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Deborah Kapchan is an American folklorist and ethnographer who’s written a new memoir, Taking Leave, about her complicated relationship with three different major religions: Judaism and Christianity, which formed her as a kid in New York, as well as Sufi Islam, which intrigued her during a phase of her life in Morocco. I was interested in this book in part because Somalia is also a Sufi nation, at least on the surface, and like my book Taking Leave ends in a rejection of tribalism.

Resources:

Taking Leave, by Deborah Kapchan

Deborah’s website

Gnawa music, as recorded by Paul Bowles

The Desert and the Sea, by Michael Scott Moore

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