[1359] Dedication

Guest poem sent in by Nakul Krishna <nakulkr@>

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.

 	-- Salman Rushdie

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: vikram doctor <vikdoc@>

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