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2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/11613 | By Thomas Cobb
IN THE LITERARY TRADITION OF CORMAC MCCARTHY'S AND LARRY MCMURTRY'S HISTORICAL WESTERNS, SHAVETAIL TRACES THE BRUTAL COMING-OF-AGE OF A BOY SOLDIER STATIONED AT A REMOTE U.S. ARMY OUTPOST AND A YOUNG WOMAN'S TERRIFYING PASSAGE ACROSS THE AMERICAN FRONTIER. Set in 1871 in the unforgiving wasteland of the Arizona Territory, Shavetail is the story of Private Ned Thorne, a seventeen-year-old boy from Connecticut who has lied about his age to join the Army. On the run from a shameful past, Ned is desperate to prove his worth -- to his superiors, to his family, and most of all, to himself. Young and troubled, Ned is as green and stubborn as a "shavetail," the soldiers' term for a dangerous, untrained mule. To endure in this world, Ned must not only follow the orders of the camp's captain, Robert Franklin,but also submit to the cruel manipulations of Obediah Brickner, the camp's mule driver. Both Franklin and Brickner have been damaged by their long military service, both consider themselves able to survive the dangers of the desert -- floods, scorpions, snakes, and Indians -- and both imperil Ned. Yet there are other characters, all richly drawn, who also confront Ned: half-wit soldiers, embattled Indians hidden in cliffs, a devious and philosophical peddler, and the fleshy whores who materialize in the desert as soon as the paymaster has left camp and dance with drunken soldiers around a fire late into the night. After a band of Apaches attack a nearby ranch, killing two men and kidnapping a young woman, Ned's lieutenant -- a man seeking atonement for his own mistakes -- leads Ned and the rest of his patrol on a near-suicidal mission through rugged mountains and into Mexico in hopes of saving the woman's life. It is unlikely any can survive this folly, and those who do will be changed forever. Meticulously researched and vividly told, Shavetail renders a time when the United States was still an expanding empire, its western edge bloody with the deaths of soldiers, settlers, and Indians. In language both spare and brilliant, Cobb brings readers this lost American landscape, untouched by highways or electricity and without the comforts of civilization. Shavetail also marks the return of a great American literary voice. Cobb's first and only other novel, Crazy Heart, was published in 1987 to great acclaim and was edited by the legendary editor Ted Solotaroff. Cobb is also a former student of Donald Barthelme, who described Crazy Heart as "a bitter, witty psychological profile of genius." Brutal and deft, laced with both violence and desire, Shavetail plunges into the deepest human urges even as it marks the ground where men either survive or perish.
Scribner | 384 pages | ISBN 9781416561194 | February 2008
Fiction > WesternsFiction > Literary
"The education to which Thomas Cobb's eager young soldier is forced to submit combines such wisdom, pain, suspense, and nasty good humor that I simply couldn't read this book fast enough. Of course I didn't know what a 'shavetail' was when I began, but learning that was only part of the education I was treated to. Guilt and innocence, blood and tenderness -- I can't imagine any reader who could resist." -- Rosellen Brown, author of Civil Wars
"Shavetail is the story of the futility of war and is as immediate and brutal as daily news from Iraq or Afghanistan, although the year is 1871 and the place is southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Cobb presents the landscape, the characters, and the conflict with absolute authority, producing a magnificent story in the tradition of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian." -- Richard Shelton, author of Going Back to Bisbee
Set in 1871, Shavetail is the story of Private Ned Thorne, a seventeen year old boy from Connecticut who has lied about his age to join the U.S. Army. On the run from a shameful past, he enlists in the army with dreams of adventure and honor and heroism, but he soon finds himself stationed at the farthest edge of the country, the stark desert of the Arizona territories, home to a variety of unpleasant creatures: rattlesnakes and scorpions and a company of disgraced soldiers. Before Ned arrives at the outpost, two men are found murdered by Apaches at a nearby ranch, and a woman is missing, her diary the only evidence she ever existed. The captain in command, a man deeply haunted by his own past mistakes, determines that the small and ragged troop must pursue the Indians and rescue the woman. Captivated by the woman's meticulous diary entries, Ned soon finds he may have a chance at heroism after all. Not only a riveting adventure tale, Shavetail is a story of regret and redemption, of desperation and hope and second chances. Questions for Discussion: 1. In the beginning of the novel, Brickner explains to Ned, "That's a shavetail, a young, green mule that hasn't learned his tasks yet. He can't go by himself. He's always got to be paired with an older, smarter mule. He's you, and I'm the older, smarter one" (page 31). Do you think that this is an accurate portrayal of Ned? Is it an accurate portrayal of Brickner? In many ways, Sha
Photo Credit: Thomas Cobb
Thomas Cobb was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Tucson, Arizona. He is the author of Crazy Heart, a novel, and Acts of Contrition, a collection of short stories that won the 2002 George Garrett Fiction Prize. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife.
Thomas Cobb's Official Site
www.thomascobb.net | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/11779 | Caramie Schnellcschnell @vaildaily.comVAIL CO, Colorado Back to: News
Beaver Creek art gallery hosts special anniversary exhibit
Caramie Schnellcschnell @vaildaily.comVAIL CO, Colorado December 27, 2012
ALL |Special to the Daily
They were hunting all right, but not the typical deer, elk or other fur-covered animal. When painter Pat Matthews and a few other artists hired a hunting guide and set up camp, they weren’t scanning the horizon for antlers.”(Colorado Fish & Game) said we were the first ones they knew of to get a permit for an elk camp and use it only to paint,” said Matthews who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas but owns property in Pagosa Springs as well. They even hired a camp chef to prepare five-course dinners and a hot breakfast prepared in a Dutch oven each morning.”When on these trips, I am hunting,” Matthews said. “I use my four wheeler with a large painting box on the back to hunt. I’m just hunting for beauty to paint.”You can see what he found at Paderewski Fine Art Gallery in Beaver Creek, where 25 of Matthews paintings are on display. The show is a celebration of the gallery’s 10 year anniversary, and Vail’s 50th anniversary.”It took me several months to complete the works,” Matthews said. “The paintings are a combination of the landscapes in the Vail area and surrounding mountains, and architectural portraits of some of Vail’s iconic structures, like the Covered Bridge, the Clock tower and the Vail Chapel, to name a few.”His favorite painting is one that captures a snowy Vail day, with the Covered Bridge and the Clock Tower of Vail in the distance. “I think it sold yesterday,” he said.
Matthews used a pallete knife, large brush strokes of thick paint and lots of vibrant colors to paint most of the pieces on display. He also paints with both hands, in order to “achieve random patterns of texture.” It’s a relatively new technique of his. By using a combination of perspective and light, Matthews pieces have a depth that makes the viewer feel as if they could step into the scene. A reception will take place today from 2 to 5 p.m. Matthews will paint during the reception, using his special technique. He plans to limit his color pallete to mostly black, white and shades of gray, “with only a pinch of color as an accent.””It’s like ringing a bell in a church,” he said. “When you paint neutral works, the color can be very delicate and still stand out.”Matthews is perhaps best known for his flag paintings, the first of which he did of the American flag on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001. “I flew to New York a few months later and donated the money from print sales, the original painting and 343 signed prints to ladder company 54 in NYC,” Matthews said. “They lost 15 men.”He painted two Colorado flags for this show. “One of the best things about my job as an artist is capturing God’s beauty and making a living doing it,” Matthews said. “I have to say that after painting in several countries and all over the USA, the most beautiful state I have experienced is Colorado. I feel very lucky to do what I do and my family and I are blessed to be able to experience all Colorado has to offer, especially in the Vail Valley.”High Life Editor Caramie Schnell can be reached at [email protected] or 970-748-2984. | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/11800 | Book review of "Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978" by Kai Bird
By Mike O'Connor
CROSSING MANDELBAUM GATE
Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978
By Kai Bird
Scribner. 424 pp. $30
Kai Bird begins his memoir in Jerusalem in 1956, when the city was still primitive, worn out, with camels in the streets, a tiny place compared with now. The 1948 war of hate and real estate had ended six years before Bird arrived from Eugene, Ore., with his family. His father was a State Department official on his first posting, in the Jerusalem consulate. Bird was 4. There was still gunfire in the night, and no one knew when the next awful battle would be upon them. A kid would have felt all that too.
Yet Bird's description of these early years is strangely muted, as though he has trouble recalling the details of what must have been an extraordinary early childhood. For instance, we don't get much sense of his evacuation from Jerusalem to Beirut during the Suez Canal crisis of 1956-57. The long section on the mid-1960s, when his family lived cloistered in an American diplomatic compound in Saudi Arabia, gives us interesting history, but not an absorbing personal story. We want more about this American youth in the Middle East; instead, Bird gives us his analysis as an adult of America's misguided policy in Saudi Arabia. "Crossing Mandelbaum Gate" is illuminating reading for anyone trying to understand why American diplomats in Israel are still searching for peace or why our soldiers are still in Iraq, but too little of it sheds light on what Bird learned while coming of age with Arabs and Israelis.
