In the time-honored tradition of La Rouchfoucauld, Blake, Nietzsche, and Gibran s books of aphorisms, Signposts to Elsewhere is a work of condensed thought and considered brevity. Meditations on life, death, faith, art, love, etc... are broken into four accessible sections: Psychological, Spiritual, Literary, and Philosophical -illustrated by the zany, evocative work of Kuwaiti artist Ghadah Al Kandari Of the author of Signposts, Egyptian essayist and poet Yahia Lababidi, esteemed Nietzsche scholar and translator, R.J. Hollingdale wrote: "I can assure you that you have mastered the aphoristic form: many of your aphorisms are formally perfect." (while Greek scholar and Gibran authority, Robin Waterfield, wrote of the aphorisms that they are of a quality generally higher than Gibran") Aphoristically precise introductory remarks are generously provided by respected poet and aphorist James Richardson, along with an advance review from renowned poet and aphorist Alfred Corn.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Yahia Lababidi's aphorisms are elegant, thoughtful and wise, written proof that the art of the aphorism is still very much alive. --James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase:
Signposts to Elsewhere: by Yahia Samir Lababidi is a succulent, stunning collection of images and thoughts more well-lit than the old swinging torches of the lamplighters. I find myself pausing everywhere among these wisdoms, wondering why the world stumbles and staggers through such a dark and greedy time when there are people alive with such keen, caring insight. This is a book to live with for the long run, to return to again and again, as one returns to a favorite corner for reading and thinking. If Yahia Samir Lababidi were in charge of a country, I would want to live there. --Naomi Shihab Nye, poet and editor
Yahia Lababidi says the source of aphorism is the soul s dialogue with itself, which confirms the surmise of a reader encountering these ironic but unvitriolic observations of human nature and philosophical thinking. Lababidi knows that fables and metaphors overcome resistance more readily than facts and position papers. His half smile becomes our own, changing our self-estimate, and then who knows? the choices we make as well. --Alfred Corn, poet and aphorist
Signposts to Elsewhere: by Yahia Samir Lababidi is a succulent, stunning collection of images and thoughts more well-lit than the old swinging torches of the lamplighters. I find myself pausing everywhere among these wisdoms, wondering why the world stumbles and staggers through such a dark and greedy time when there are people alive with such keen, caring insight. This is a book to live with for the long run, to return to again and again, as one returns to a favorite corner for reading and thinking. If Yahia Samir Lababidi were in charge of a country, I would want to live there. --Naomi Shihab Nye, poet and editor
Yahia Lababidi says the source of aphorism is the soul s dialogue with itself, which confirms the surmise of a reader encountering these ironic but unvitriolic observations of human nature and philosophical thinking. Lababidi knows that fables and metaphors overcome resistance more readily than facts and position papers. His half smile becomes our own, changing our self-estimate, and then who knows? the choices we make as well. --Alfred Corn, poet and aphorist
About the Author
Yahia Lababidi is an internationally published writer. His articles, essays and poems have appeared in journals world-wide, including: Leviathan: Melville studies (USA), Cimarron Review (USA), The Idler (UK), Arena (Australia), Montreal Serai (Canada), Bidoun: Middle East Arts and Culture as well as regional lifestyle magazines Carnival Arabia and Enigma (Egypt). Having worked as editor for UNESCO Cairo Office, for nine years, Yahia Lababidi is currently a freelance writer, based in the US. A selection of his aphorisms is to be featured in an Encyclopedia of the World s Aphorists, by James Geary, due in 2007.
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More About the Author
Yahia Lababidi is an internationally-acclaimed aphorist, poet, and essayist. He is the only contemporary Arab writer featured in the encylopedia: Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists, and the youngest poet included in the best-selling US college textbook, Literature: an Introduction to Reading and Writing (10th edition).
Lababidi's book Signposts to Elsewhere (Jane Street Press) was selected as a 2008 Book of the Year by The Independent (UK). His latest books are a collection of literary and cultural essays, Trial by Ink: From Nietzsche to Belly Dancing (also available electronically from Common Ground Publishing) and the new poetry collection, Fever Dreams, available (online) directly from the publishers: Crisis Chronicles Press. To date, Lababidi's writing has been translated into Arabic, Slovak, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Turkish.
Lababidi's book Signposts to Elsewhere (Jane Street Press) was selected as a 2008 Book of the Year by The Independent (UK). His latest books are a collection of literary and cultural essays, Trial by Ink: From Nietzsche to Belly Dancing (also available electronically from Common Ground Publishing) and the new poetry collection, Fever Dreams, available (online) directly from the publishers: Crisis Chronicles Press. To date, Lababidi's writing has been translated into Arabic, Slovak, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Turkish.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quick, Fresh, Vital,
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This review is from: Signposts to Elsewhere (Perfect Paperback)
Short and resonant, aphorisms take just a second to read and are ideally suited to the pace of our times. Yahia Lababidi has revived this form, and his book, Signposts to Elsewhere, teems with observations which seem as fresh and unexpected as a good haiku. Many of his epigrams are humorous: "To be overeducated is to be overfed and undernourished." Others call up memories: "When we were young, our blood sufficed as stimulant." All are alive and enlivening. Labidibi has grouped his sayings thematically, and each set is accompanied by a clever drawing by Ghada Alkhandari. Personally, I prefer to open them at random. When I'm bored or tired, a comment like "Opposites attract, similarities last" can wake me for the rest of the day.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Signposts,
This review is from: Signposts to Elsewhere (Perfect Paperback)
A wonderful gift.Small truths, neatly bound. Timeless
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like water, one finds themselves returning often to this source of mental water,
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This review is from: Signposts to Elsewhere (Paperback)
I have read, re-read, at least a dozen times, "Signposts to Elsewhere" and my book is still in remarkably good condition as I treasure it and the author's intellect to stimulate the reader's mind with such simple words at times and others with a bit more depth to the actual meaning. If you read Yahia's interview with Alex Stein you are privileged to learn how the author came to be so communicative in his own unique way as his origins started with his grandmother's who spoke and taught him with saying's that would eventually awaken him to notice Kafka and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche! (and who is to say that Nietzsche losing his father- the little German town's Lutheran Minister at age 5 and Nietzsche being named after the Prussian King who appointed his father- and the Prussian King and Nietzsche both shared the same birthday, thus 'Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche' and then 6 month's later, to suffer the loss of his younger brother, the relocations that followed, such early trauma in a young life- were not the foundational bricks that one day Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche would stand upon!) And Yahia Lababidi was deeply affected by Nietzsche as he reveals in his interview with Alex Stein. "Signposts to Elsewhere" is a rare treasure that you find yourself constantly opening and enjoying. And for myself, it has been 3 years of rarely a day missing one/two/three/four/five or more of Yahia's thoughts. Every so often we are given a gift to the world, in this case, Yahia's path in life, with Nietzsche as a domino, just as Kafka was, and his grandmother's, to the writing and publishing of "Signposts to Elsewhere", a gift to each of us from Yahia who treasures great thoughts and the genuineness of each of his observations, some phrased in such a way as to make you read it over and over and like Lay's Potato Chip's, you just cannot stop at one! Which is how I have read this book so many times and will continue to do so as like water, it is soothing to the mind. Enjoy! Treasure it! Constantly come back to it- you can never read just one thought, your mind is thirsty and you will always read 'just one more'! And enjoy Yahia Lababidi's latest gifts/works as Yahia is 'the gift' and what he chooses to share with us is a 'gift' from him. My best to all who revel in the endless waters of great minds.
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