Nusrat: The Voice of Faith

Summary

Shahenshah-e-Qawwali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice gripped the imagination of people across the world. A man of deep simplicity, as well as someone truly of his times, he singlehandedly made qawwali a global passion. With hundreds of albums to his credit, and millions of sales, Nusrat had an all-consuming mission: to spread the message of the Sufi poets and mystics. In Pakistan and abroad, he reincarnated the ancient Sufi culture, steeped in mysticism and devotion, with a blazing modernity. This book is a personal account of the great qawwal’s life by Pierre-Alain Baud who had intimate access to Nusrat for over a decade. Baud, who was overcome with emotion when he heard Nusrat during his very first concerts in France in 1985, often travelled with the artiste and contributed to organizing numerous shows for him all over the world and in Pakistan, until his untimely death in 1997. This insightful account is replete with anecdotes from those travels and enriched by conversations with the great man’s friends, family and collaborators. Nusrat is, in the author’s words, the result of ‘generous exchanges interrupted by unexpected vocal demonstrations, stunning silences, fiery looks and the magic of his personality, so close yet constantly eluding us’.

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