Yahia Lababidi

It is not words, song, or art that are tremendous, but the human soul, and what is set in motion when it is stirred to the depths. Where Epics Fail is a collection of over 800 aphorisms from acclaimed writer, essayist and poet Yahia Lababidi. Offering wit and wisdom, inspiration and spirituality, these meditations appeal to our shared humanity and attempt, with art, to guide us through the landscape of everyday life.

Meditations to live by

Where Epics Fail

Alex Stein

The Artist as Mystic is a set of lyric conversations between aphorists Yahia Lababidi and Alex Stein. These conversations constitute what Australians call a Songline a set of sacred songs that allow the reader/listener to navigate through an unknown terrain, in this case, populated by tortured and ecstatic souls: Kafka, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Rilke, Kierkegaard and Ekelund. These visionaries are masterfully evoked in this very fine work of biography and criticism. But these writings are more than the sum of notes on a page, they are song. The Artist as Mystic passes the test of all great writing, not only to delight, but to leave us knowing something of the subject, and ourselves, that we hadn t considered before.

Conversations with Yahia Lababidi

The Artist as Mystic

"There are at least three aspects of this collection of essays which are both singular and superb. First, not surprisingly, the prose is incisive and yet evocative; Lababidi moves from the aphoristic and the epigrammatic to the suggestive, the lightly hinted, the nuanced, with impressive ease. This is a rare gift, more associated with European writers than with American. This striation of tone, of register, of mood, gives a sense of surprise to his sentences; they spring back to the touch. Sometimes they even seem surprised at themselves. Secondly, Lababidi covers a huge range of subjects. From Nietzsche to belly-dancing, indeed! What is impressive, however, is not so much the range itself as the aplomb with which he disports himself there. Kafka, Kierkegaard, Montaigne, et al., rub shoulders with Michael Jackson and "Ramadan TV." But I like the fact that he don't blur distinctions either. These writers or entertainers are treated on their own terms. I'm not a fan of Michael Jackson, or of Susan Sontag, for that matter, but Lababidi persuades me to an unexpected sympathy with them, at least while I'm reading his essays. The ability to reveal or to create affinities is the secret gift of the greatest essayists, in my view, and Lababidi does this impressively often in Trial by Ink. There is also a finely calibrated sense of the absurd, the whimsical, the slyly surrealistic throughout. And this has the unexpected but quite genuine effect of strengthening and emphasizing not only the literary but the moral seriousness of the essays. Finally, there is something which is difficult to express: this book has a distinctive flavour, the unmistakable flavour of a sensibility. This unites the essays, however disparate in topic. But this "taste" is what draws the reader into the book and entices him from one essay to the next. The book becomes an exploration on which the reader embarks. This is one of the elements in collections of essays I most appreciate--this secret invitation au voyage which the author holds out--and Lababidi does this extremely well--with courtesy as well as cunning. The reader is like Bartleby (in my favourite of these essays) who prefers not to but here is persuaded otherwise." -Eric Ormsby, author of Ghazali (Makers of the Muslim World)

From Nietzsche to Belly Dancing

Trial by Ink

"Lababidi moves from the aphoristic and the epigrammatic to the suggestive, the lightly hinted, the nuanced, with impressive ease. This is a rare gift, more associated with European writers than with American. This striation of tone, of register, of mood, gives a sense of surprise to his sentences; they spring back to the touch. Sometimes they even seem surprised at themselves . . . The book becomes an exploration on which the reader embarks. This is one of the elements in collections . . . I most appreciate--this secret invitation au voyage which the author holds out--and Lababidi does this extremely well--with courtesy as well as cunning." --Eric Ormsby, poet, scholar, and author of Ghazali: The Revival of Islam. "I find myself pausing everywhere among these wisdoms, wondering why the world stumbles and staggers through such a dark and greedy time when there are people alive with such keen, caring insight . . . If Yahia Samir Lababidi were in charge of a country, I would want to live there." --Naomi Shihab Nye, poet, anthologist, and author of There Is No Long Distance Now. "Wisdom for Lababidi is on the move, a matter of suppleness rather than rigor, of insights and angles rather than rules . . . As intense as his conversation with himself is, it is also kind, tolerant of his own limits and of ours . . . I give you that expert self-listener, that excellent writer, Yahia Lababidi." --James Richardson, poet, aphorist, and author of By the Numbers

Short Poems

Barely There

Lababidi's new volume brings a dynamic flow to his subject that is both timeless and very contemporary; his insights summon us to a spiritual but entirely undogmatic journey. -Abdal Hakim Murad, author of Travelling Home and Dean of Cambridge Muslim College * Learning to Pray is a masterpiece. Yahia Lababidi is a lyrical genius touched by the genies. I wonder how he is able, time after time, to work such miracles-authentic and truly beautiful. -Peter Zsoldos, Ambassador of the Slovak Republic and poetry translator * Despite its insistence that the mystic "swoons, / defenseless / in the face of beauty," the real mysticism of Lababidi's book of longing is not private but shared: the speaker swoons, and leaves the reader defenseless in the face of beauty. -H. L. Hix, American poet, academic and editor * In lean, luminescent verse, Lababidi has created a portal into quiet worlds, guiding us to be our best selves. He reminds us of the richness of the stilled and savored. In difficult times, his poems help the reader to summon courage and beauty. -Carla Power, author of Prodigal Son and former Newsweek correspondent * Lababidi believes that there is a common denominator between the philosopher and the poet, both of whom struggle to build a bridge between two worlds, the world of the visible and the world of the invisible, and here writing becomes a form of prayer. -Osama Esber, Syrian poet, publisher and translator

A Book of Longing

Learning to Pray

Revolutions of the Heart 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.

Yahia Lababidi

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