When he gets to recent history, Bird, who won a Pulitzer with Martin J. Sherwin for their biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, grabs the reader's attention. He tells poignant stories of early 20th-century Palestine, where Jews and Palestinians mixed well enough that we can imagine a peaceful multiethnic country being built, though one with a Jewish minority. He pairs the growing immigration of European Jews with the violence leading to war and the creation of Israel, delivering the unyielding dilemmas we see today. And, he says, replacing all the Palestinians with Jews was what extremist Zionists really had in mind.
Bird began digging deeply into the barriers between Arabs and Jews after he married an American Jew and learned of her parents' trials surviving the Holocaust. In their story, he saw another people smashed by history, as the Palestinians had been. And then he looked at what happened when these two battered peoples faced each other.
After a compassionate examination of the Palestinian fight to get back Palestine, he gives us a very thoughtful reason why it has not worked:
"Armed struggle was the worst tactic the Palestinians could have used against a whole society marked by trauma and paranoia. But there has never been a high-profile, politically viable Palestinian Gandhi, and then over the decades it is the Palestinians who have become drenched in victimhood. For the Israelis, the Shoah [Hebrew for the Holocaust] always trumps the Nakba [Arabic for catastrophe: the founding of Israel]."
"Crossing Mandelbaum Gate" is a fascinating book about a crucial period in the Middle East, but as a memoir it fails on the promise of its subtitle. Bird turns a beacon on the exhilarating places in which he grew up. If only he had shone the same beacon on himself.
Mike O'Connor covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for NPR and is the author of "Crisis, Pursued by Disaster, Followed Closely by Catastrophe: A Memoir of Life on the Run." | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/11827 | Steal My Book, Please
<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="130" width="100%" src="https://www.wnyc.org/widgets/ondemand_player/otm/#file=/audio/json/251863/&share=1"></iframe>
Russians have access to more than 100,000 pirated e-books and just 60,000 legitimate e-books. For some authors and publishers the theft is infuriating, but others take the view that it’s good to have your book out there in front of eyes no matter what the cost. Bob speaks with Peter Mountford, author of ‘A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism,’ who didn't just turn a blind eye to his book being pirated, but actually helped the process along.
BOB GARFIELD: In Russia, book pirating is rampant. In fact, Russians have access to more than 100,000 pirated e-books and just 60,000 legitimate ones. For many authors and publishers that is simply infuriating. After all, they’re deprived of the sales revenues from their own property, and that often leads to lawyers getting involved. But when Peter Mountford, author of “A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism,” realized his book was being translated for a pirate Russian publisher, he did not hire a lawyer. No, he realized that this was something he had to take into his own hands. And that, he did. He located the illicit translator online and helped him translate the novel, which is premised on a young man who’s taken a job at a rapacious hedge fund.
PETER MOUNTFORD: And he goes to Bolivia at the time of the election of Evo Morales. And his task is to see if you can parlay the election into something that the hedge fund can make money on.
BOB GARFIELD: Which is funny in the first instance because Evo Morales is a socialist Hugo Chavez-wannabe, right?
PETER MOUNTFORD: Exactly. In the process, he has a love affair with Evo Morales’ press liaison and hijinks ensue.
BOB GARFIELD: I haven’t read it but I'm sure it is delightful. And at least one Russian thought so, too. Tell me about the first hint you had that your book was in play in an unlawful way.
PETER MOUNTFORD: I had had a Google Alert on the title of the book, and so over the course of the year after it was published, the Google Alert started having less hits. And then I started to get a lot of hits from this Russian guy on a word reference form online who was asking many, many questions about what I meant in all sorts of sentences in the opening of the book. And I thought he was just a very eager Russian reader.
BOB GARFIELD: For example, you used the term “cucumber walls” to describe a pale green color, but this threw him. [LAUGHS]
PETER MOUNTFORD: He was really baffled and he thought I might have meant that the walls were the texture of cucumber or possibly, sort of inexplicably, he thought it might mean that the walls were paisley, which is really, really strange. And he asked this question on –
[CROSSTALK]
BOB GARFIELD: Well, cucumber-shaped. [LAUGHS]
PETER MOUNTFORD: [LAUGHS] Yeah, exactly.
BOB GARFIELD: I can see why he might have guessed paisley.
PETER MOUNTFORD: I said a person was not toeing the party line, and he thought that meant the person wasn’t enjoying an actual party.
[BOB LAUGHING]
I said somebody was suffering from white liberal guilt, and he said, does that mean the guilt that a person feels from doing cocaine. And then he said to somebody, I’m translating it for a Russian publishers, I’m not just a normal reader. And that’s when it occurred to me that he was – a Russian pirate translator. He wasn’t translating it on spec or anything. He was actually translating the entire book for somebody.
BOB GARFIELD: And then you started going back and forth with him? I mean, isn’t that like driving up to your house and seeing a burglar trying to jimmy your windows and then grabbing your tire iron to help him? What – I don’t get it.
PETER MOUNTFORD: [LAUGHS] The book had been out for a year, so the official Russian publishers had had opportunities to acquire the rights, and they have not made a move to do so. And so, I was faced with the option of either having it pirated and published and I wouldn't make any money on it, but at least people would read the book in Russian, or I could try and sort of put up a fight and stop the pirate translation and then I would not only not make money but nobody would read the book in Russian. And I thought that if the translation was gonna be good, I might need to intervene. And so, I sent him an email and said, hi, as the author of the book, I think I’m uniquely qualified to help you with this.
[BOB LAUGHS]
And then after two weeks, to my surprise and delight, he wrote to me and said, thank you for contacting me, I would love to have your help. And then he had just this barrage of questions. I've had hundreds of questions from him. And my wife was very stern with me and said, you cannot spend a lot of time on this, you’re not getting paid for it. And so, I've been dashing off my responses.
BOB GARFIELD: Can you give me an example of the exchanges?
PETER MOUNTFORD: At one point, I described a character as being – you know, I said, “Reportedly a lethal diplomatic sniper. He was instead armed with a blunderbuss.” And Alexander was totally baffled. He said, “Reportedly he was a brilliant diplomatic sniper using his charm to hit from the first go and win people's hearts, other people whose cooperation he needed but actually…” and then it goes on and on and on –
“unsuitable for sharpshooting.
He had a harbiscus – harbicus.”
BOB GARFIELD: You call him Alexander, you know, as opposed to whatever his last name is or “that guy” or worse.
PETER MOUNTFORD: Mm-hmm.
BOB GARFIELD: What is your relationship with him? Are you friends, are you colleagues, are you adversaries?
PETER MOUNTFORD: Definitely colleagues. It’s been cordial all along. We’ve never talked, I mean, almost never talked about the business aspect of it. We just talk about the text, although when I published this piece in The Atlantic there was an article in the Guardian and, as a result, he finally got wind of it and he wrote me a very awkward email saying, “I am not a thief.” I, I basically said, evidence seems to indicate that you are but I've enjoyed working with you. And, and we have since then. After he sent me this awkward e-mail, we’ve continued to correspond about the translation. He’s never asked me anything whatsoever about my life. It did come up, for some reason, that he is actually a biologist and he moonlights as a translator. At one point, he put the translation on hold because he had to take a very long train ride somewhere, I don't remember where, but he said, I’m gonna be on the train for the next couple of days, so no work.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to ask you one final thing, Peter. You referred earlier to choices you had, whether to protect your intellectual property or to see that your work reaches ever-wider audiences. And you suggested that it was an either/or proposition. Many have argued that piracy actually, in addition to increasing your audience of freeloaders, also increases your audience of paid buyers. We’ve learned this from the music industry, that some percentage of people who become aware of your work will actually pony up at a legitimate retailer.
PETER MOUNTFORD: I’ve heard Neil Gaiman say that exact point where he has his book published legitimately and pirated in Russia, and he feels that the pirated version bolsters the sales of the legitimate version. I hope that that is true.
BOB GARFIELD: Are you done with each other? Is this it between Alexander and you?
PETER MOUNTFORD: I hope that we’re not done [LAUGHS] with each other. I hope that he works on my next novel [LAUGHS] which will be published in 2014. I would love to have an official Russian translation, and maybe he can help make that happen by getting my name out in Russia.
BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Peter, thank you very much.
PETER MOUNTFORD: Thank you.
BOB GARFIELD: Peter Mountford is the author of “A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism.”
About On The Media | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/11924 | by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A colonel receives five seeds in the mail---and dies within weeks. A young bride disappears immediately after her wedding. An old hat and a Christmas goose are the only clues to a stolen jewel. A son is accused of his father's murder. These mysteries---and many more---are brought to the house on Baker Street where detective Sherlock Holmes resides. No case is too tricky for the world's most famous sleuth and his incredible powers of deduction. This gripping collection includes many of the famous cases---and great strokes of brilliance---that make the legendary detective one of fiction's most popular creations. Included in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Red-Headed League," "A Case of Identity," "The Boscombe Valley Mystery," "The Five Orange Pips," "The Man with the Twisted Lip," "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb," "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor," "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet," and "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches." More Less Thank you for your purchase.
