In this mesmerizing novel, a wealthy young boy searching for his mother teams up with a fiery jinn princess all while battling in a tournament of heirs—and trying to keep his life from changing forever. Twelve-year-old Amir is one of the heirs to the Rafiq Bricks Company, a wealthy brick kiln business in Pakistan—except he wants none of it. Seeing straight through the jeweled smiles and transactional conversations, Amir would rather spend time in the courtyard garden, where he can almost feel his missing mother’s presence again. Amir is devastated when his baba announces plans to remarry by the end of the summer, dropping all searches to find Amir’s mother. It’s all a business move, just like everything else in his life. His mother was the only one who allowed him to feel normal, but the last anyone’s seen of her was a year ago. But Amir isn’t ready to give up yet—determined to find his mother before his life changes forever, Amir teams up with a high-spirited, wide-eyed, shape-shifting jinn princess named Shamsa. His exact opposite. The two make a deal—Shamsa will help Amir navigate the twisty and mysterious realm of jinn, and in exchange Amir must use his wits to help Shamsa win a tournament of heirs and put her on the throne. Amir and Shamsa must contend with silver-tongued tricksters and magical rivals, and a truth far more devastating than Amir ever expected.…

The earliest written literature of the Sasak people of Lombok (Indonesia) is in Javanese, and includes romantic and religious poetry, as well as original works such as local histories. From the nineteenth century onwards, poems have been composed in Sasak with greater local reference. The Sasak also have a strong tradition of oral literature, including lyric verse and prose folk tales, many of which have been recorded. All these are considered in the present work, based on study of materials in Leiden, Java, Bali and Lombok, followed by fieldwork in Lombok in 1991.

Under the Absolute Amir is an account of life and work in Kabul by Frank A. Martin, who for eight years was engineer-in-chief to Amir ʻAbd al-Rahman Khan (reigned 1880-1901), ruler of Afghanistan, and later to his son and successor, Habibullah (reigned 1901-19). The book provides a first-hand overview of Afghanistan, written from a European perspective, and is particularly interesting on subjects such as roads, trade, and economic development, with which the author was directly involved. It includes chapters on travel, the city of Kabul, manners and customs, the life of Europeans in Afghanistan, soldiers and arms, geological conditions in the country, religion, and the political situation. As indicated by the title, Martin is especially struck by absolute monarchy as the Afghan system of government. He opines that "fortunately there are few parts of the earth where such a form of government exists, for it is not one which is likely to produce the greatest good for the greatest number." Chapters devoted to the character and policies of Amir ʻAbd al-Rahman Khan, prisons and prisoners, and tortures and methods of execution underscore the despotic character of the state. Martin also stresses, however, the interest of both ʻAbd al-Rahman Khan and his son in the modernization and development of the country and the keen interest that both took in trade, commerce, and mechanical tools of all kinds. The chapter "Trades and Commerce" draws on Martin's involvement in managing the government workshops, which at this time constituted the main industrial base of the country. The chapter on the political situation contains accounts of Martin's conversations with ʻAbd al-Rahman Khan, including one in which the Afghan ruler expresses his interest in obtaining a strip of territory in Baluchistan that would provide direct access to the sea. The book is illustrated with photographs and drawings by the author.

A collection of stories from 18 different countries and peoples, with introductory statements on folk tales in general.

Traditional literature, or 'the deed of the reed pen' as it was called by its creators, is not only the most valuable part of the cultural heritage of the Malay people, but also a shared legacy of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei. Malay culture during its heyday saw the entire Universe as a piece of literature written by the Creator with the Sublime Pen on the Guarded Tablet. Literature was not just the creation of a scribe, but a scribe himself, imprinting words on the 'sheet of memory' and thus shaping human personality. This book, the first comprehensive survey of traditional Malay literature in English since 1939, embraces more than a millennium of Malay letters from the vague data of the seventh century up to the early beginnings of the modern literatures in the late nineteenth century. The long path trodden by traditional Malay literature is viewed in historical and theoretical perspectives as a development of integral system, caused by cultural and religious changes, primarily by gradual Islamization. This changing system considered in the entirety of its genres and works, is seen both externally and internally: from the point of view of modern scholarship and through the examination of indigenous concepts of literary creativity, poetics and aesthetics. The book not only repesents an original study based on a specific historico-theoretical approach, but it is also a complete reference-work and an indispensable manual for students.

This catalogue contains descriptions of the romanized transliterations of manuscripts from Lombok in Javanese and Sasak kept by the Historical Documentation Department of the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde in Leiden (Or. 508). The 506 items in this collection were collected between 1932 and 1941 by the Gedong Kirtya, Singaraja, Bali.