April 6, 2003 Welcome to a generous selection of articles from DAWN's Weekly Books & Authors. This page is updated every Sunday. For current issue Click here What America wants The latest phase of the Israel-Palestine conflict opened on September 29, 2000, on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, when Prime Minister Ehud Barak dispatched a massive and intimidating police and military presence to the Al-Aqsa compound.... EXCERPTS: A basic human need At present, over 500 million South Asians live in absolute poverty while over 300 million are chronically malnourished. This is about 40 per cent of all food insecure people in the developing world (800 million).... ARTICLE: Mourning an American martyr The ongoing Israeli operation against the civilian population of the occupied territories as well as the situation unfolding in the aggression against Iraq has highlighted what may be one of the... ARTICLE: Reviving the love for learning It was an occasion of great jubilation in the Allauddin household whenever somebody bought a new book. The entire family would gather round the dining table to discuss its contents. Nothing... ARTICLE: Married to death All of Sylvia Plath’s poems seem in retrospect to be some kind of rehearsal for her eventual suicide on February 11, 1963 when she was just 32. She had twice attempted... ARTICLE: Book club with an impact The news from the American book world is that Oprah Winfrey is reviving her on-air Oprah Winfrey Book Club after a ten months’ hiatus. The new club is tentatively titled “Travelling... AUTHOR: Fateh Muhammad Malik: Passion and duty “Teaching is my profession. Nourishing and serving Urdu literature is my passion. The gradual decline of the Urdu language, our writers’ insensitivity, and our governments’ apathy towards literature have prompted me... SYNDICATED REVIEWS: Catastrophe theories “All writers,” Martin Amis once said, “if they mean business, if they’re ambitious, have got to think they’re the best. You haven’t got a chance of being the best unless you... SYNDICATED REVIEWS: Iran at the crossroads Readers who crave a shift away from shadows of the self and toward illuminations of the world will rejoice to read Afshin Molavi’s prologue to Persian Pilgrimages in which he writes... REVIEWS: Rugged terrain There is very little which Barnett Rubin does not know about Afghanistan. As Professor of Political Science and Director of Studies, as well as holding the position of Senior Fellow at... REVIEWS: Craving for good life This is a wide ranging book. It spans themes from abstract theories on development to surveys of people about their well-being. Given the limited space, not all topics could be covered... REVIEWS: Expanding human freedoms The book under review has been co-authored by the Nobel prize-winning economist Professor Amartya Sen and his Delhi- based colleague, Jean Dreze. They explore the role of public action in eliminating... REVIEWS: Understanding women’s roles The reading of the above two books opened up a new world of ideas in my mind. The books very logically and authentically dispel various misconceptions about Islam and, in particular,... REVIEWS: Multicultural landscapes It isn’t often the case that Marvin Gaye and V.S Naipaul make an appearance in the pages of the same publication. Then again, it isn’t often that a piece of literature...

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