More by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
More Narrated by Simon Prebble
This version is complete
Any additional comments?I don't want to nitpick Tad's excellent review, but he is inaccurate on one point.This version, as of April 2012, includes all twelve short stories collected in 1892 as "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", including "The Red-Headed League," and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." Read full review Less - Richard Hoskins
Great narration, but missing a couple
Simon Prebble does an excellent job narrating this first collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. No complaints there. But the collection is marred by Tantor's decision to omit the two stories (Speckled Band and Red-Headed League) they'd already made available as "bonuses" on two of the novels.
In other words, if you want all of the short stories, you have to buy the whole set of recordings, including the four novels. (I'm planning to do that, but others may have preferred not to.) There's something to said, too, for being able to listen to the stories in their published sequence. This unfortunate marketing ploy makes that less convenient.
Read full review Less - Tad Davis
Publisher: Tantor Audio | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/11941 | Joan Didion on Beginnings and Endings in Writing (Quote of the Day) Filed under: Quotes of the Day — 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom @ 9:58 pm Tags: American Literature, Beginnings, Endings, Essays, Female Authors, Joan Didion, Journalism, Literary Quotations, Literature, Nonfiction, Quotations, Women's Writing, Writers, Writing
“Life changes fast.”
— The first sentence of The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion earned her reputation as one of the great American prose stylists partly through the memorable first sentences of her books and articles. She won the 2005 National Book Award for nonfiction for a memoir of death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, that opens with three words: “Life changes fast.”
Do opening lines have an importance that goes beyond their ability to make you keep reading? Didion dealt with the question in a Paris Review interview about the early nonfiction pieces that helped to make her famous:
Interviewer: You have said that once you have your first sentence you’ve got your piece. That’s what Hemingway said. All he needed was his first sentence and he had his short story.
Didion: What’s so hard about that first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.
Interviewer: The first is the gesture, the second is the commitment.
Didion: Yes, and the last sentence in a piece is another adventure. It should open the piece up. It should make you go back and start reading from page one. That’s how it should be, but it doesn’t always work. I think of writing anything at all as a kind of high-wire act. The minute you start putting words on paper you’re eliminating possibilities.
Joan Didion in “The Art of Fiction, No. 71,” an interview with Linda Kuehl in the Fall-Winter 1978 issue of the Paris Review. You can find the full text of that interview and another with Didion that appeared in the spring 2006 issue by searching for “Joan Didion” at www.parisreview.org. Didion’s hardcover publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, has posted an excerpt from The Year of Magical Thinking at www.aaknopf.com, where you can read the pages that follow: “Life changes fast.”
Cover art for the the Fall-Winter 1978 Paris Review shown here: Robert Moskowitz | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12061 | Out of Sight: Solo Show Starring Juggler and Humorist Sara Felder
The Marsh Upstairs Studio Theater
$7.50 - $10*
Sara Felder's solo show Out of Sight combines her formidable talents as a storyteller and a world-class circus artist and juggler to examine the struggle between a mother, who's nearly blind, and an adult lesbian daughter to overcome their political differences, sparked by a trip to Israel. Felder's integration of circus arts, humor and personal narrative, tinged with a Jewish queer sensibility, creates a touching and humorous look at conflicts both personal and political.
All offers for Sara Felder's Out of Sight have expired.
The last date listed for Sara Felder's Out of Sight was Sunday March 27, 2011 / 7:00pm.
Review from Sandra
Brilliant........very enjoyable. reviewed Jan 22 2011
Review from Lynne
I'd definitely recommend that you see Sara's "Out of Sight". It's very inventive, thoughtful, funny, and engaging. reviewed Jan 16 2011
Sarah is a very talented one women show! By all means go and see the show! reviewed Jan 23 2011
http://themarsh.org
For more info, see Sara Felder’s website.
Check out the Marsh’s Facebook page.
“Felder is a master storyteller and social satirist whoses gentle but incisive humor recalls Lily Tomlin or Jerry Seinfeld — if they could juggle.” —Santa Cruz Sentinel
Sara Felder’s Out of Sight
Written & Performed by Sara Felder
Directed by David O’Connor
Solo theater artist and trickster, Sara Felder, invites you into the story
of a nearly-blind mother and her lesbian daughter who try to “see” each
other as they navigate their different perspectives on Israel. With her
mix of circus tricks, shadow puppets and a Jewish queer sensibility, Felder sets out to balance family loyalty, social justice and juicy lemons.
About Sara Felder:
A solo theater artist, playwright, juggling diva, trickster and teacher, Felder has toured with the Pickle Family Circus, and Joel Grey’s Borscht Capades. She has performed in Cuba with Jugglers for Peace, in Nicaragua with the Women’s Circus, in Germany with the Klezmatics and all over the world at Festivals of Jewish/Yiddish Culture. She recently opened for Joan Rivers in Philadelphia. Her highly-acclaimed _June Bride _has toured to over 35 venues. Felder is currently developing Melancholy, A Comedy, about Abraham Lincoln and mental illness and, her newest endeavor, A Queer Divine, about grief. She is a recipient of Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award which honors artists committed to art and social change and has been awarded artistic fellowships by the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Independence Foundation, the National Performance Network, the California Arts Council and the San Francisco Arts Commission. She has been an artist-in-residence at 1812 Productions, the Headlands Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts and the California Arts Council, the latter for her work teaching juggling and performance in California prisons. | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12088 | Pub Date: June 1st, 1997
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
A strong selection of the 60-year-old Peruvian novelist's (Death in the Andes, 1996, etc.) journalism and literary essays, spanning 30 years of prodigious, passionate creativity. Such collections of fugitive works by great writers are tricky: Some seem to consist largely of pet peeves and fragmentary musings. That's not the case here. Vargas Llosa writes with compelling insight, verve, and intelligence about even the most modest matters. He is a cosmopolitan figure, having spent a great deal of time in Europe and the US, and the wide range of his knowledge and experience is frequently on display. He writes with vigor and clarity: Essays produced in the 1960s and '70s on, say, the difference between Comus and Sartre, are just as alive and relevant now as when he wrote them. Naturally, Vargas Llosa writes a good deal about politics, especially South American politics. ("The raison d'etre of a writer," he reminds us, "is protest, disagreement, criticism.") Though politicial essays are especially prone to seeming dated and irrelevant, in Vargas Llosa's hands the opposite is true. He cannily brings out the element of the permanent that inhabits the ephemeral. But perhaps his best efforts in this book are the literary essays. He turns his analytic gaze on Doris Lessing, Grass, Dos Passos, Faulkner, Cortezar, Bataille, Bueuel, de Beauvoir, Joyce, Bellow, Rushdie, and Hovel, among others, to considerable effect. In addition, he has interesting things to say about such diverse topics as Lorena Bobbit, the British school system, and the grave of Rin Tin Tin. The collection is also of interest because it offers an intimate chronicle of Vargas Llosa's intellectual life, tracing his trajectory from the political left to the right, a transit he has made with admirable honesty and self-criticism. A fine collection demonstrating that, like his American colleague John Updike, Vargas Llosa has done some of his finest writing in essays and reviews. | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12091 | by: Kennedy, Claire
Format: PaperbackCopyright: 06/16/2015Publisher: Simon Pulse
SummaryScandals and hook-ups abound in a summertime restaurant drama where four teens are all willing to do whatever it takes to make it through the workday…and hopefully to win the money in the after-hours dare-based game of Tips.Isa, Xavi, Peter, and Finn know that a job at the high-end Waterside Café isn’t just about waiting tables. It’s about the gossip, the hook-ups, the after-hours parties, and, most of all, it’s about Tips.Tips—the high-stakes game based on dares. Whoever completes the most dares wins the collected money. A sum that could change a wasted summer into a Summer to Remember.Isa is the new girl with an embarrassing secret, and as long as she stays on top of her game, she sees no reason why anyone could ever find out.Xavi will do anything for the money…absolutely anything.Peter, Xavi’s stepbrother, has been in love with her for years, and he thinks the game is the perfect time to confess his feelings.Finn is in the game just for the thrill. He has enough tips coming in to keep him happy…even if those tips come with some conditions.From seduction to stealing to threats, the dares are a complete free-for-all, and only the best can win. | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12177 | Stick Out Your Tongue
By: Ma Jian (author)Paperback
A Chinese writer whose marriage has fallen apart travels to Tibet. As he wanders through the countryside, he witnesses a sky burial, shares a tent with a nomad on a pilgrimage to atone for sleeping with his daughter, meets a silversmith who has hung the wind-dried corpse of his lover on the walls of his cave, and hears the story of a young female incarnate lama who died during a Buddhist initiation rite. In the thin air of the high plateau, the divide between fact and fiction becomes confused and the man is drawn deep into an alien culture which haunts his dreams. Famously banned in China in 1987, Stick Out Your Tongue, is the hugely influential book that set Ma Jian on the road to exile, and still makes it difficult for him to publish his work in China today.
