Stories about Literature from January, 2007
Egypt: January Bookfair
Blogger Baheya is back from the Book Fair, with three books in tow. “I’ve plucked only three of the most prominent features this year, two worthwhile new novels and a marvellous book lifted straight from the texture of daily life,” she wrote, giving us an interesting review of the books!
Venzuela: Translations from Spanish
Guillermo Parra of Venepoetics has published a slew of recent translations including Eduardo Vásquez's “Postmodernity Once Again,” which proposes two distinct foundations for Chavez's so-called “21st Century Socialism.” Parra also introduces his readers to award-winning poet and novelist Alberto Barrera Tyszka whose biography of Hugo Chavez will be published in...
Arabisc: Egyptian Bloggers Tie the Knot
Like in Egyptian movies, there is a thin line between imagination and reality in Egypt, where two politically active bloggers get close to each other at an anti-government rally, then fall in love and finally get married. Blogger Albara Ashraf reports this happy story, without failing to conjure some of...
Kuwait: What is a Muhajababe?
K the Kuwaiti has just come across an interesting book, which he has ordered online, provided, of course, it gets past the Kuwaiti customs! The book is entitled Muhajababes: Meet the Middle East's next generation. As an explanation, K tells is that: “muhajabah noun (Arabic) a woman who veils muhajababe...
Puerto Rico: Two poems
Puerto Rican writer Elidio La Torre-Lagares posts two interesting poems in English.
South Asia: Human rights, blogosphere, traditions, democracy, discrimination, travel and festivals
Picks from different blogs from the following South Asian Countries: Bangladesh: After 5 years detention in Guantanamo, one Bangladeshi (Mobarak) was recently released by the US authorities. However he was arrested again by Bangladesh Airport police for interrogation as soon as he arrived in Dhaka. Naeem of Drishtipat blog is...
Brazil: Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist
“By all rights, Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist should have single-handedly delivered a knock-out blow to any popular conception that Latin American literature is ‘good’ literature. The novel is, simply put, execrable tripe.” So begins Posthegemony's ranting review of what it terms Coelho's famous work of “anti-literature”. Still, Jon admits that...
Jamaica, St. Lucia, Barbados: Post-independence
Geoffrey Philp takes on the subject of post-Independence literature in the Caribbean, noting the particular significance of the work of poets Kamau Braithwaite, Derek Walcott and Mervyn Morris.
China: statement on banned book
ESWN translated Zhang Yihe's statement and position towards the list of 2006 banned books in China. “This book (Past Histories of Peking Opera Stars)is banned because of that person.” That person is Zhang Yi-he.
Nepal: Inheritance of Loss
Deepak Adhikari on Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss. “It was nice to read the story of Gorkhaland movement at a time when the demand is resurfacing. …I was in this small hill station Kalimpong in mid 1990s. A religious group called Krishna Pranami from Itahari organized a tour to Kalimpong...
India: The Big Book and Reviews
Amardeep Singh writes on a rather long book that has reviewers writing the review without finishing it. “There seems to be something about Vikram Chandra's heavily-hyped, 900 page Bombay gangster novel, Sacred Games, that has led reviewers to publish evaluations before they've finished reading the book.”
Lebanon: A Bouquet of Topics
A variety of subjects were brought up in the Lebanese blogosphere this week. Following are some of the topics with links to selected posts about each. Hope you enjoy reading them. On the Environment: The oil spill that covered the Mediterranean coast last July as a result of Israeli bombardment...
Ukraine: Diaspora Illustrator
Ukraine List writes about Yaroslava Surmach-Mills, a Ukrainian-American illustrator.
South Korea: textbook debate
Robert Koehler from Marmot's Hole puts together debate related to a novel used as an English text in U.S. middle schools which contains description of abuse and rape of Japanese by Koreans during the closing stage of Japanese imperialism: And for the record, I have no idea how many American...
Chile: Isabel Allende: What's in a Cover
Don't judge a book by its cover. That is, unless you want insight into how major publishing houses try to market the translations of foreign writers. Noting the difference between Isabel Allende's original book covers in Spanish and their subsequent English releases, Posthegemony postulates: “Perhaps this is a tension for...
Haiti: 10 essential writers
Baturrico posts a photo of a street side bookseller in Haiti and a list (ES) and a hyperlinked list of the “10 essential figures of Haitian literature”.
Iran:There is money for Lebanese People not for Iranians
Ghomar Asheghaneh criticised Iranian government financial's support regarding Lebanese publishers.He says Lebanese publishers got a lot of financial support to participate in International Book Fair in Iran but Iranian editors and publishers got nothing[Fa]. The blogger adds publishers are in a very bad situation in Iran but government does not...
Puerto Rico: Writers who blog
Eugenio Martínez Rodríguez is pleased (ES) to see that at least one Puerto Rican writer has a blog (or two), which doesn't prevent him from offering the writer a bit of advice. In an update, Eugenio reports that the writer has responded to his critiques on his own blog.
China: Return of the Wang
Or King, according to the title of Wang Xiaofeng‘s January 10 post which brings with it the news that the eighties and nineties badboy of Chinese literature and one-time “spiritual pollutant” Wang Shuo will be on the cover of the next issue of Life Week magazine, for which Wang (Xiaofeng)...
Jamaica: 30 years on, critique still holds water
The latest installment in Geoffrey Philp's “In My Own Words” series, which focuses on Caribbean writers, is a critique of the Caribbean's failure to give recognition to the arts written 30 years ago by Jamaican poet/playwright/screenwriter/journalist Olivier Stephenson. Geoffrey kicks off the comments with the words: “Although it’s sad that...
Haiti: Commemorating Novelist Jaques Roumain
Reacting to news that this year will be the 100th anniversary of novelist Jacques Roumain‘s birth, Collectif Haiti de Provence asks (Fr): “Will Haitians do the comemoration of the author of Gouverneurs de la Rosee [Masters of the Dew] justice?”
