Stories about Literature from October, 2006
Ukraine: Andrei Kurkov
Ukraine Study Tour blog writes about Ukrainian writer Andrei Kurkov and Ukrainian literature.
India: Assamese Writer – Manikuntala Bhattacharya
my xofura on an emerging Assamese writer and why her work is worth reading. “Be it Pages Stained With Blood,The Moth Eaten Howdah Of A Tusker of Goswami,almost all her novels revolve around a specific situation with intricate deatils of history, lifestyle and mannerisms of the society that she is...
China: Writings on the walls
Back in the day, big character posters were mostly used for vile purposes, so when they started popping up recently on shop fronts in a remote corner of China's Yunnan province, it's no surprise mention was made at major Chinese forum Tianya. From Tianya blogger Big Reporter (大记者): 云南石林县惊现”大字报” Shilin...
Bolivia: National Book Reviews
Blogs de Bolivia describes [ES] how all this week the blog of Editorial Nuevo Milenio [ES] will focus on prize-winning books by Bolivian novelists.
China: Ancient Chinese sex advice
Alan Baumler at China history group blog goes into the text of Sunu jing–The Classic of the White Girl, to discuss about Chinese thought.
Madagascar: 2nd Lit Classic Available Online
Actualite Culturelle Malgache is working on making available through its blog (Fr): “A novel published in 1897 and authored by Adolphe Badin, Une Famille Parisienne a Madagascar Avant et Apres l'Expedition [A Parisian Family in Madagascar Before and After the Expedition ].” The blog explains: ” Of course the text...
Madagascar: Local Lit Classics Available Online
New blog Actualite Culturelle Malgache [Malagasy Cultural News] plans (Fr) to make malagasy historical texts available online and will email the first such offering — Charles Renel's La Race Inconnue [The Unknown Race] — to anyone who asks. La Race Inconnue is a collection of short stories written during colonial...
Jamaica: Five Questions with Marlon James
The latest installment in Geoffrey Philp's “Five Questions” series is an interview with Jamaican novelist Marlon James.
Dominica, UK: Jean Rhys
Jeremy Taylor's dislike of the new BBC dramatisation of Dominican novelist Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea leads him to consider, among other things, Rhys's struggle to reconcile “her creole and European selves” and the British reception of her work.
Jamaica, Dominica: Jean Rhys's “remarkably screwed up life”
After seeing a play based on Dominican writer Jean Rhys's “remarkably screwed up life”, Jamaican novelist Marlon James wonders: “Must every great artist have a self hating streak? Didn't Jean Rhys transfer hers to writing and Naipaul to everybody just like him? Is happiness a false goal for an artist?“
China: Good cop/bad cop
A story shared by A-list blogger-journalist Huang Tingzi (黄亭子) about an engineering student recruited by Chinese cops on his campus who—along with four colleagues—one day finds himself quite a bit in over his head: 读大学时，庄警官念的是无线电专业，毕业前,本打算去IT界发展。结果，正好遇上公安局招干，陪同学一块去顺利也报了个名，没想到很快就被录取了。 In university, officer Zhuang majored in wireless communications. Before graduation, he was planning to go...
Jamaica: Pam Mordecai
Jamaican writer Pam Mordecai is the subject of the second installment in Geoffrey Philp's “In My Words” series.
Africa: call for Fela centred short stories
Wordsbody announces the call for Fela centred short stories from Reputations Consulting, “Call for Fela centred, fictional short stories,features articles and biographical sketches on “FELA The Folklore: A Peoples’ Biography for all categories of prose writers.”
Russia: The Ongoing Golden Calf Translation
Languor Management links to the site of Maciej Ceglowski and Peter V. Gadjokov, who are translating The Golden Calf, a 1930 Soviet classic by Ilya Ilf and Evgeniy Petrov: “Seventy years after its publication, The Golden Calf remains a cult classic among Russian readers, but it is out of print...
China: 70 years anniversary of Lu Xun's death
Lyn Jeffery in Virtual China suggests some sites to visit around the 70 years anniversary of Lu Xun's death. Lu Xun has been considered as the father of modern Chinese literature.
Kenya: the collector of worlds
Kikumuyumoja's Realm writes about a book reading event in Nairobi, Kenya: “There was this public reading (organized by the German Cultural Centre (Goethe-Institut) & the German Department @ University of Nairobi) by Ilija Trojanow and Binyavanga Wainaina at the Goethe Auditorium (@ Maendeleo ya Wanawake House – used to be...
Lebanon: Beirut and Blogging
This week some of the bloggers of the Lebanese blogosphere flirt with Beirut and with blogging. But you will always find politics, religion and war. Remember that Lebanon is in the Middle East. Why do you blog? Why do I blog? Why does Maya[at]NYC blog: Why do people blog, anyway!...
Poland: Marek Nowakowski
Our Man In Gdansk writes on the writings of Marek Nowakowski: “dirty realism.”
Russia: Croatian Writer on Politkovskaya
Strangers to Ourselves writes about Anna Politkovskaya's and muses on her own role as a Croatian writer living abroad.
China: Where my Nobels at?
When one of the best writers in the country flees, is asked not to come back and then wins a Nobel prize in literature while in exile, would it be a bit disingenuous to accuse the Swedish Academy of bias against awarding Nobel prizes to mainland Chinese? Perhaps not, judging...
France, Togo: What's the Use of African Book Fairs?
France-based Togolese writer Kangni Alem writes (Fr): ” African literature book fairs in France are, by and large, rarely satisfying. They don't always actually sell your books, they don't feed you right, and worse you have to follow the law of star writers who bore you too death when they...
