Dedication
Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu:
All our dream-worlds may come true.
Fairy lands are fearsome too.
As I wander far from view
Read, and bring me home to you.
Commentary
Driven into hiding by Khomeini’s infamous fatwa, a lonely Salman Rushdie wrote ‘Haroun and the Sea of Stories’ – an anti-censorship allegory set in a fantastic quasi-Arabian-Nights world in danger of being destroyed by the evil ‘cult-master’ Khattam-Shud, the enemy of all speech itself.
But part of Rushdie’s intention in writing ‘Haroun’ was to explain the situation to his then nine-year old son, Zafar, whose name is spelt out in the lines of the above dedication. Clever, and touching, like the book itself: highly recommended.
Cheers, Nakul.
PS. Possible theme for the Minstrels – poems by writers better known for their prose… [nice idea - will carry on with it - martin]
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Vikram Doctor · 28 September 2003
Zembla suggests one straight away - the long poem in Nabokov’s Pale Fire. The real story in the book is, of course, in the Preface and notes to the poem written by the increasingly insane narrator, Charles Kinbote (who says he’s the exiled King of Zembla). But the poem itself, attributed to a Frost like poet called John Shade, is no bad thing in itself,
Vikram