Ma Jian left Beijing for Hong Kong in 1987. After the hand-over of Hong Kong he moved to Germany and then London, where he now lives. His acclaimed book Red Dust won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 2002. In 2004 Chatto published his novel, The Noodle Maker.
Category: Short Stories»
publisher: Vintage Publishing»
imprint: Vintage» | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12236 | FRS - Flames on the Horizon, by Henry
Fruipit
User blog:Fruipit
This review was conducted by the Fanon Review Squad and reflects our best judgment of writing and fanon authorship quality. Please don't take offense if the review wasn't positive. We always give advice! Flames on the Horizon Over 500 years have passed since the Rupture, when Avatar Kuyin, an Avatar-gone-bad, nearly destroyed the world after unleashing a powerful explosion of the elements. All of the world succumbed to fires, eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and terrible storms, destroying all the technological advances made since Avatar Aang's time. Civilizations crumbled, and the world was forced to start from the beginning.
So, basically, we have an island home to many waterbenders (actually, it's part of the Water Tribe, technically). They live right next door to the Air Nomad family, and all their many children, and the neighbourhood bully, Fire Nation, comes up and tries to take what isn't theirs. Actually, it's a lot more interesting than that, but this is just the general gist. Henry first became known as an author for his creative debut story, The Sole Woodbender—let's see how he does with his new epic adventure (with a side of action), Flames on the Horizon!
Scores Plot = 8.9: Okay, this is one of the best categories to mark. Henry has taken an idea that I haven't seen befo7re and really put his own spin and influence into the writing. I know, from The Sole Woodbender, that he's actually one of the most creative-thinking, original fanfic writers (not an oxymoron). I would have liked to see a bit more of the world it was set it. I read the main page only after I read the story, and while Henry has the plot laid out for everyone to read, it occurs too soon in the story. We're already getting to the rising action and yet I don't really feel like I understand everything that is going on unless I read the mainpage. It's okay to put relevant information up, however one has to be careful not to rely on the front page to give readers the information they should be getting from the actual story. So, the deduction from this story comes from the execution of the plot, not necessarily the creativity or the originality.
Characterisation = 7.9: I quite liked the characters, actually. They had interesting names, although every time I read 'Nani', I'm reminded of Lilo's older sister from Lilo & Stitch. This does become slightly problematic when it's taken into account that the story is very 'Hawai'ian' themed, but really, it didn't affect anything at all. Just thought I'd mention it as an interesting point ^^"
That being said, though, the characters were very stereotypical. Uso of the Fire Nation was just another Captain Zhao. I couldn't picture him at all, really, which was a shame. He is your straight-cut 'bad guy', however all bad guys need some type of redeemable quality. He has only one side to his personalty, but humans are not one-dimensional. In short, he is too textbook evil. Yes, bad people can do bad things because they want to, however there needs to be some motive behind that want, as well.
All the characters had the same voice, and the same tone. I would expect those on the island to have a more roguish tone than the enlightened, spiritual Air Nomads. They may have different personalities, but when they're speaking it's only because of the 'he said/she said' at the end that the reader knows exactly who was speaking.
Unfortunately, we don't see an exceptional amount of character development in the other people. This is due to the fact that while the characters do have faults—they behave like real people, they just don't learn much over the course of the story, and as the readers, we haven't learnt that much about them Devion is a guy who has the hots for the most beautiful girl in the village who happens to be a master swordswoman. That's the surface, and that's all we know. Devion is a little shy around his crush and he doesn't get along with Makanui, but we don't know why. In the author's dash to create an interesting plot, he's sort of forgotten the characters. In this case, it isn't the usual 'having characters act OOC in order to create the plot he wants'; instead it's 'creating the plot he wants and the characters just happen to be there as everything unfolds'. In part, this could be rectified by letting us know what people are thinking. There has been a very specific cause->effect pattern occurring throughout the story, but the readers don't really feel exactly what is motivating the people to take action (the 'effect'). We know, but we don't understand. As a writer, it's your job to make us understand and feel the way the characters do. Believability = 7.9: The deductions in this section stem from the actions taken by characters, and really, the believability of everything else was right up there. Unfortunately, characters are a huge aspect to almost every story, and thus they need to be the ones that the audience believes in.
It would take longer for two boys to carry a man up a cliff, even if they were young and strong. It's a cliff, which usually entails jagged edges and an almost vertical climb. I also find it strange that the chief wanted Devion and Kialuk to come to the meeting with the Fire Nation, because they really, in the social heirarchy, have no place there, and there is no conceivable reason beyond 'you found that half-dead guy' that would justify such a decision. The meeting was a negotiation between the Fire Nation and Island, and a young, reckless teenager had the chance of only exacerbating the tensions.
The actions of the characters, and to some degree, the characters themselves, are the most unbelievable part of this story. By building more on them, it would really help the reader to envision the story and see it how the author intended. Frankly, I don't believe some of the actions. The Fire Nation suddenly delivering an ultimatum seems, well, sudden. To give such definite conditions is not entirely realistic; I think the Fire Nation would try and make a deal first, based on what many other countries (all of them, when I think about it) did during colonisation in the 18th-early 19th century (such as Britain making the Chinese economy dependent on opium in order to get real Chinese tea). This might not be the case in this story, however there is not enough elaboration nor explanation as to the Fire Nation's attitude to justify such a stance.
Technical writing = 9.4: Minor comma over-use in some parts, however there are also sections that required more—particularly in dialogue—that wasn't present. I found that this was more prevalent in the later chapters, however there's no outstanding grammatical or spelling errors. Good job, Henry! Probably especially awesome seeing as how you edit your own work. Go you! :D
Non-technical writing = 8.3: I noticed several instances of the same word (usually an adjective) being used several times within the same paragraph. There is nothing wrong with this technically, however it does make the story sound repetitive, especially when there are so many synonyms for similar words.
The descriptions were short and slightly confusing. Some words are used as descriptors, but fail to actually show the audience what is happening—"undulating", in the first chapter, is one of them. What is 'undulating'? It is, according to my dictionary, "[to] move with a smooth wave-like motion", however this doesn't actually tell the audience what this looks like, only what the character is doing.
The action moves too fast, and we aren't given enough warning. There needs to be some padding between events to prepare a reader, and to get them fully engrossed in the story. Chapter Three suddenly introduces Air Nomads, who, until this point, were never a factor.
There is a lot of dialogue, which isn't a problem, however I would love to see it balanced out with more description. Phrases such as "Devion could tell the chief was very tense and nervous about this meeting" are fine, however I want to see how the chief was tense and nervous. I don't want to be told he was. Really get into the descriptions, because they can turn a good story into a great one, and I know you have the potential!
Organisation = 8.1: The shift from the prologue to the first chapter was a bit jumpy, as they style is actually quite different, and this prologue isn't fully explained or justified in the following chapters.The sudden introduction of the Air Nomads threw me, with another instance being evident in the latest chapter, which suddenly mentions the Avatar. We have not heard anything of the Avatar before now, and suddenly introducing a new (if only potential, at the moment) character is not something that should be done half-way through a story. We need clues, otherwise the story doesn't flow and and both the plot and organisation suffers, as it makes it seem as though the author doesn't always know what they are doing—a fact that Henry shows us is false by the sheer amount of backstory and information on the main page.
Total score = 8.38
My advice: Focus on building up your world. You have a plot, and I can tell that you have your own mental image, however this doesn't always express itself so clearly on the paper. Remember that you can use more than just visual descriptors; they live on an island—does he wake up to the smell of the salt, and fall asleep to the sound of the waves? The same goes for your characters. How do they hold themselves; how do they feel? Focus more on what's going on in there characters' minds, rather than what's going on in the world. I know you have a plan, and that will not fall by the wayside if you give it a less pressing focus. However, the characters, and the world, will suffer if you only focus on plot.
Why I enjoyed this story: I like reading a story and knowing that the author knows what they are doing. Henry is one of those authors. I remember his first story, and I think it's really cool being able to visibly see people improve their writing. I liked this story for the plot, really. And Henry seems to be aiming for a balance with romance, action, and adventure, and I think he's on the right track.
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2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12243 | Examining the beauty and harmony of Islamic artist Shirin Neshat
Susan Saccoccia |
10/30/2013, 1:37 p.m. "Speechless" by Shirin Neshat
(Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Perhaps the biggest boundary that Neshat yearns to cross is the distance between herself and her homeland. Art provides a medium to bridge this gap. “I’ve lived here longer than in my own country,” says Neshat. “I would not have become an artist if I did not live here, with my longing to reconnect with Iran.”
While Neshat directs others to photograph the scenes she stages, she painstakingly handwrites the delicate lines of Persian calligraphy that overlay the faces in her portraits. “I apply ink with a brush or for smaller words, with a pen,” says Neshat. “It’s easy to ruin a photograph. Managing the brush is like painting, a slowly acquired skill. Over the years, I’ve become more refined at it.”
