Special Event Book Group May 16 at 7 p.m.

New Hampshire Humanities Perspectives Book Discussion

Join us to discuss Samarkand by Amin Maalouf with special guest Mohamed Defaa.

FREE COPIES OF THE BOOK ARE NOW AVAILABLE

Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognizing genius, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone. Thus begins the seamless blend of fact and fiction that is Samarkand. Vividly recreating the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat   of Omar Khayyam, Amin Maalouf spans continents and centuries with breathtaking vision: the dusky exoticism of 11th-century Persia, with its poetesses and assassins; the same country's struggles nine hundred years later, seen through the eyes of an American academic obsessed with finding the original manuscript; and the fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, whose tragedy led to the Rubaiyaat's final resting place.

Mohamed Defaa is certified by the International Center for Educational and Cultural Consulting in Lyon, France. He earned an MA in Communication and Expression at the University Mohamed V in Rabat, Morocco, and a BA in French Language and Literature from the University Ibn Tofail in Kénitra, Morocco. Defaa has served as an assistant professor of Communication and Cultural Expression at the University Hassan the Second in Casablanca, Morocco, and a college instructor in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He is a French and Arabic teacher at Merrimack High School, and an Arabic instructor at Southern New Hampshire University.