· June, 2008

Stories about Literature from June, 2008

Trinidad & Tobago: Poetic Port of Spain

  30 June 2008

Trinidadian blogger Sweetlime dips into the newly published Echo of Basho. He discovers that even though haiku and Port of Spain are as distinct as “oil and water”, authors Alec de Verteuil and Dawn Glashier have melded them beautifully.

Russia: Dostoevsky Museums

Josefina of Russian Blog visits Dostoevsky Museum in Moscow – and writes briefly about the other six, in St. Petersburg, Staraya Russa, Darovoye, Novokuznetsk, Omsk, and Semipalatinsk.

China: Happy to Become Earthquake Ghost

  18 June 2008

A propaganda poem published in a Shandong newspapers has been called by netizen “the most shameless piece”. (via webbbs) The poem written by the vice president of Shandong Writers Association said that “1.3 billion people cried together, even one has become ghost, s/he should be happy”, “Wish the tomb can...

Brazil: The Black President Before Obama

  17 June 2008

The sweeping Obama phenomenon has caught Brazil, and it comes as no surprise in the country with the world's largest population of African descendants. An especially notable thread is the one reporting on the resurgence of a weirdly interesting 1928 Brazilian sci-fi novel — ‘The Black President' — that predicted a US election matching a black, a feminist, and a conservative candidate in the then remote year of 2228.

Jamaica: Red Man

  16 June 2008

Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp posts a poem on “the curse of being apart, neither black nor white, but red…”

Kyrgyzstan: A Nation Is Grieving for Chingiz Aitmatov

Ben Paarmann writes in honor of Kyrgyzstan author Chingiz Aitmatov who died on Tuesday this week, at the age of 79. "Thanks to Chingiz Aitmatov, Central Asian traditions, lifestyles, myths - but most importantly - a transcendental Central Asian "feeling" became part of Soviet culture, known and celebrated beyond the borders of the former empire." writes Paarmann.

Cuba: Hemingway History

  11 June 2008

The Cuban Triangle and Child of the Revolution weigh on on an article in the London Times which exposes the goings-on at Finca Vigia, the Hemingway house in Cuba: “I have…seen a docent offer to cut a page out of a book in Hemingway’s library – a page with his...

Dominican Republic: The Writer Junot Díaz

  11 June 2008

Dominican writer Junot Díaz and Pulitzer Prize winner in 2008 believes that people should get back into the habit of reading because it puts the “reader into contact with another human, another nervous system, another imagination.” Greeysis de la Cruz writes more on the background and thoughts of this writer...

Bahamas: Policing Poetry

  10 June 2008

Helen Klonaris at new Bahamian blog The Gaulin Wife is concerned that “two young poets are being investigated by the police because of the alleged sexual content of their poetry”, saying: “If the police are investigating poets and poetry, it is because they can: we as a society have agreed...

Trinidad & Tobago: Literary Sparring

  9 June 2008

Trinidad and Tobago based lit-bog Antilles continues to examine the Walcott/Naipaul feud, while Tattoo wonders where his literary role models have gone: “Who will inspire the next generation of writers in a positive way?”