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