October 19, 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 Time to count the dead THIS US-led war on Iraq has been a calculated military onslaught. All the causes cited to justify this war have turned out to be devoid of any solid basis. Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein was to be toppled and removed. He has not been found.... Excerpts: Marriages are made in... A STRONG patriarchal system, based on a family-oriented society, pervades Pakistan. Marriages within the family and clan are common. The focus is on patrilocal residence and patrilineal descent. The social system is extremely gender stratified.... Articles: In quest of identity RECENTLY the Pulitzer Award winner, Jhumpa Lahiri, came to the bookstore, Politics and Prose, in Washington DC to read from her latest book, The Namesake, published in August 2003. The event,... Articles: Retreat of the mind READING to Mehjabeen Abidi-Habib is a sort of retreat of the mind after a hard day’s work. Since she is currently involved in research and is no longer working in an office, she reads “to be in the company... Author: The voice of Africa FIRST and last, J.M. Coetzee is the essential novelist of the new South Africa. Born in 1940, the son of a sheep farmer, he grew up with apartheid, absorbed its crimes... Author: Inimitable poet MUSTAFA Zaidi, an aesthete of the highest order and an inimitable poet, wrote couplets on all issues that attracted his attention. Be it his poetic critique on the unjust functioning of... Syndicated Reviews: Out of reach I ONCE asked a son of Neil Armstrong what it was like, growing up, to watch Star Trek with the first human being to set foot on the moon. “Star Trek drove my father crazy,”.... Syndicated Reviews: On the eve of destruction POMPEII is set in a much warmer climate than Nazi Berlin, but has one thing in common with Robert Harris’ best-selling Fatherland. It borrows, for its momentum, the conventions of the thriller, squeezing a steadily accelerating narrative into a four-day time frame. As every reader knows, the plot is going to end with.... Syndicated Reviews: Ticking time bomb IN HER latest novel, The Tattooed Girl, Joyce Carol Oates doesn’t waste any time announcing her theme. “How is intimacy?” wonders the reclusive but “sexually susceptible” Seigl, the young author of... Review: Unravelling India’s past CHARLES Allen was born in India, where six generations of his family served the British administration. He has written eleven books on the subcontinent. This, his latest publication, is both informative... Review: Towards peace and progress THE first issue of the South Asian Journal, a quarterly magazine of South Asian scholars and journalists, is a unique publication in a number of ways. For one, it is the first attempt by any organization, academic or otherwise, to make a serious effort to source articles in such a manner that there is a semblance of balance in the... Review: Constructing tradition DAVID CANNADINE, Professor of History at London University, is a well known historian having written six books including a biography of G.M. Trevelyan, the great Cambridge historian. He specializes in the... Review: Part of the con THIS book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about globalization but were too afraid to ask. This is with a caveat however. The title Open World: The Truth about... Review: Mission to Kabul EMPIRES have a historically useful function. When one group of people gains a momentary advantage over others in organization and technology, it uses the resulting strength to bring the others under... Review: Luck and tide WHOEVER said Dickens was dead! He is reincarnated in the young and highly talented author, Sarah Waters. Fingersmith (slang for thieves and pick pockets in 19th century England) was short listed... Review: In quest of spiritual bliss KHWAJA Mir Dard (1721-1785), of Delhi, was the first major Urdu poet to write mystical verse of great beauty while Shah Abdul Latif (1689-1752), of Bhit Shah, Sindh, was the greatest... Review: Charming cities, ugly cities CITIES are extraordinary places. They are cockpits of human endeavour, where the astonishing power, which lies within every individual can, in many cases be given full vent. Places where spectacles, both... Review: Emotional tides THE latest collection of Zeeshan Sahil’s poems published under the title Jang ke Dinon Mein (In the Days of War) in his own words, “...have not been written to express sympathy...

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