Our own Yahia Lababidi will be at Oxford to launch his latest book Where Epics Fail: Meditations to Live By

Meet the Author - wine reception to follow

In @yahialababidi's own words,

I hardly have (more) words, at this point, and have been dancing in place and hyper-ventilating all morning! Would I have ever imagined such an honor when I was a 12 year old in boarding school, in England? Hardly. Or as a late teen, scribbling in the margins of books by my literary masters? Possibly :)

Dreams can come true...

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Click on the image below to read more of this Steemit post:

Book launch and conversation with Yahia Lababidi in conversation with Ben Grant

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in short-form writing in American letters. The acclaimed Egyptian-American writer Yahia Lababidi has played a major part in this, as one of the foremost contemporary writers of aphorisms, and this event will mark the UK launch of his latest collection, Where Epics Fail: Meditations to Live By. A reading by Yahia will be followed by a conversation between him and the literary scholar Dr Ben Grant (Kellogg College), author of The Aphorism and Other Short Forms (2016). They will address such questions as the nature of the aphorism; how Lababidi’s work has been influenced by the Egyptian and American contexts; and the role of wisdom in today’s troubled world. Please come and join the conversation.

This event is open to the public.

To be followed by a wine reception.

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Here are excerpts from one of my favorite reviews from World Literature Today

While Lababidi shares a profound connection with the great Sufi mystics and their penchant for aphoristic writing, his voice is unique, deeply modern, and steeped with a warm sense of humor. Rather than rehashing the tropes of mysticism with an occasional mention of new technology, Lababidi weaves his spiritual thread into the very fabric of contemporary life, extracting insightful lessons as much from airline travel and tourism as from ideas about the nature of art or God.

Many of his aphorisms would not seem out of place on your particularly witty friend’s social media channel, and indeed, Lababidi devotes several pages to aphorisms specifically about how society is adapting to these new platforms of communication. “Before Twitter, hardly anyone knew what an aphorism was. After Twitter, almost everyone suspects they are an aphorist.” As pithy as these two sentences seem to be, their subtext brings up all sorts of questions about the effects of social media on the individual and how society has changed with the advent of this new medium.

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Lababidi, Egyptian-American thinker/poet, is the author of 6 critically-acclaimed books and has been featured on NPR, Best American Poetry, World Literature Today, On Being with Krista Tippett, The Guardian and Al Jazeera, among many other places.
source: goodreads

Order your copy by selecting from your seller of choice at goodreads:

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.

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source: Amazon

! Here's another keeper from Yahia:

Forthcoming Book of Muslim Poetry—A Peace Offering

Of course I tweet links to his Steemit posts!


From Ben Grant, "Lecturer in English in the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford, with a penchant for world literature, aphorisms and other stuff," at Twitter:

31 Oct, 5pm! Free and open to all. No need to book.

Off I go to buy and read this book myself!