April 18, 2004 Welcome to a generous selection of articles from DAWN's Weekly Books & Authors. This page is updated every Sunday. For current issue Click here Bridging the divide Relations between India and Pakistan have been at best cool, at worst hostile, ever since 1947.... EXCERPTS: African links Most historians have assumed that the Sidis are descendants of black slaves or mercenaries who accompanied early Muslim traders and later armies that came to pillage and eventually conquer Sindh, Gujarat and parts of South India.... ARTICLES: Looking for a ‘be-all’ book Having recently returned to Pakistan and toying with the idea of going back to work, Maliha is spending her days indulging in her favourite activity — reading. For reading, she says,... ARTICLES: Lost to flood and fire Few bibliophiles are as persevering as prolific scholar Abu Salman Shahjehanpuri. Twice he lost his cherished collections of books: first to a flash flood in Nawabshah and, over 30 years later,... AUTHOR: Zubaida Sultana 93 and still writing Zubaida Sultana is uncomplicated and straightforward, quite unlike the winding roads that lead to her home in Samanabad, Lahore. A writer who has written extensively for children, Zubaida Sultana’s recent series... REVIEWS: Pipe dream Pakistanis are said to have a geographic mind map that does not stretch beyond Afghanistan in the northwest. This book unveils almost all that lies on the other side of the... REVIEWS: The Spanish journey Norman Lewis was 95 years old when he died last year. He wrote only a dozen or so travel books but they are disarmingly brilliant gems of that wily, slippery genre... REVIEWS: Voices of sanity Out of the Nuclear Shadow, a compilation of liberal civil society voices in India and Pakistan, is a refreshing read in a region often resonating with noises of belligerent rhetoric and... REVIEW: Theorizing foreign policy Foreign policy is a subject of great interest and unending debate involving experts as well as the general public. Much of this debate in Pakistan and also perhaps in other countries... REVIEWS: Beholden for ever The most enduring element in global politics in the past 50 years has been the unqualified and unreserved (to some, undeserved) American support to Israel. To many a critic of US... REVIEWS: Ahead of her times Khurshid Mirza was the fourth daughter of the legendary Sheikh Abdullah of Aligarh who dedicated his life to the promotion of education of Muslim women. His mentor Sir Syed Ahmed had... REVIEWS: South Asian view of Islam Akbar S. Ahmad’s Discovering Islam, first published a decade ago and on which the BBC based its six part series, “Living Islam”, is “part autobiography, part history, part literature, and part... REVIEWS: The rhythm method is best Do you want your handshake to be firm when you are first introduced to the new director? Make sure you arrange the meeting for between 6:00pm and 8:00pm. Faced with a... REVIEWS: Muffled cries After Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia, Jean Sasson’s Mayada lifts the veil off Saddam Hussein and the animosity of his party members against the... REVIEWS: Humanism in Iqbal’s poetry Ezra Pound defined genius as “the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one”. In him are dancing notes and elements, which are impossible to pin down. A... IN BRIEF When reviewing John Grisham’s latest offering, The Last Juror, The New York Times said: “[the book] does not need to coast on its author’s megapopularity....

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