The Raft of The Medusa, Black Rose Books (1993)

A transcript of The Raft of The Medusa and critical commentaries;

“Amin Maalouf: I would say that the whole story of Chirine, and the manuscript, [the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam lost with the Titanic] is a sort of allegory for what the Orient becomes when it is at once taken in hand, and misunderstood, by the Occident. I would say that the Orient is a victim of two factors, itself and the Occident, and there is a fringe of people in the Orient, a fringe which I myself belong to, who want to see things evolve, but who always find themselves caught between the rise of fanaticism in their native religion, and the wall of incomprehension in the Occidental world. And I can feel this every day. Every day I have to ask myself, is it really necessary to speak up? Is it worth it to speak? Are people going to understand one day? And I often avoid it, I avoid speaking about Islam. I think that there is such a climate of distrust, of intellectual terror, that subtle ideas, conciliatory ideas have less and less place.”