Naseem Rakha's Blog

• Reading in Prison

  August 20, 2010

  • The most exclusive book club I have met with since the publication of my novel, THE CRYING TREE, was at the Coffee Creek Correctional Center in Wilsonville, Oregon. There, in the prison’s small library, I sat down with eight inmates who had just read my book and had plenty to say about its topics: murder, the death penalty, hatred, loss and forgiveness.It was my 50th birthday, and I had been ...
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• Healing in a Hard Place

  May 23, 2010

  • By NASEEM RAKHA guest columnist for The Oregonian May 23, 2010How do people heal from violent crime? How do they mend after a rape or assault, or after losing a loved one to murder? How do they get over the grief, anger and gnawing sense that no matter what happens, justice will never be served? For Patricia Dahlgren, whose mother, June Duncan, was abducted and strangled in December 1995, the ...
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• The Lump Part Two

  May 5, 2010

  • It was nothing. Well not nothing. But not that something that conjures up images of pink ribbons and mastectomies, as it does for so many millions - that is MILLIONS of people, men included. This was not my first brush with the big C. Seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Malignant Fibrous Histiocytoma (MFH), or to those in the know, Mother Fucker from Hell. The lump was near my knee and ...
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