BRATTLEBORO — Join the Windham World Affairs Council (WWAC) on Sunday, Dec. 13, for a live Zoom event with author Arthur Magida as he discusses his Pultizer Prize-nominated work, Code Name Madeleine: A Sufi Spy in Nazi-occupied Paris, a much-lauded new biography of Noor Inayat Khan.
Author Magida will discuss how we can harness Noor's strengths and unique qualities for the greater good today.
Noor's father brought Sufism (Islamic mysticism) to the West in 1910. While serving as a secret agent for the British in France during World War II, Noor - poet, musician, and author - never strayed from Sufi teachings of love, service, and forgiveness.
For 10 months, she organized cells, invigorated the Resistance, and sent messages to London indispensable for D-Day, all while constantly on the run from the Gestapo.
When finally caught, Noor tried to escape twice from a Nazi prison in Paris. Sent to Germany, she was chained in solitary confinement for 10 months, then executed at Dachau. Her last word was “Liberté.”
“The heart,” Noor wrote, “must be broken in order for the real to come forth.”
Magida lives in Baltimore, Md. and graduated from Marlboro College. He also has master's degrees in history from Georgetown University and in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology.
An award-winning journalist, his books include The Nazi Séance, The Rabbi and the Hit Man, and Prophet of Rage.
Formerly a professor at Georgetown University and the University of Baltimore, Magida has been senior editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times and a consultant for several PBS documentaries and to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Magida has also been columnist for Beliefnet.com, a contributing correspondent to PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, editorial director of Jewish Lights Publishing, and environmental reporter for National Journal. His writing has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines.
Register in advance for this free webinar at bit.ly/590-magida. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
For more information, visit windhamworldaffairscouncil.org.