Neshat finds calligraphy a satisfying but strenuous process. “Writing is meditative and solitary,” says Neshat. “But it can be frustrating too, in its repetitiveness.” (Photo Lina Bertucci, courtesy of the Gladstone Gallery.)
Work by Shirin Neshat (above) is on display at MFA Boston. Films and videos offer her a more dynamic way of working. “I can collaborate with others on a larger scale,” says Neshat, “and draw the viewer into an experience with music and acting as well as visual images.”
Neshat was awarded the 2009 Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival for her adaptation of Iranian author Shahrnush Parsipur’s 1979 novel, “Women Without Men,” which follows five women as they emerge from oppressed lives.
Neshat’s new photographic series, “The Book of Kings,” borrows its name from the epic poem of Iran, the Shahnameh. The ensemble of 80 portraits casts contemporary Iranians as nation builders. Men and women appear side by side as equals in an evolving society. “Their world is already very different than a decade ago,” says Neshat. “The population is better educated, and 80 to 90 percent of Iranian women are working.”
Drawn to portraying “determined and heroic women” of the Islamic world, Neshat has begun her next feature film, a biography of the legendary Egyptian singer Om Kolthoum (1898-1975). The daughter of an imam in a village mosque, she became one of the most revered Arabic singers in history. Millions lined the streets to witness her funeral procession. “My desire is to tell the story of an artist with power,” says Neshat. “Unlike the western model of singers like Billy Holiday and Edith Piaf whose careers ended in self-destruction, she was powerful to the end of her life.” << Previous Page
In their eyes Shirine Babb stars in Pulitzer Prize-winning play ‘Disgraced’ What's Hot in the City Week of January 20th Click here to submit an event | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12283 | Caboodle Firsts: Be one of the first 100 to read Ayobami Adebayo's Stay With Me
Are you looking for a great read to start off your year? 100 Caboodlers will receive Ayobami Adebayo's Stay With Me before it's out in March.
Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything - arduous pilgrimages, medical consultations, dances with prophets, appeals to God. But when her in-laws insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair.
Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 80s Nigeria, Stay With Me sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. Ayobami Adebayo weaves a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about our desperate attempts to save ourselves and those we love from heartbreak.This giveaway has now closed. 100 winners will receive their copy shortly.
Caboodle Firsts give you the chance to read the next big thing, before anyone else! Every month we'll give away 100 advance copies of a book we think will be on everyone's lips. Plus we'll have a sample chapter so you can start reading straight away.
100 x winners will receive a copy of Ayobami Adebayo's Stay With Me.
Only one entry per person will be accepted.
The prizes are non-transferable and there are no cash alternatives.
Closing date 11:59pm, Thursday 2nd February 2017.
100 randomly selected winners will receive a copy to the address provided.
The competition is open to UK and Republic of Ireland residents except employees of the Booksellers Association, Book Tokens Ltd and employees of participating bookshops.
By entering, entrants acknowledge that this competition is a game of chance, which does not involve exercising any skill or judgement.
Entrants agree to Book Tokens Ltd using their details in post-competition publicity. Your details will not be used for any other purpose, or passed onto any third parties, unless specified.
The promoters’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Promoter: Book Tokens Ltd, 6 Bell Yard, London, WC2A 2JR.
Our Latest Competitions Don't miss out on this month's giveaways! Win signed books and once-in-a-lifetime prizes. | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12423 | ʻKlaus Reichert is a traveller full of ideas and erudition … wise enough to be humbled by the intellect and symbolism of classical Ottoman architecture or curious enough to loose himself in the spontaneous rhythms of traditional Turkish flat weaves.ʻ
– Andrew Finkel, author of Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know
TURKEY REDISCOVERED: A LAND BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY
by KLAUS REICHERT
Without a guide, driven only by his own curiosity, Klaus Reichert travels to Anatolia, Istanbul and the Aegean coast. He explores the strip of land where Adam and Eve are said to have settled after their expulsion from Eden and where Moses struck water from a stone. He talks to an old stonemason and a young teacher, following in the footsteps of the brilliant architect Mimar Sinan, and probes the mysteries of his mosques. He visits one of the last remaining colonies of a rare breed of ibis and walks the wide expanses surrounding the archaeological sites of western Turkey. Finally, he draws parallels between kilim weaving, minimal music, and modernity as a whole. Under Klaus Reichertʼs gaze, what is seen, questioned and learned is compacted like warp and weft into colourful and provoking images and patterns. This is a book that uncovers hidden depths to a land we thought we knew, but it shows that we have much to learn.
Klaus Reichert, born in 1938, is a literary critic, author, translator and publisher. He taught English and American Literature at the University of Frankfurt and was president of the German Academy for Language and Literature. He has written books on and translated works by James Joyce, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Virginia Woolf.
Publication Date: 15 Sept. 2016 | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12428 | Highlighted Author
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Category Archives: Biography
Autobiography, Biography, Historical, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Uncategorized
Welcome Ronny Herman de Jong
January 6, 2014 CharleneAWilson 3 Comments
Join me in welcoming Ronny Herman de Jong to Highlighted Author.
Ronny Herman de Jong, author of two books and featured in a 2013 Anthology, currently lives in Prescott, AZ, is a survivor of the World War Two Japanese concentration camps on the island of Java. The very first books she owned, she received after the war for her ninth birthday from her grandmother and her third-grade teacher. She still has them. Writing became the joy of her life in fifth grade. When she lived in Hawai’i, she loved to swim, snorkel and dance hula. Now, living in Arizona, she likes to hike with her Rottweiler, Isabelle, read, write, and practice yoga and Pilates. Her motto is Reach for the Stars!
A member of the Professional Writers of Prescott and the Society of Southwestern Authors, Ronny holds a BA in English Literature from Leiden University in the Netherlands.
She’s with us this week sharing her book, Rising from the Shadow of the Sun: A Story of Love, Survival and Joy.
Interview with Morning Scramble
What they are saying:
“Aided by her mother’s secret diary (published here in its entirety) that she kept during this awful time, written in Dutch of course that Ms. de Jong later translated into English, the author tells this harrowing little-known story, another from World War Two, that is a horrific picture of life in a concentration camp but, much more importantly, a testament to the endurance of the human spirit.”—H. F. Corbin “Foster Corbin”
“Ronny Herman de Jong’s book, “Rising from the Shadow of the Sun,” is many things: a journal of a mother, Netty (Jeannette Herman-Louwerse) who survived a Japanese extermination camp, her husband’s military story, and their daughter, Ronny’s reflections on her own life in context of her parents’. These three major “characters” bring unique points of view about the experiences of a family during the Japanese invasion of the island of Java, in the Dutch East Indies. However, the combination of the three in one book is like looking into a prism with many faces. In the final analysis, the stories blend into one another and the reader gains a much fuller, richer view than she would with only one perspective. “Rising from the Shadow of the Sun” is an important account of courage and hope.”—Nancy Owen Nelson, PhD, Memoirist, poet, college professor
“Rising from the Shadow of the Sun: what an incredibly beautifully detailed account it is. Many books have been written in the Dutch language (about the Japanese concentration camps in the Dutch East Indies), but what is so special about this book is that it gives such a complete overview. It covers almost a whole life span. The reader is pulled into the story (from the very beginning).
De Jong provides an important service to all English-language readers. I know for certain that there is a need among readers of the second and third generation in English-language countries to read this book.
I think it has the potential for a movie. Sadly, I only produce documentaries.”—Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich, Producer http://www.scarabeefilms.com Rising from the Shadow of the Sun
The story of a mother’s love and courage during World War Two in the Pacific and the journey of her little girl from the horrors of life in Japanese concentration camps on Java in the 1940s to peace and prosperity in the United States in the 21st century. Book Trailer
In the Shadow of the Sun
Eluding Death
Sticking his bayonet through the gedèk (bamboo fence), the Japanese soldier aimed to kill me. He missed. A little girl with blond braids, I was only five years old in March of 1944. The bayonet sliced through the air over my head. “Mamma!” I cried.
“Ronny, come here!” cried Mamma. Dropping my flowers I scrambled across the slokan (ditch) and into Mamma’s arms. “Oh Ron!” said Mamma. “I am so glad you could run so fast through the slokan! You’re such a big girl!”
“What was that, Mamma?”
“You probably came too close to the gedèk. On the other side is a soldier. He thought you were running away and put a stick through the gedèk to scare you.”
“Can you get my flowers, Mam? They are for you.”
Mamma took my hand. “We will get them later, when the soldier is gone. All right?”
That morning, Mamma and I were walking along the edge of the camp. I was picking wildflowers for Mamma across the slokan. On the other side of the gedèk, a Japanese guard heard voices and intended to kill me. It is one of the bad memories I have of those three and a half years in Japanese concentration camps. At that time, Mamma, my little sister Paula and I were incarcerated in Halmahera, a Japanese concentration camp outside of Semarang, on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. The war had gone on for two years.
