Navid Kermani

Navid Kermani is an acclaimed writer already well known in the English-speaking world for his books Upheaval: The Refugee Trek through Europe and Along the Trenches: A Journey through Eastern Europe to Isfahan. His new book, In the Other Direction Now, continues his thoughtful documentation of global peripheries. Visiting southern Madagascar, the Comoros, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan, Kermani examines how global fault lines converge, from post-colonial neglect and the devastating impact of climate change to the rising and often nefarious influence of China and the consequences of the Ukraine War. Reflective, astute, and intellectually rigorous, Kermani’s empathetic yet unflinching perspective does not aim to interpret Africa for us, but to learn from it in all its variousness and multiplicity. Music emerges as a unifying thread – Christian hymns, Sufi dances, and Sudanese jazz become symbols of resilience and transformation, providing cultural links that bind communities across conflict, faith, and history and offering a counterpoint to colonial clichés and Western ignorance. These specific, grounded accounts of people and places contextualise global inequalities not as a product of some intrinsic African deficiency but as part of interconnected systems shaped by the Global North as much as by local governance and the legacy of colonialism. In the Other Direction Now is so much more than a travelogue; it is a work of human depth and understanding and has much to teach those interested in contemporary global affairs and postcolonial realities.

Navid Kermani is one of the outstanding public intellectuals of his generation. Not one for drawing hard and fast conclusions, his style of thought is probing, observant, often straying from well-trodden paths and always peering beyond the present moment to trace connections and grasp the bigger picture. Well known for his prize-winning novels and major works of non-fiction, Kermani has also gained widespread acclaim as a journalist, displaying a rare political sensitivity which manages to illuminate what politicians fail to see and to seek out solutions where all appears hopeless. This volume brings together his brilliantly perceptive writing from the last thirty years, on topics ranging from terror in the Middle East to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a record of Kermani’s uniquely compassionate curiosity, this absorbing book is a welcome antidote to the confusion and despair that stalks global politics today.

Navid Kermani is one of the outstanding public intellectuals of his generation. Not one for drawing hard and fast conclusions, his style of thought is probing, observant, often straying from well-trodden paths and always peering beyond the present moment to trace connections and grasp the bigger picture. Well known for his prize-winning novels and major works of non-fiction, Kermani has also gained widespread acclaim as a journalist, displaying a rare political sensitivity which manages to illuminate what politicians fail to see and to seek out solutions where all appears hopeless. This volume brings together his brilliantly perceptive writing from the last thirty years, on topics ranging from terror in the Middle East to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a record of Kermani’s uniquely compassionate curiosity, this absorbing book is a welcome antidote to the confusion and despair that stalks global politics today.

‘When your grandpa was in hospital, he asked me one night to promise him that, when he had gone from us, I would teach you Islam – our Islam: the Islam I grew up with … In that dark, impersonal room, he was thinking of you.’ This is why one father began to teach his daughter night after night not only about his own religion, but about that which unites all believers, about God and death, about love and the infinity that surrounds us. This highly personal book is not only a magical literary masterpiece, but also a rich resource of knowledge, and this because Navid Kermani dares to venture into the darkness in order to give expression to our confusion. And because his way of talking, his openness, his knowledge which derives from his immersion in two cultures, are so unique, so light and so deep.

A romantic novel like no other. A writer has penned a novel about the great love of his youth. After a public reading, he is approached by a woman he doesn’t recognize—but it’s his lover. He is the author; she, the figure in his novel. The young girl from back then has turned into an interesting and attractive woman—but she’s also married. Soon the situation becomes a little strange: they sit down together, have a glass of wine, talk about French romantic novels, ask each other what one expects of love when one grows older. And all the while her husband is sitting in the next room. How is this going to end? Navid Kermani has written a romantic novel like no other—surprising, witty, profound—and one can barely put it down.