Tariq Ali and Laura Flanders Come to Houston

April 19, 2005 at Rice’s Grand Hall

HOUSTON, April --, 2005…. The 2005 recipient of the Lannan award, Tariq Ali will be delivering an address on Tuesday April 19th at 7:30 PM at Rice University, Grand Hall in the Student Center. Appearing with Ali for a book signing will be Laura Flanders, author of Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species and host of “The Laura Flanders Show.” Ali will be presenting his two new books, Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties and Speaking of Empire and Resistance. The event is cosponsored by Friends of KPFT Houston, and Voices Breaking Boundaries. A donation of $5 - $10 is appreciated.

Radical icon and charismatic polemicist - Tariq Ali remembers his formative decade in a new edition of Street-Fighting Years. Ali’s journey takes readers from his childhood home in Lahore, Pakistan to his arrival in Great Britain 1963, where he became a fixture in the emergent New Left. At the legendary leftwing newspaper The Black Dwarf, Ali encountered some of the period’s most alluring figures: Malcolm X, Marlon Brando, Bertrand Russell, Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave, Stokely Carmichael, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and the Rolling Stones. This compelling new edition contains Power to the People!, the famous with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1971. Ali has written a substantial new introduction, shedding light on his continued political life, his work in film and television, and his close affiliations with Edward Said, Derek Jarman, Terry Eagleton and Abdelrahman Munif.

In Speaking of Empire and Resistance, a series of stirring conversations between Tariq Ali and Alternative Radio’s David Barsamian, Ali’s startlingly prescient observations turn a sharp eye on the American and British invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. His provocative ideas explain not only Anglo-American motivations, but the sense of betrayal and powerlessness that has led to the international surge of terrorism that Americans now claim to fight. “In order to justify infinite war, they have invented this enemy, which—I’m almost tired of pointing this out—they created themselves at the height of the Cold War…” says Ali.

Laura Flanders is the host of "The Laura Flanders Show" heard weekends, 7-10 pm on the Air America Radio network. Bushwomen, her new book, is an investigation into the women in George W. Bush's Cabinet. Publisher's Weekly called Flanders' best-selling book, "fierce, funny and intelligent." Flanders writes regularly for Tompaine.com, the Nation, Ms. Magazine and Znet.

Funds raised by this event will go to support Houston Indy Media, KPFT Pacifica, Houston Global Awareness, Houston Peace and Justice Center, and the University of Houston’s Young Democrats. www.voicesbreakingboundaries.org.

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