The Japanese Army had conquered our island in March of 1942. Civilians—men, women and children—were put into concentration camps. Our captors withheld food and medication and treated the prisoners in the most inhumane way. Many were tortured and raped and beheaded. The Imperial Japanese Army’s instructions were to exterminate the Western Race in the islands at all costs so Japan could achieve a monopoly in Southeast Asia.
It was a near miss. I did not die at the hands of that Japanese soldier in 1944 because I was too small. I could have died a year later from hunger edema. In August of 1945, I was six. My legs were like sticks, my tummy was bloated and my cheeks were puffy. I was in the last stages of beri-beri, hunger edema. Paula, then four years old, had dry edema and was a mere skeleton. She could not walk or sit anymore. I imagined how it would happen. Paula would die first. Mamma had “wet” edema, like me, and she would die soon after Paula. I would have a month, perhaps two, before it was my turn. The Japanese would throw me into a mass grave outside the camp; a large hole in the ground dug especially for this purpose. When the war was over, allied rescue troops would unearth my body with all the others and bury it properly in the cemetery outside of town. They would top my grave with a nameless white cross. They put white crosses on thousands of graves in memory of the women and children who perished under the cruel treatment of the Japanese.
Forty-nine years later, I stood at that cemetery and wept. I wept tears of sorrow for all those mothers and children who had perished, and I wept tears of joy because I was alive.
I did not die in 1945 from hunger edema, because on August 15, 1945, the Japanese Empire abruptly surrendered and the war was over.
The world knows a lot about the war in Europe, the German occupation and the Holocaust. This book captures an aspect of WWII that is unknown to many: the torture and deaths that took place in civilian concentration camps all over Asia under Japanese occupation: the Asian Holocaust.
They are here. The Japs came marching in today. I heard the sound of many motorcars, a heavy droning sound, along a wide avenue near our street. I ventured to look around the corner and saw the Japanese army, marching and driving. On both sides of the street many of the natives were waving small Japanese flags. I felt they were betraying us and hurried back home.
Yesterday, our next door neighbor, who lives in the large home on the corner, didn’t come home from the office. He works in City Hall. He left in the morning, as usual, but didn’t return in the afternoon. A telephone call notified his wife to take a small suitcase with some clothing and toiletries to the prison. The prison! She came to talk to me today, totally upset. Her husband, a high government official, had been imprisoned. She didn’t know why.
Fokko has gone. I don’t know anything about him. I don’t even know where he is, whether he is still alive or whether we’ll ever see each other again. You can understand how I feel. This is the worst thing that could happen to me, because as long as you have each other you can endure anything. I’ll try to tell you everything that happened since March 1st, now exactly a week ago, also a Sunday.
Fokko had to work that day and wouldn’t be back until Monday night. When Ronny and I said goodbye that morning at the gate I said, “See you tomorrow night.” The funny thing was that we said goodbye twice, which had never happened before, and I thought, How strange. I hope nothing happens to him. I’d always have to think about this. We had our daily bombardments and around 11 our neighbor came over with a telephone message from Fokko. He’d called to ask if everything was all right. An hour later I was called to the phone (we didn’t have one of our own) and Fokko asked me the address of Jos’ wife’s parents in Malang, where I was to go if we had to be evacuated. He said, “Just in case we don’t see each other before you have to be evacuated, I need to know where I can find you.”
That telephone call frightened me. I went home, only to be called over again an hour later, and there it was: he had been assigned to a group of men who had to evacuate to Tjilatjap, a harbor town on the south coast. That’s all he knew. He asked me to pack a suitcase and didn’t even know whether he would have time to pick it up himself.
“And what about me?” I asked.
“You are staying here,” he said and he gave me an address where I would get money every month, part of his salary.
I went home to pack Fokko’s suitcase. All kinds of horrifying thoughts went through my mind. In the afternoon I went to a phone booth to call him. He said he didn’t know anything yet, but he was almost sure he’d have time to come by before he had to leave. “Say goodbye to Ron and little Paula.” I got home just in time for the next alarm. That night Fokko called me again at the neighbor’s and we had a good, long talk. He cheered me up again, but I didn’t sleep much that night. Early the next morning, while I was sorting out some pictures for Fokko to take, I heard from one of the neighbors that the base would be destroyed around 9 a.m. When we heard the terrible explosions, tears started running down my face. You should have heard Ronny trying to cheer me up. Stroking my arm she said, “Please don’t cry, Mam. Maybe Pappa will come home to pick up his suitcase.”
When that didn’t have any results, she said, “Maybe Pappa will stay with us for a little while longer.”
“No, Pappa really has to leave.”
“Do you love Pappa so much? Maybe then we’ll get another Pappa,” she finally said.
At noon the radio broadcast the news that the Japanese had invaded Java’s north coast. A little later Fokko drove into the driveway for the last time. Of course he was depressed too. They had each received some money and a lifebelt (did that mean he would go overseas?), and the train would be leaving at 7 p.m. that night. We spent some time talking, while Fokko looked through the papers he wanted to take with him. Kokki kept the girls occupied, but we didn’t feel like dinner that afternoon. At five Fokko and I left for the tram, which would take him to the train. It cut me through my soul when I heard him say, “Pappa has to leave now. Be good, girls.”
He took them in his arms, hugged them and kissed them goodbye. They couldn’t understand that it possibly meant goodbye for a long time. He had to leave them just like that. How terrible.
Get your copy of Rising from the Shadow of the Sun here:
Amazon.com | BarnesandNoble.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
Want more Ronny? Here’s where you can find her:
Website: http://www.ronnyhermandejong.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ronnyhermandejong/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ronnyhermandejo/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/106034067626195740064/posts
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/17044346-ronny-herman-de-jong
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/hermandejong/ Book TrailerInterviewJapanese concentration campsMorning ScrambleRising from the Shadow of the Sun:Ronny Herman de Jong
Adventure, Biography, Inspirational, Non-Fiction, Uncategorized
Welcome Pamela Bitterman
April 15, 2013 CharleneAWilson Join me in welcoming Pamela Sisman Bitterman to Highlighted Author.
Pamela caught my attention when I was introduced to her novel, Muzungu, then my heart with, When This Is Over, I Will Go To School and I Will Learn To Read, and my breath with, Sailing to the Far Horizon. All true stories, they prove to me that his woman is amazing. She has been a guest speaker at Sierra Club, Palomar College, Southern California’s Writers conference, American Association of University Women, was guest of honor at Asteres Annual Event, Aboard The Star Of India Tall Ship, Arts That Splash, 39th Annual Local Authors Exhibit, and held Book Tour events and signings nationwide and abroad.
But it doesn’t stop there. The list continues with her radio interviews and television appearances on The Michael Dresser Show, Radio New Zealand National Radio, Nine to Noon Program, KPBS Public Radio, These Days Program, Discovery Channel, Investigation Discovery Program, series Escaped, Share the Candy Radio Webcast, Cruise With Bruce Radio, Travel Wise, Let’s Talk About Books with The1essence, and January Jones BTR. I’ll let her tell you more in her own words. She’s much more exciting to read. *wink* Pamela, it’s all yours…
Today I am a mom, a wife, a writer, and an explorer who has tried to travel her world with her eyes, arms, heart and mind wide open. I am a youthful 6o years old; strong, wise, weathered and seasoned. I hope to be able to proudly proclaim myself to still be all the aforementioned and more, in the years ahead. I have worn many hats along the road thus far; teacher, student, counselor, naturalist, sailor, mediator and more. I have been on quite a journey, with tremendous love and laughter, sadness and loss, beauty and wonder, struggle and survival. Great joy, and great heartache. Life. I would want very few do-overs. I am grateful for everything. I have been fortunate! My life continues to be an ever evolving work in progress, as do I. My first book, Sailing To the Far Horizon, is graphically biographical. It encapsulates me as product of the first thirty years of my rather unconventional life.
Muzungu, the story of my unlikely escapade throughout Kenya, picks up on that journey a couple decades later. I also wrote a children’s book about this experience titled “When This Is Over, I Will Go To School, And I Will Learn To Read; A Story of Hope and Friendship For One Young Kenyan Orphan“. It was illustrated by the orphans I worked with in Africa. Both are the personal accounts of my work and travel through Kenya as the epitome of Muzungu, the Swahili word for white man. Literally translated, Muzungu means “confused person wandering about.” Fit me to a tee! In between the adventures that were the subjects of my first and my later books were my marriage and children, my persona as wife and mother – the heart of me; me as my best self. As I explain in Muzungu, during those intervening years, the “yee-hah!” exhilaration of climbing out onto life’s edge had never entirely died out in me. It had merely been lying dormant beneath a meticulously constructed, implied housewife persona, a twenty-five year stint of nurturing-mother prioritizing for which I had absolutely no regrets. Everything had turned with the seasons, as they should. And a bygone time had finally come back around, although to what purpose under heaven remained to be seen. My future also remains to be seen, and to be told. Can’t hardly wait!
Sailing to the Far Horizon
One woman’s true story of life, loss, and survival at sea.
