JET Author: “Rock & Roll Jihad” co-written by Robert Schroeder
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Rock & Roll Jihad
Robert Schroeder (Shizuoka, ’92-’93), a JET alum and journalist based in Maryland, has released a book he co-wrote called Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution (Free Press/Simon & Schuster). After Schroeder wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal profiling the Pakistani musician in 2007, the star asked him to be his writing assistant on his memoir. And now, just a few months after publication, the book has already garnered high praise, both from celebrities like physician Deepak Chopra and Amazon readers.
The memoir follows the life of Salman Ahmad — founder of the “U2 of Asia” Sufi-rock band Junoon, a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, and teacher of South Asian poetry — who is now credited as the first musician to bridge the gap between the West and the Muslim world. He brought chart-topping rock & roll riffs to new ears in his home country of Pakistan, but also reined in listeners from around the world, including those at the UN General Assembly and the Nobel Peace Prize concert.
Ahmad, with the writing assistance of Schroeder, chronicle the cultural and political intricacies of navigating the politically tense Middle East, along with the post-9/11 world as a whole, as he continues to educate through music the true diversity of the Islamic faith and its art to the rest of the globe.
Schroder himself is not new to crossing national borders. A former NHK producer and now reporter at Marketwatch, he has contributed pieces about Japan in numerous American periodicals, including a review in The Washington Post of a Virginia inn with Japanese style ofuro baths and traditional breakfasts. Another first-person piece in The New York Times Magazine recounts the shock of eating whale sashimi in Ayukawa. To read more of his pieces, click here.
To preview the first few pages of the book, read here.
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