— Francis of Assisi, who died in 1226
After the Soviet collapse, Iva Pekárková was briefly pretty hot in English, with several works translated in the 1990s and 2000, but it's been pretty quiet (in English) since then. At Radio Praha she resurfaces, in a Q & A with Brian Kenety
At Scroll.in Kanishka Gupta has a Q & A with five Indian publishers of poetry, in The flag-bearers of verse: How five independent presses publish poetry in India.
Among the observations: one publisher maintains:
I don't want poetry books to be bestsellers. For, if you sell more, that means you are resonating with the mainstream. Poetry is the voice from the outside. Its survival depends on resisting the mainstream.
Courtesy the Frankfurt Book Fair
Literature is my religion. I have learned from literature that we are all flawed—all of us humans are flawed. But I have also learned that we are capable of goodness. That we do not need first to be perfect before we can do what is right and just.
I have two homes, in Nigeria and in the US. I used to roll my eyes at people who, when they were asked where they lived, would name two places. But I have become one of those people—and sometimes I roll my eyes at myself.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was the keynote speaker at the opening press conference of the Frankfurt Book Fair held earlier this week, and at Publishers Weekly they now print her speech in its entirety -- well worth a read (and you can also watch it).
"Art can illuminate politics. Art can humanize politics. But sometimes, that is not enough. Sometimes politics must be engaged with as politics. And this could not be more urgent today..."
The world is shifting; it’s changing; it’s darkening. We can no longer play by the old rules of complacency. We must invent new ways of doing, new ways of thinking. The most powerful country in the world today feels like a feudal court full of intrigues, feeding on mendacity, drowning in its own hubris. We must know what is true. We must say what is true. And we must call a lie a lie.
This is a time to proclaim that economic superiority does not mean moral superiority.
This is a time for courage, and my understanding of courage is not the absence of fear. It is the resolve to act while also being afraid. "
Big thieves hang little thieves ...
The kid had swallowed a coin and it got stuck in his throat, and so his mother ran out in the street yelling for help. A man passing by took the boy by his shoulders and hit him with a few strong strokes on the back, and so he coughed the coin out."I don't know how to thank you, doc...", his mother started.
"I'm not a doctor", the man replied, "I'm from the ATO".
A Literary Companion for Insomniacs
Marina Benjamin’s new memoir aims to soothe the sleepless.
Are Siblings More Important Than Parents?
How brothers and sisters shape who we are
In September and October, Marble Bar celebrates its 125th anniversary. The 2 months present an abundance of celebration ...
125TH ANNIVERSARY. ~ Tattersall Sour ~. The Marble Bar team have crafted a cocktail in pre- celebration of Marble Bar's 125th Anniversary, ...
“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people
breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who
follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.”
― Wall and Piece
― Wall and Piece
Too Much Information In The World? That’s Why We Need Novels - According to Bill and Joe
“Too much information creates numbness. Then we stop feeling. Then we stop caring. Refugees become mere numbers, anyone who is different becomes a category, an abstraction. It is not a coincidence that all populist movements are essentially against plurality, against diversity. In creating dualistic frameworks and polarising society, they know they can spread numbness faster. The novel matters because it punches little holes in the wall of indifference that surrounds us. Novels have to swim against the tide. And this was never more clear than it is today.”
After the wall
Is it time to rethink how East Germans felt about the fall of the Berlin Wall?
In Germany, the fall of the Berlin Wall is like Kennedy's assassination, or 9/11 — everyone remembers exactly where they were when it happened.
For most citizens on both sides of the wall, its fall came suddenly and unexpectedly on November 9, 1989.
The traditional historical narrative is that the fall heralded a new, bright era for socialist and communist states desperate for a capitalist system.
It was hailed as a triumph of democracy over a regime that included the Stasi, the East German security police who spied on and persecuted citizens.
But this view is not entirely accurate for everyone.
RELATED STORY: The Berlin Wall has now been gone longer than it stoodBuilding community in a world hungry for social connection
Soft murmurs, the shuffling of papers, the groan of book carts. Libraries have a steady, timeless feel, as if there we can live forever
We repeat ...
“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece
Sotheby’s ‘Banksy-ed’ as painting ‘self-destructs’ live at auction Art Newspaper
“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”
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