The Book Of Naseeb

The Book of Naseeb tells the story of an idealistic heroin dealer who dreams of fitting the victims of war in Afghanistan with artificial limbs. In this breathtaking first novel, Khaled Nurul Hakim chronicles the hero's struggle for redemption through the backstreets and motorway service stations of modern Britain to the desert and mountains of a fictional borderland. Written in an exhilarating, incantatory blend of street argot and Quranic-inspired language, The Book of Naseeb charts an epic journey like no other. 'A completely absorbing, singular book. Night journey, border odyssey, angel's-eye view of human striving.' YASMINE SEALE 'What a book - visionary, terrifying, remarkable use of language. London, Birmingham, Afghan borderland. Khaled Nurul Hakim is a writer you won't forget, and this deserves to be read.' TOM BOLTON

The hundreds of biblical references in Shakespeare's plays give ample evidence that he was well acquainted with Scripture. Not only is the range of his biblical references impressive, but also the aptness with which he makes them. Hamlet and Othello each have more than fifty biblical references. No study of Shakespeare's plays is complete that ignores Shakespeare's use of scripture. The Bibles that Shakespeare knew, however, were not those that are in use today. By the time the King James Bible appeared in 1611, Shakespeare's career was all but over, and the Anglican liturgy that is evident in his plays is likewise one that few persons are acquainted with. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the English Bibles of Shakespeare's day, notes their similarities and differences, and indicates which version the playwright knew best. The thorny question of what constitutes a valid biblical reference is also discussed. The study of Shakespeare's biblical references is not based on secondary sources. The author owned one of the world's largest collections of early English bibles, including over one hundred copies of the Geneva bible and numerous editions of other Bibles, prayer books, and books of homilies of Shakespeare's day. To be of real worth, a study of Shakespeare's biblical references should also enable the reader to determine which references Shakespeare borrowed from his plot sources and which he added from his own memory as part of his design for the play. The author studies every source that Shakespeare is known to have read or consulted before writing each play and has examined the biblical references in those sources. Shaheen then points out which biblical references in his literary sources Shakespeare accepted, and how he adapted them in his plays. This information is especially valuable when assessing the theological meanings that are sometimes imposed on his plays, meanings that often go beyond what Shakespeare intended or what his audience must have understood. Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays is considerably broader in scope than any other study of its kind and provides the scholarly checks and balances in dealing with the subject that previous studies lacked. .

Why do Shakespeare and the English Bible seem to have an inherent relationship with each other? How have these two monumental traditions in the history of the book functioned as mutually reinforcing sources of cultural authority? How do material books and related reading practices serve as specific sites of intersection between these two textual traditions? This collection makes a significant intervention in our understanding of Shakespeare, the Bible, and the role of textual materiality in the construction of cultural authority. Departing from conventional source study, it questions the often naturalized links between the Shakespearean and biblical corpora, examining instead the historically contingent ways these links have been forged. The volume brings together leading scholars in Shakespeare, book history, and the Bible as literature, whose essays converge on the question of Scripture as source versus Scripture as process—whether that scripture is biblical or Shakespearean—and in turn explore themes such as cultural authority, pedagogy, secularism, textual scholarship, and the materiality of texts. Covering an historical span from Shakespeare’s post-Reformation era to present-day Northern Ireland, the volume uncovers how Shakespeare and the Bible’s intertwined histories illuminate the enduring tensions between materiality and transcendence in the history of the book.

"Scholar and magician, Siegel uncovers the age-old practices of magic in sacred rites and rituals and unveils the contemporary world of Indian magic of street and stage entertainers. Siegel's journeys take him from ancient Sanskrit texts to the slums of New Dehli as he explores India's remarkable magical tradition." --Publisher's description.

The 'book' - both material and metaphoric - is strewn throughout Shakespeare's plays: it is held by Hamlet as he turns through revenge to madness; buried deep in the mudded ooze by Prospero when he has shaken out his art like music and violence; it is forced by Richard II to withstand the mortality of deposition, fetishised by lovers, tormented by pedagogues, lost by kings, written by the alienated, and hung about war with the blood of lost voices. The 'book' begins and ends Shakespeare's dramatic career as change itself, standing the distance between violence and hope, between holding and losing. Shakespeare and the Idea of the Book is about the book in Shakespeare's plays. Focusing on seven plays, not only for the chronology and range they present, but also for their particular relationship to the book - whether it is political or humanist, cognitive or illusory, satirical or sexual, spiritual or secular, social or subjective - Scott argues that the book on stage, its literal and semantic presence, offers one of the most articulate and developed hermeneutic tools available for the study of early modern English culture.

"This book is about allusions to the Bible in Shakespeare's plays. It argues that such allusions are frequent, deliberate, and significant, and that the study of these allusions is repaid by a deeper understanding of the plays." - Introduction.

My father has probably untied me from the electric pole. now I am lying in a narrow and dark cell like a sick and physically depleted animal, My tongue lolling out. There lie a few loaves of Chapattis and a small bowl of pulses or perhaps curry in a corner. But I am not able to bite My morsel.ages have passed since I entered this state. Sometimes, a bright day dawns with the sun scowling for ages, and sometimes everything remains plunged into darkness alone to itself, The heart hangs from a washing line like a wrung out towel, waving and fluttering in the wind.the building sprawling across miles is fenced by the black and sinister-looking high walls overgrown with weeds. during the nights their roar gets distinctly louder, stirring the creepy and eerie feelings. The tall eucalyptus trees standing in rows peer ominously at the desolate area, and throughout the day the monkeys go on jumping onto the walls from trees and then up on the trees. The stray cats climb the dreary walls to let out whimpers.the forlorn building is surrounded by long corridors inhabited by the ghosts and witches resembling human beings. Sometimes, they let out piercing shrieks in unison.and sometimes they roar with laughter rending the air.quite frequently, the eerie and Lonely lanes echo with the sound of some unseen heavy footsteps.the place is also peopled by a few human beings deployed as guards for the security of the ghosts and the witches jarring sound of a burning kerosene stove deepens the weirdness of the silence. In the still of the night, some hyenas are heard Roaring with laughter somewhere in the distance. And perched on a hidden branch is an owl shooting ominously while adding uncanny mysteriousness to the looming silence. The Lonely road reverberates with such a terrifying roar of trucks that other sounds die down.(from the book of death).