June 28, 2016 edition
Attar lived in a time of slim hope, and died aged 76 in a massacre. He lived in Nishapur, in the province of Khorasan in Persia where he was born around 1145, and was relatively well off. Before he wrote poetry using the name Attar and travelled widely meeting prominent Sufis, he lived comfortably as a pharmacist. Patients thronged to him. From them, Attar earned his living-and from them, too, he got to know sad stories of people and the fragility of faith in life.
So he wrote the Mosibatnmeh or The Book of Strife, an epic poem challenging God.
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More Sidelines articles in other editions
June 21, 2016 edition
His alias was 'Prapanca'. He depicted himself as a man the palace women disliked, someone uneasy with words, somewhat ugly. But he is the first writer of reportage in Indonesian history: the Desawarnana, which he completed in 1365, is a report on the travels of Hayam Wuruk, the king of Majapahit, to various territories of his realm.
Sadly, Prapanca was limited as a reporter. His kakawin is more like a record of impressions of the pleasures and sights from one place to another. The Desawarnana is a 14th-century travelogue. It is not a record of events.
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June 14, 2016 edition
Without being aware of it, in our heads there often arises something powerful, called Right. It is not moved by everything that changes, flows, blooms, shrivels or declines. It is steady. It might make us feel secure, yet it seems we cannot go on living with that.
A poem by Yehuda Amichai comes to mind:
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June 7, 2016 edition
The man in the army hat and black ski mask smoking a small pipe has disappeared. He is not in San Cristobal de las Casa, not in other towns, and not in the Mexican interior. That was where he once took up arms, fought, spoke, wrote, and mingled with the poor Chiapas framers who were fighting for their rights. Ten years later, Subcomandante Marcos, the most prominent figure in the Zapatista rebellion, vanished.
Maybe that is how is should be: fighters come, fighters win, fighters go. Ten years earlier, around 3,000 members of the armed Zapatista forces declared war on the Mexican army, occupied towns, and 150 people died. That was a bad setback for them at the time, but they were later acknowledged as one of the real political forces that succeeded in creating autonomous areas without official recognition. Over those 10 years, Marcos, with his unique style, became the icon of struggle, But then Zapatista made a public statement on March 24, 2014: Marcos was no more: "Marcos, the character is no longer necessary...His character was created and now his creators, the Zapatistas, are destroying him."
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May 31, 2016 edition
From his youth, Mayakovsky was an activist for the Bolsheviks, the outlawed communist organization. He once helped female political prisoners escape from prison. He was arrested and sentenced by the tsarist government to 11 months imprisonment. But this is where Mayakovsky the poet was born. In his cell, he wrote poems-and from then on he never stopped. Over time, his poems, as well as his works of graphic art, theater and film, became increasingly fascinating and brilliant.
After Mayakovsky's death, the now victorious Communist Party erected a statue of him, six meters high, in Triumphal Square in Moscow. "Indifference to his cultural heritage amounts to a crime," Stalin said.
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May 24, 2016 edition
'How profoundly you are cursed, O Granada!'
In Heinrich Heine's tragedy Almansor, Almansur bin Abdullah returns home to Granada from exile. He goes back to the castle of his childhood: The building is still intact on the 'old and beloved' land with its floors covered with carpets of varied hue; the marble pillars still stand strong. Almansor feels at home. But something makes him anxious. Life has changed. The Spanish Muslim kingdom, self-absorbed in its own brilliance, has fallen, conquered by the Catholic power under Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.
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May 17, 2016 edition