Over the 26 years that I have been interviewing authors I have come to realize that one can never predict what to expect when I engage in these dialogues. I never know where the conversational flow could go. This interview with Asra Q. Nomani is a good example of what I'm talking about. The subject of her book, tantric sex, was certainly an unusual topic. Our discussion meandered along some circuitous trails until we got to Pakistan. The author had lived there just a couple of years before we had this conversation. That was right after 9/11. Nomani was back in her hometown in West Virginia when we did this interview by telephone.
Daniel Pearl was a close friend of hers and a colleague at the Wall Street Journal. He was in Pakistan, too. She had seen him just a few days before Pearl got lured into supposedly doing an interview with a shadowy figure. It was a trap. He got abducted, then murdered. When he went missing Asra Q. Nomani went through the agony of wondering what had become of him and after his fate was revealed she got involved in an organization created to honor his memory.
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