Book cover of A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal

Book description

"A Saint in the City" examines the elaborate visual culture of the Mourides, a Senegalese Sufi movement based upon the mystical teachings of Sheikh Amadou Bamba (1953-1927). In the boldly visual city of Dakar, images abound despite the fact that Senegal is largely a Muslim country. Vibrant street murals, calligraphy…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Saint in the City as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Have you ever read a book about a place which then allowed you to see that location in utterly new and thrilling ways?

As well as being a great study of a wonderful artistic culture, this is, for me, one of the greatest studies of a city and the place of its people, their beliefs, and their art in making it unique.

If that was not enough, it also constitutes one of the most important bodies of conceptual and theoretical thinking about the nature and character of Islamic art.

If you love A Saint in the City...

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…

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