· February, 2007

Stories about Literature from February, 2007

Venezuela: Una tarde con campanas / Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez

  28 February 2007

Guillermo Parra translates an excerpt from Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez's novel “Una tarde con campanas.” Explains Parra, “the book is narrated by a boy whose family migrates to Madrid after a military government comes to power in Venezuela. Una tarde con campanas was a finalist for the Premio de Novela...

Lebanon: Academia, Agriculture and Construction

  26 February 2007

Let us begin this week’s roundup of the Lebanese blogosphere with non–political posts. Let us start from a post about two Lebanese salads that are used as appetizers during meals: Skylark shows us (Fr) how to prepare Fattush and Tabboule, which are two delicious Lebanese salads that are usually found...

Saudi Arabia: Book Fair

  26 February 2007

Saudi Jeans reports about a bookfair in his country's capital Riyadh next month. “There will not be any days for families only. The book fair will be open to everybody, men and women, except for the evening period of three days which will be only open to men. I have...

Colombia: 100 Years of Solitude

  24 February 2007

It is the 40th anniversary of Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad, described here by Posthegemony as “a long, sprawling novel that lacks much in the way of a conventional plot. Rather, it is full of events and incidents, digressions and flashbacks or flashforwards, not least the famous flashforward...

Top ten Caribbean novels

23 February 2007

In response to a meme about books and reading, Geoffrey Philp posts his list of top ten Caribbean novels.

China: Disgraced Party member promoted?

  23 February 2007

Last autumn, Qin Zhongfei, a low-ranking civil servant in Pengshui County of mid-western China's Chongqing Municipality, wove some sarcastic political humor into a poem and sent it out to a few dozen friends via text and instant message. Charged with slander by then County Party Secretary Lan Qinghua, one of...

Bangladesh: Celebrating the Mother Language day

  21 February 2007

Today is the International Mother Language Day, an annual event in UNESCO member states to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. This is mostly the international recognition of Language Movement Day called ‘Ekushey February’, which is commemorated in Bangladesh since 1952, when a number of Bangla-speaking people were massacred...

Bangladesh: In conversation with Raman Mundair

  16 February 2007

Black and Gray in conversation with Raman Mundair. “All these things are aspects of me and I have many aspects. I am also human, artist, British, Sikh, Indian etc. I find it difficult to reduce myself to one singular identity. My strength is in my multiple identities. Of course I...

Re-writing the history of Cambodia

  14 February 2007

Cambodia’s most prominent literary scholar Keng Vannsak lately unveiled a shocking finding of the life of twelfth-century King Jayavarman VII. As a Buddhist ruler of the Khmer Empire, the sage king who governed the kingdom during its most glorious period in the history, is regarded with great respect and widely...

Africa: reading Chinua Achebe

  14 February 2007

Enanga's Pov on reading Chinua Achebe, “One of them was Chinua Achebe’s essay, An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Never have I, on reading something, agreed with someone so strongly that it brought the tears to my eyes. Never have I admired a writer more.”

Jamaica: Happy birthday, John Hearne

  5 February 2007

Geoffrey Philp marks the birthday of Jamaican novelist John Hearne: “He had to tread carefully, I suspect, as a white Jamaican who did not sound Jamaican, in a society that was changing rapidly and in which the privileges, which a generation before a person in his situation would have taken...