"Taking Leave is a lyrical memoir and meditation on the titular practice in its many senses-from the author's mother leaving her marriage, to her own taking leave of the Jewish and Christian faiths she was raised in to embrace Sufi Islam, and her taking leave of her home country to live as an expatriate in France and Morocco. Deborah Kapchan also reflects on the more mystical taking leave through meditation and other religious practice-taking leave of your body and senses-whether through solemn Sufi mystical practice or Afro-Islamic possession trances. As Kapchan moves along her journey from her split religious upbringing in the Bronx to her research travel and mystical exploration, we see how taking leave means remaining rooted, and the complexities of in-betweenness that this results in across these contexts"--
Drawing on her experiences with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, Deborah Kapchan offers a lyrical memoir that explores the extent that we can take leave of who we are to live between categories.
Deborah Kapchan’s Taking Leave is a lyrical memoir that encompasses journeys both inner and outer, physical and spiritual. Taking readers from New York, Paris, and Casablanca to Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi while exploring her Christian childhood, Jewish lineage, and the release she found in Islam, Kapchan examines the extent to which we can take leave of who we are to live between categories. She meditates on absence, presence, and the sublime to weave an existential tale that honors the three traditions that made her, ultimately desiring to take leave of them all. Taking Leave is an urgent plea for anti-tribalism and a timely treatise for compassionate coexistence in the spaces in-between.
