Stories about Literature from July, 2011
Russia: Science Fiction Vocabulary
Yelena of Russian Blog addresses a few of the new Russian words adopted with the increasing popularity of science fiction in the 1990s.
Poland: The State of Reading
A few weeks ago, a new social campaign - Reading in Poland - was launched by one of Poland's largest daily newspapers due to the fact that reading rates in Poland are very low: one reports states that 56 percent of the Poles don't read books at all - and are also incapable of reading texts longer than 3 pages. A huge debate has started on the reading culture in Poland and the reasons for the crisis it is facing.
St. Lucia: Jacques Compton Dies
Caribbean Book Blog, mourning the death of Saint Lucian author Jacques Compton, says: “The Caribbean has lost another literary and cultural icon.”
Kenya: Kenyan Poet Podcasts
Kenyan poet invites readers to her new project, KenyanPodcast: “Hi, for those who were on twitter yesterday, I announced about my pilot podcast; the first in many to come which seeks to bring the blog to life for the followers to have something they can take away with them and...
U.S.V.I., St. Kitts: On Belonging
A Nation or Nobody “wonder[s] about the place of writers like Phillips within the Caribbean literary community, and what they might be able to tell us about belonging and diaspora.”
U.S.V.I: Rhys’ Literary Identity
“Both the English and American interpretations of Rhys have always truly baffled me…the English reading…completely glossing over Rhy's well-documented disdain for the English and her discomfort with ‘whiteness’, and the American reading as an odd feminist revision”: A Nation or Nobody blogs about the ambiguities of writer Jean Rhys and...
Kyrgyzstan: Library receives grant for catalogues and digitization
Emerson reports that a Western donor organization awarded the Kyrgyzstan's largest library a generous grant to re-catalogue and digitize its rare book holdings.
Afghanistan: Book offers diplomatic insights
Nick Fielding briefly reviews a book by Britain's former ambassador in Afghanistan, Sherard Cowper-Coles, and says that it is stuffed with fascinating material.
China: Detained Tibetan Writer Severely Beaten
High Peaks Pure Earth translates Woser's blogpost on July 7 2011 about the detention and mistreatment of young Tibetan writer Pema Rinchen by the Chinese authority.
U.K.: Polish Poetry on the Tube
Belatedly, a link to a post about Polish poetry displayed on the London Underground, which was published on May 31 by the POLSKI blog.
Japan: A Fukushima Poet Tweets His Verses
Since the March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami disaster, Ryoichi Wago, a poet from Fukushima city, has been experimenting with a new form of poetry. He expresses his feelings about issues such as uncertainty of the future and fear of the radiation that has been threatening his land and its inhabitants.
Russia: Tribute to Dmitry Prigov
At OpenDemocracy.net, Yelena Fedotova writes about Dmirty Prigov – “‘great Russian poet’, postmodern artist, incarcerated ‘madman’.”
The Disputed Reputation of Portugal's Former Political Police Chief
Major Silva Pais, the last director of Portugal's repressive PIDE police force - operative during the country's “New State” period - has been implicated in a play, in the 1965 assassination of democratic opposition politician General Humberto Delgado. A controversial criminal case is underway by Pais' nephews against the play's author and the directors who staged it.
Jamaica: The Power of Social Media
Diaspora litblogger Geoffrey Philp “woke up this morning to the true meaning of social media.”