“I keep reminding myself that I have seen the pictures, heard the stories, read countless books. There is an exotic world out there comprised of brilliant wonders and fascinating cultures, promising endless horizons and illuminating adventures, inducing me with wholly unique challenges, and daring me to accomplish awesome leaps of faith. The Sofia is my ticket.”
Excerpt Sinking; The Life Rafts
The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one, that never otherwise would have occurred. — GOETHE
Click Image To Purchase . . .
On this fifth day [hopelessly adrift in life rafts following the sudden and violent sinking of our tall ship, the Schooner Sofia] we realize that we are no longer seeing distant ships off on the horizon or the occasional plane soaring overhead. And we hear far fewer heralding cries or have welcome visits from curious shorebirds venturing out to examine our unnatural presence. Already well outside the shipping lanes, we have been carried steadily out to sea, on our way to nowhere. When incurably wide-eyed and ever-hopeful Chris asks Evan [our skipper] if we still have a good chance of being saved, Evan fixes on his imploring stare and answers with accuracy and uncharacteristic gentleness. “No Chris, not much,” he replies. Evan then lays his head on my shoulder and sleeps. In nearly four years of countless highs and lows across half the planet, this simple gesture is the most sincere and spontaneous intimacy that my captain and I have ever exchanged.
We need to patch the raft yet again, a prospect now both futile and horrific. We are being barraged by a family of sharks. They rub their sandpapery bodies along the thin, grainy raft floor, bumping us about like we are on a carnival ride. By the second day in the rafts, I was forced to announce to my captive audience that, whether we liked it or not, I was menstruating. Amid a chorus of alarmed male sighs, the other women raise their hands in a reluctant but resigned “me too” acknowledgement of undeniable feminine unity. As is so often the case when women live together, our cycles had synchronized. Nature delivered us yet one more cruel jab: There would be blood in the water. The sharks are now our nearly constant companions, a patient and persistent entourage. Patching the leaks is no longer an option. Besides, our raft is almost beyond repair. Our having to go into the ocean for good is imminent, and we all know it.
Get your copy of Sailing To the Far Horizon here: http://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Far-Horizon-Restless-Journey/dp/0299201902
Muzungu, the Swahili word for white folk, translated literally means “confused person wandering about.” During the author’s months working and traveling through Kenya, this description fits her to a tee. Her audacious Kenyan adventure makes for a bucket load of anecdotes and impressions born of heart and hands-on experience–enough to knock your socks off.
COMING HOME:
“Order this phone today” some sweet confection-nicknamed, neon-colored, ultra sleek mobile “and help wipe out AIDS in Africa!” the television commanded me within minutes of my collapsing for the first time in my Southern California living room after spending nearly two months in Africa. Now, what does that mean? I pondered. The next morning, a headline in the fat newspaper on my doorstep informed me that a tiny band of rebel fighters trapped somewhere in the African jungle were caught killing mountain gorillas. They were eating them to survive. Some American animal activist group was positively outraged. “Yes, outrageous,” I sighed.
Since returning home, reflecting on the time I spent in Kenya has proved to be a frustrating exercise. Throughout my journey I toted my copy of National Geographic, the issue on which the title page flashed, Africa: Whatever you thought, think again. I was hoping that somewhere in this illustrious expose I would find validation for the conflicting messages I was receiving. To make matters more confounding, from the moment my plane touched down back on U.S. soil I was buried in an avalanche of material insidiously designed to debunk my own eyewitness accounts. As a result I began to question my perceptions, which in turn caused my intention to commit the experience to print to stutter and then stall out completely. I feared that if I wrote an honest appraisal of my adventure I would be vilified. Even worse, I was afraid that what I wrote would have a deleterious effect on the people of Kenya, the people I went there to help. Then later on, while leafing through the stack of magazines that had piled up in my absence, I stumbled upon an article that casually discarded the term hunger, substituting in its place the new PC term, low food security, when describing the unpardonable state of the starving multitudes on the planet. It was at that moment that I pledged to tell my story.
Curious as to how the media’s tone when dealing with current issues jived with my personal impressions, I collected every Dark Continent news tidbit that cycled down the pike. Culling information from a variety of sources and comparing it with anecdotes from my own journey, I ferreted out what I hoped amounted to the litmus test for a Kenyan reality check. Materials from newspapers to newsmagazines, adventure journals to journals on health, and nonprofit charitable organizations to profiteering political organizations, were referenced and offset against my own experiences. As a result I began to suspect that the media’s Africa had taken on a life of its own and that tragically that life had precious little to do with improving the lives of Africans. It became increasingly apparent that although my story was certain to be a great many things, one thing it would never be was representative of the norm. I am changed as a result of my trip to Kenya though not in any way formerly anticipated. In addition to acknowledging the existence of the established abominations at work in Kenya, I expose some lesser-known evils. In the end I wrestle a few slippery demons of my own.
David arrived home to San Diego six months after I did. I called him immediately and we got together to catch up. He seemed like the same old David, ”happy, kind, helpful, manic, and refreshingly clear-eyed and unsentimental about the situation in Maseno. I was thrilled to have him back, had dozens of ideas to run past him, and felt such a profound sense of comradeship that I became cautiously optimistic about completing the book. My Kenyan cohort confirmed everything I remembered, sensed, questioned, and concluded about our shared experience at St. Philip’s. I am not crazy . . . I consoled myself. Then David stepped off the front porch of his and Michael’s sweet little cottage, strolled down his lovely tree-lined street, settled beneath a blossoming willow on a soft green lawn, and calmly sent a bullet through his brain.
Get your copy of Muzungu here: https://www.ebookit.com/books/0000000120/Muzungu.html
When This Is Over, I Will Go To School, And I Will Learn To Read Proceeds go directly to the Kenya orphans.
No one knows the story of Kenya better than the children who live it.
I had the opportunity to travel to this country and become immersed with the families there. The result is a 1500-word nonfiction children’s picture book containing over 70 unique and original color images, titled, “When This Is Over, I Will Go To School, And I Will Learn To Read: A Story of Hope and Friendship for One Young Kenyan Orphan.”
This true story of one little boy is told in his own words.
While there are many books about Africa on the market, none are told from a child’s point of view like this one.
The children from the village created the book’s illustrations. I asked these students to draw what represented family, love, happiness, sadness, fear and hope for them. I have also included powerful photographs of the children, the school, the village and the countryside, the hospital, the mobile clinic and orphan program.
It is this truth that is certain to nudge the hearts and minds of parents, teachers and children everywhere.
I have promised all proceeds from the sale of this book to the children of the tiny village school where the illustrations were created. They trust me. And they wait.
My name is Julius. I am six years old and I have never been to school. I live in Kenya, Africa, with my bibi(grandmother), my dada (sister) Sarah and my kaka (brother) Hezron. Hezron is only three years old, but he is much bigger than I am.
We live in a mud hut on our little shamba (farm) in the forest.
Baba (father) and mama (mother) are gone. They were very sick and they could not get better. Our bibi cares for us but she is old and she cannot see. Sarah protects us. Sarah is eleven years old.
Professor Nancy is a kind bibi with skin and hair the color of cornflowers who comes to our village. She sees the hands and feet of my jamii (family) and says, “You have jiggers. Jiggers are bugs that crawl under the skin and lay eggs. You must come to my mobile clinic and orphan feeding program this weekend.”
I tell her, “When this is over, I will go to school, and I will learn to read.”
Get your copy of When This Is Over, I Will Go To School, And I Will Learn To Read here: https://www.createspace.com/4054600 Want more Pamela? Here’s where you can find her:
Website: www.pamelasismanbitterman.com
AfricacharityKenyaKenya orphansMuzunguOrphanPamela Sisman BittermanSailing to the Far Horizonship wrecksurvival at seaWhen this is over I will go to school and I will learn to read
Biography, Historical, Inspirational, Non-Fiction, Uncategorized
Welcome Tema Merback
November 5, 2012 CharleneAWilson Join me in welcoming Tema Merback to Highlighted Author.
Tema was born to a Holocaust survivor, Dina Frydman from Radom, Poland and Leo Balbien who was rescued by the Kindertransport from Vienna, Austria. She was raised in a loving home by two people whose lives had been shattered by the Holocaust, though in entirely different ways. She attended Granada Hills High School, worked countless jobs, and became a Kathryn McBride Scholar at Bryn Mawr College, following her passion for literature and art history. As she married and had children, her desire to write was deferred by the demands of a family. Through the years, several writers have approached her mother with hopes of telling her miraculous tale of survival. Unbeknownst to Tema, her mother had long ago determined that only she could bring this book to fruition, that only she would write it with an intimacy and compassion that no one else could. In the Face of Evil is the result of a collaboration of two forever bound souls, a mother and a daughter. Ranking #12 on Book Movement, In the Face of Evil has received outstanding recognition, including Silver Finalist in the category of Young Adult Literature for the National Jewish Book Awards for 2011 and being an eBook of note on the prestigious International Raoul Wallenberg Website whose members include Nobel Laureates and International world leaders.
