Yusuf Toropov's Blog: Literary Striver, page 9

The Work In Progress

It took me a while to figure out what the hell it was about. Now that I've got a handle on the opening, it's like there's a member of the family waiting to ask me how the day went every time I open up the laptop. That's a very good feeling, to know that your story is waiting for you.

I am not a big believer -- anymore -- in broadcasting everything that's going on with a book I'm working on. I'm a little more wary. Anyone familiar with this blog knows that I shared a lot -- probably too much --...

Last day to win a free copy of JIHADI: A LOVE STORY via Goodreads

Click here to enter the drawing! Over 500 people have entered. Giveaway ends at midnight tonight California time.

I'm a panelist at the TRUTH IN FICTION event on May 4 in London -- be there!

Really looking forward to this. Edward F. Wilson and Paul Hardisty will also be on the panel, inshaAllah, chaired by Sunny Singh. Sponsored by The Authors' Club.

Event Description: The very best fiction opens our eyes to the world around us, challenges preconceived ideas and highlights issues in society and often across history. Join us for a thought-provoking, fascinating and exciting evening of readings and discussions about truth in fiction, and about novels that leave us wondering how much...

Mr. Yeats and Mr. Trump

So here we go.

If this turns into a brokered GOP convention, I am hoping there is some Irish TV station with the instinct and the courage to broadcast it live. I don't care what time it is on over here. I'm staying up to watch it. I'm a political science geek, and if the Republican Party is going to have a nervous breakdown on national television, I want to watch while it takes place.

No American major-party convention has been gaveled to order with the nomination unsettled since 1948. Heavy hi...

Excerpt from JIHADI: A LOVE STORY: "My Love For America" (The opening of the novel)

From the Desk of R.L. Firestone 

This is no love story, though the late author would have had it so. A sad tale, a tale of treason, Jihadi, an encrypted memoir posing as a novel, is the work of the terrorist Ali Liddell, upon whom the justice of God descended on July 3, 2006. This date marked both his forty-fifth birthday and the fourteenth anniversary of the star-cursed day that I recommended we hire him. I here seek formal immunity against prosecution for his death.

Although my detractor...

No apologies: On books that kiss you goodnight and close the door

Let me here record my firm conviction that it is no grave sin to write a book that demands one's full attention ... and no great virtue to write a book that offers coitus on the first date.

We need more books, I think, that kiss you goodnight, close the door and expect you to make the next move. With demagogues on the rise everywhere, with new religiously-fueled variations on McCarthyism more stylish every day in every nominally secular state, with extremists in the Middle East burning down li...

George Martin

The Beatles' producer, a gentleman and a visionary, passed away yesterday at the age of 90. His contributions to our culture -- and to my life -- are incalculable.

East and West

To the degree that we make East and West, Us and the Other, we betray humanity.

The true struggle has never been between Islam and Pagan, but between God-Consciousness (Taqwa) and Self. 
This is why I emphasize coexistence, and specifically literature as a key to coexistence. (I'm a writer, what else can I do.)
See also this piece on postmodernism and Islam.

The Quran On Gratitude

Every morning, I write down three things I want to accomplish during the day.

Every night, before I go to bed, I write down three things that took place during the day for which I am grateful.

All praise to Allah, the creator of all that is seen and unseen.

Yes, I'm a man. Yes, I'm a Muslim. Yes, I am a feminist. #InternationalWomensDay

Islamic feminism is the global expression of feminism that concerns itself with the role of women in Islam.

Islamic feminists, male and female, work for gender equality, women's rights, and social justice in an Islamic context. The belief that the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was unconcerned with the rights of women is a persistent urban legend Islamic feminists aim to uproot.



My novel JIHADI: A LOVE STORY is a feminist novel, and I'm grateful to Allah to have been able to write it. I'm...