**Interesting Articles on Books, Authors, Reading, etc. - May/June 2010

A belated welcome to May!

Foreign Policy's "Overcoming the Language Barrier" project -

Nine translated pieces, some fiction, some non-fiction/memoir -- all of the stories are linked to from the link posted above

"Linguistic Apartheid": A South African essayist considers the ugly history of his native tongue.

By Thomas Dreyer; translated by Dreyer from the Afrikaans.

"A Hajj Gone Wrong": What if you went to Mecca -- and hated it? A story from a Hindi novelist.

By Manzoor Ahtesham; translated by Jason Grunebaum and Ulrike Stark from the Hindi.

"Coming of Age in the Camps": A young "quota refugee" from Russia adjusts to life in Germany, from pizza to making new friends, in this first novel by a rising German talent.

By Lena Gorelik; translated by Michael Ritterson from the German.

"A Tale of Two Chinese Cities": Why people from Shanghai are so crazy, by one of China's great environmental historians.

By Yang Dongping; translated by Andrea Lingenfelter from the Mandarin.

"Waking Up to Genocide": The slow realization that everything is wrong, told by one of Rwanda's most promising young novelists.

By Gilbert Gatore; translated by Marjolijn de Jager from the French.

"Going Underground in Israel": A great Hebrew novelist tells the tale of a young boy with grandiose -- and confused -- aspirations to join the political sub-classes.

By Benjamin Tammuz; translated by Jessica Cohen from the Hebrew.

"Diary of an Occupation": Entries from the journal of a well-connected French economist, written during the Vichy years in Paris.

By Charles Rist; translated by Michele Aynesworth from the French.

"A Bad Fortune for the Vietnamese": A mother's struggle with the legacy of Agent Orange, from a Vietnamese journalist's account.

By Minh Chuyen; translated by Huy Lien and Charles Waugh from the Vietnamese.

"Mourning for a Dictator": The day Tito died, as witnessed by a young Croatian girl.

By Marica Bodrožic; translated by Gerald Chapple from the German.

Fanny, I couldn't get your link to work, but I did find the article on the Foreign Policy web site:

Overcoming the Language Barrier

ETA: Okay, that link works. Thanks for sharing it, Fanny!

>2 kidzdoc:, Darryl, thanks so much! Sorry bout that.

Today's Guardian Books Blog has an interesting piece about Palfest, the Palestine Festival of Literature, which recently closed. What is unique about this festival is that the participating authors tour to different cities within Palestine, instead of having the event at a fixed location, due to restrictions on movement imposed by the Israeli government. This year's participants included non-Palestinian writers such as Geoff Dyer, Hisham Mater, William Sutcliffe and Adam Foulds, and local writers such as the Orwell prize-winner Raja Shedadeh and Suad Amiry.

The Palfest book festival puts Palestinian writers on the map

This is a little addendum to the April Poetry thread. I read a brief story in today's Chronicle of Higher Education about "Poetry in Motion," a program that posts short poems and excerpts in New York subway cars (amongst the various Public Service Announcements and advertisements). Here is a link that will take you to the Poetry in Motion main page. From there, you can access the posted poems, poets' biographies, info about the program, and more. The poems are all brief but quite stunning. Here's an example ("My Father" by Yehudi Amichai):

The memory of my father is wrapped up in
white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work.
Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
out of his hat, he drew love from his small body,
and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.

Looking for something obscure? This is from neglectedbooks.com (I'm not sure how old the post is.)

“Good Books That Almost Nobody Has Read” and “More About Neglected Books,” from The New Republic magazine, 1934

6> I'm guessing that "Woman of Earth" by Agnes Smedley might actually be the same as Daughter of Earth, which was republished as a Virago Traveler. If so, a number of LTers may have read it. But I hadn't heard of any of the others.

Baby's Touch 'N Feel Guide to Russian Literature

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2010/5/11kumar.html

#8 Funny stuff!

I haven't read the any of the Stieg Larsson books, but there is an interesting article about "The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson" in Sunday's New York Times Magazine that discusses changes made by his editors and the English translators/publishers as well as the controversy over who controls the rights to his books.

I received an e-maill from the Dalkey Archive about their Summer Sale: 5 books for $35, 10 for $65, 20 for $120.

Rebecca, can you figure out how to make a purchase on line? I read it and clicked several buttons; I got nowhere.

Robert

You have to click on the option you want (5 for $35, 10 for $65, etc.). This takes you to a page with an "Add to Cart" button and instructions about downloading a form on which you can list your selections after you add the option to your cart. It's a little convoluted, and I haven't actually done it yet, because I've just been browsing the catalog to see which books I want to buy.

Okay, thanks. I may give it another try.

Robert

Ok, I know its only tangentially about books, but:

Author Henning Mankell aboard Gaza flotilla stormed by Israeli troops

15> what a disaster!

The Pen American Center has announced its 2010 translation award recipients.

This may induce smugness, but the information about households without books was also interesting.

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/06/02/summer_book_giveaway

Phew--So if it's good to have 500 books, I guess it's better to have 3000.

Great article! I've put it up on my Facebook page.

same!

A new station has opened on the Moscow Metro, the Dostoyevskaya station, which is "decorated with brooding grey and black mosaics which depict violent scenes from the nineteenth century writer's best-known novels." Psychologists in the city are concerned that its depressing themes could cause the station to become a favorite spot for committing suicide.

Moscow's Dostoevsky station could be 'suicide mecca'

Where is Murr when he need him?

Now THAT made me laugh! I especially liked this:

The artist responsible for the murals, Ivan Nikolayev, said he was unrepentant and had trouble understanding his critics. "What did you want? Scenes of dancing?"

They could station their suicide investigation squad there and develop some bureaucratic efficiencies. They could maybe even make it mandatory that suicide if committed be committed there.

Robert

Here are two of the mosaics from the station:

Axe murder

Suicide

pretty graphic.

Not exactly "happy art," but then neither is Dostoyevsky. (I may have a sick sense of humor, but I'm still finding this funny . . . )

I just think its cool that they decorated a metro station with paintings inspired by something literary. In DC, metro riders get to gaze at ads for defense contractors. Woo....

Michiko Kakutani, arguably the most critical of the New York Times book reviewers, gave David Mitchell's new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, quite the favourable review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/books/29book.html?src=twt&twt=nytimesbooks

I just bought this book the other day, and plan on reading it over the summer.

#30: I read that review this morning, and it was positive, especially for Kakutani. Jacob de Zoet is one of my top five reads for the first half of 2010.

This Sunday's New York Times Magazine included a feature article on David Mitchell, which I haven't read yet:

David Mitchell, the Experimentalist

And James Woods has an article about him in the current New Yorker -- quite the publicist he must have!

Edited to fix italics.

Belletrista 6 is up now: http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue6/index.php