Nine-year-old A’isha was playing on …
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Frantic, fabulous touring!
Dear Reader, Traveling to foreign countries, being on TV and the radio, it all sounds so glamorous! And it is … but it’s also very hard work. I arrived in Stockholm at about 4 p.m., to greet my publisher Shadi Bitar of Earbooks, waiting for me bearing a sign with his own name on it …
No pain, no gain
The remarkable, fabulous highlights of my life since the controversy over THE JEWEL OF MEDINA catapulted me to fame, or infamy, depending on your point of view.
Does fear conquer all?
Dear Reader, “Aren’t you scared?” I get asked this question all the time, most recently in the wake of the news that three radical extremist Muslim men conspired to set fire to the home office of Gibson Square, the London publisher that had been set to publish “The Jewel of Medina” last October. The full …
In Denmark: Talking about free speech
Every cloud, the saying goes, has a silver lining. And so it goes with “The Jewel of Medina,” being yanked out of publication by Random House, the world’s largest English-language publisher, just months before it was scheduled to appear on bookshelves in the U.S., then being the subject of threats in Serbia and an attack …