Tamim Ansary, Author of “Destiny Disrupted, A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes”
Monday, February 28, 20117:00 PM - 9:00 PM
UCLA Faculty Center
Sequoia Room
Los Angeles, CA
In conversation with Nushin Arbabzadah, Afghan author, journalist, analyst and translator.
Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted presents an alternative narrative of World History that places the Islamic world at the center and shows what world history looks like from the perspective of the “middle world,” that vast region between Europe and China. Considering the life and career of Prophet Mohammed as a pivotal event, it chronicles the rise of Islam as a community, religion, and empire, to the ideological movements that took shape in the modern Middle East and culminated in the events of 9/11. This evening’s conversation will revisit the book’s alternative narrative from the author’s personal experience as an Afghan Muslim.
Tamim Ansary, author, lecturer, and teacher, was born and raised in Afghanistan and has lived in the United States since 1964. His columns and analyses can be found at his blogsite www.mirtamimansary.com. Ansary’s books include a historical novel (The Widow’s Husband) a memoir (West of Kabul, East of New York) and Destiny Disrupted: World History through Islamic Eyes, which won the 2010 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction. A one-time columnist for Encarta.com, Ansary runs the 70-year-old San Francisco Writers’ Workshop, from which has emerged such authors as Ella Leffland and Khaled Hosseini.
Nushin Arbabzadah is a Research Scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. A former BBC news editor and advisor on Islamic culture and identity for the British Council, she has edited No Ordinary Life: Being Young in the Worlds of Islam (2004), From Outside In: Refugees in British Society (2007), and Three Drops of Blood (2009), and translated Houshang Assadie’s Letters to My Torturer (2010) from Farsi to English.
There will be a reception at 6:00 pm preceding the program. Copies of Destiny Disrupted will be available for purchase.
Parking is available for $10 in Parking Structure 2. Enter the UCLA campus at Westholme Dr. from Hilgard Ave. and obtain a permit from the visitor kiosk. Directions and parking information may be found at http://map.ais.ucla.edu/portal/site/UCLA/menuitem.3f8e7342ad4ca217b66d4ab4f848344a/?vgnextoid=e590cd255551c010VgnVCM200000dd6643a4RCRD.
UCLA Asia Institute(310) 825-0007
eleicester@international.ucla.edu
Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Asia Pacific Center, Center for India and South Asia, Center for the Study of Religion