Common Ground Publishing is proud to release this month a new book by Arab-American writer Yahia Lababidi. Trial by Ink is a collection of 21 literary and cultural essays, a third of which deals with the Middle East.

Acclaimed American poet Alfred Corn writes: "Using critical reason as a kind of peace-keeping mission, Lababidi 's essays about the contemporary Middle East provide some of the freshest commentary I have read on the subject. A beginning so illuminating as this one stands warrant for a major career."

Poet and Islamic scholar, Eric Ormsby, offers this appraisal:

"There are at least three aspects of this collection of essays which are both singular and superb. First, the prose is incisive and yet evocative. [The] 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, what is impressive, is not so much the range itself, as the aplomb with which Lababidi disports himself there. Kafka, Kierkegaard, Montaigne, et al., rub shoulders with Michael Jackson and "Ramadan TV." The ability to reveal or to create affinities is the secret gift of the greatest essayists, and Lababidi does this impressively often in Trial by Ink. 

Finally, there is something which is difficult to express: this book has a distinctive flavour, the unmistakable flavour of a sensibility. This "taste" unites the essays, however disparate in topic.  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.

About the Author

 Yahia Lababidi is the author of Signposts to Elsewhere (Jane Street Press) selected for “Books of the Year” in 2008, by The Independent (UK). Otherwise, Lababidi's poetry and prose appear widely in US journals such as AGNI, Cimarron Review, Hotel Amerika, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today as well as various publications throughout Europe and the Middle East. To date, Lababidi’s writing has been translated into Arabic, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish, and Italian. The only contemporary Arab writer featured in Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists, Lababidi's poetry is included in the best-selling college textbook, Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing (10th edition) in addition to several other anthologies. His forthcoming book is a collection of poems, tentatively titled:  Fever Dreams & Balancing Acts.

Coming Soon

Trial by Ink will be available on Amazon, in print & digitally, beginning of August, 2010.