You can find more at The Jewish Journal, April 26, 2011, by Ryan Torok: A daughter tells her mother’s story of the Holocaust, The Jewish Journal, May3, 2011, by Ryan Toro: Holocaust Book Reading Brings on Reunion and More, and MalibuPatch, April 29, 2011, by Jonathan Friedman: A Novel Idea to Tell a Survivor’s Story. Welcome, Tema. Please tell us about yourself and how you came to write In the Face of Evil.
When I was a child I knew my mother was different. I didn’t really hear her accent but all of my friends did and would ask, “Where is your mother from? Is she from Hungary? She looks like Zsa Zsa Gabor.”
“Poland, she’s from Poland,” I would answer. To my friends my mother’s foreignness was other worldly. She might as well have been an alien from another planet. She was an enigma even to me as I tried to fathom the differences between her and my friend’s parents. It wasn’t such a stretch of the imagination for me to conclude that I didn’t really know my mother. From time to time I wondered why my mother had no father, mother or siblings. What had happened to my grandparents? I wondered why she had a tattoo on her forearm and why during the summer she wore a Band-aid to cover it up. Later when I asked her why she wore the Band-aid? She would shrug and say she didn’t want to be stared at or endure the inevitable questions that the indelibly blue A-14569 would elicit from strangers.
In the 50’s and 60’s no one spoke of the Holocaust or World War II for that matter. I don’t remember ever learning about it in school, at least in terms of the Holocaust. I was about nine when I finally began to persistently question her as to the mysteries that surrounded her. You see, I didn’t just love my mother I was in love with my mother. She was so startlingly beautiful that all of my friends would constantly comment on her beauty. It was like an aura that shone so brightly that even children were taken with her. Forget about the countless men that were drawn to her. Even with four children in tow between the ages of three and nine they would come up to her and hit on her, using any excuse just to bask in her glow. She enjoyed being beautiful but was never comfortable or secure with it. In other words, she never really owned it. It was just some fluke of nature, something she hadn’t earned. I, however, only wanted to look like her and be like her.
She was hesitant to share her past but I must have been relentless because little-by-little she began to share her stories. At first, she spoke mostly about her family, reminiscences of incidents and events, family history and the city she came from. Her eyes would light up in reverence as she spoke of her father, mother, sister and brother, her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Then as suddenly, her eyes would cloud up and fill with tears as I continued to badger her for an answer as to what had happened to them. Eventually, she shared it all with me and I became part daughter, part psychologist, and part family historian. It became a routine that on Sunday morning I would climb into bed with her and having saved up a hundred questions during the week I would interrogate her. I was insatiable for answers and this hour usually ended with the two of us sobbing. I would wrap my arms around her feeling guilt that I had provoked such sorrow, wanting to comfort the pain that could not be comforted. I felt like the parent, the protector of this soul that had known such horror and lost so much. It seemed inconceivable to me that anyone could survive what she had. In my efforts to reassure her I would promise to never leave her and profess my love of her for all of time. “Mommy, when you die I don’t want to live another day.” She would laugh and say, “Of course you want to live. Life is the most precious thing we possess. Believe me, even with all of the evil in the world there is nothing sweeter than life.” So would another session end with her hugging me, “Besides, I am not leaving so fast I will be with you a long time.”
My mother has kept that promise to her child of being with her for a long time. The days and years have flown by as they tend to do and I feel that the circle that is life gets ever smaller. She is older now and not a day goes by that I don’t worry about her fragility. Yes, she is still beautiful but not in that effervescent lusciousness of youth. Her beauty is more haunting and like a mirror her face reflects the years of deprivation and loss that were her teens. Yet, her spirit is as pure and incandescent as it ever was. It is a mystery to me how anyone who has witnessed what she has could hold such an enduring belief in the goodness of mankind. Today, she often reminds me of an ancient philosopher of Greece. Ever the pragmatic idealist, she has long resigned herself to the inexplicability of life.
It is important to remember during these rapturous days that are summer that even with all of the imperfections and disappointments that come with the daily task of living, there are miracles to be sure. My mother lives by example and she is an example to us all. Be sure to appreciate all that you have been given and all those that you love.
I always knew that one day I would write and publish a novel, the question was never if, but rather what and when. Subject matter presented itself wherever I looked, however, for some reason I was not prepared to tackle the one story that was personal, the one that threatened perilously near my heart. Creating the story of my mother’s survival of the Holocaust seemed a journey through Hell and one that might prove to be too painful to revisit. Then it struck me, what if the memoir became a novel written in the present, in the voice of my mother as it occurred. The journey would become one of hope, a passage from ashes to redemption. A novel of an adolescent transformed into womanhood set against the background of world conflagration. “In the Face of Evil” was born.
I am currently writing my second novel.
About Dina Frydman Balbien
Dina Frydman was born in 1929 in Radom, Poland. Radom is situated about forty-five minutes by car from the capital city of Warsaw. Her parents Joel and Temcia Frydman were hard working people that owned and worked at their Kosher and non-Kosher butcher shop. Dina had an older sister Nadja who was six years her senior and a younger brother Abek that was three years her junior. They were an educated middle-class family, religious yet modern. They saw the future as a bright beacon of possibility, a place where Jews would find through education and hard work equality and success.
In September of 1939 when Dina was 10 years old all of the Frydman family’s dreams and aspirations were ended when the Nazis conquered Poland. From that moment forward until sixteen year old Dina’s liberation at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp life become a deadly game of survival. From work camps to death camps Dina did, through countless miracles, survive. Sadly, none of her family would share that fate. Her mother, father, sister and brother were murdered at Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only two of her cousins from her extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents survived.
After Dina’s liberation she spent time at DP facilities in Germany and a school for orphans at Aglasterhausen, Germany before immigrating to the United States in May 1946. She lived in foster care with a family in Philadelphia and attended Overbrook High School for two years. In 1949 she moved to Los Angeles, CA to live with a cousin that offered her a permanent home. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights and through necessity went to work. OnApril 5, 1952 she married Leo Balbien, a Kinder Transport immigrant from Vienna Austria who served in the US Army.
Dina was a full-time mother to her four children: Tema Nadine (named for her mother and sister), Joel Abraham (named for her father and brother), Joshua Nathan (named for both of her grandfathers), and Sarah Gail (named for both of her grandmothers).
In the last twenty-five years Dina has spoken to schools and synagogues in California about the Holocaust. In 2008 her daughter Tema Merback began a novel based on her amazing story that was published in January 2011. In the Face of Evil: Based on the Life of Dina Frydman Balbien has received critical acclaim from readers throughout the world and now has been honored by the National Jewish Book Council as a Finalist – National Jewish Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has also recognized In the Face of Evil as an e-book of note by recommending it on their prestigious website www.raoulwallenberg.net .
The novel, like The Diary of Anne Frank, spellbinds the reader with its ability to recreate the world in which Dina lived prior, during and after the war. Written in Dina’s voice we experience her transformation from child to teenager to woman while surviving occupation, destruction and imprisonment. Through it all Dina’s strength, perseverance and positivity all factored into her survival. She retained and exemplified the only possession left her by her loving family: Morality, ethics, love and forgiveness.
Her life is an inspiration to friends, family and all who read her story. Dina lives in Thousand Oaks, CA with her husband Leo. They have seven grandchildren.
What they’re are saying: “This book is the outcome of three miracles. First, the mother Dina Frydman, lived through the Holocaust, surviving an unbelievable, all too true set of tragic experiences that wiped out her entire family: occupation, ghetto, work camp, slave labor, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen (in its final stage of total collapse and chaos). Miraculously, she came through with her goodness, honor and affirmation of life intact. This book reflects those qualities.
Second miracle: for decades, in an incredible feat of memory, Dina relived and told her stories, recounting them with pitch perfect recollection, including a vivid gallery of portraits of friends, family, victims, persecutors, and with vital scenes of the kindness and cruelty of strangers, the love and incapacity of family, the support and saving help of friends.
Third miracles: Dina’s daughter, Tema Merback, absorbed these stories and reproduced them in this authentic, gripping, moving account. What the mother could not do – put her testimony in a book – the daughter has done and without losing any of the fire, or the suffering, or the heartbreak or the moments of relief and of despair. In the end this book communicates an irrepressible, overflowing life force and decency and hope in the face of the most inhuman crimes ever.
As authentic, as compelling, as devastating as a survivor’s account written at first hand, this book snatches memory and life from the jaws of oblivion and gives them as a gift to its readers.
This book was a mitzvah to write and a mitzvah to read.”—Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, Founding President, Jewish Life Network; Founding President, CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership; Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 2000-2002.
Tema Merback, October 16th guest speaker at Santa Monica College for their Literary Lecture Series. Click Image to Listen
In the Face of Evil
Seventy years have elapsed since the end of my childhood and the beginning of World War II. The destruction of community and family that followed the German invasion and conquering of Poland precipitated and forced me into an unnatural adulthood. The odd windfall of this calamitous event is a searing imprint of memory. Faces and voices have followed me my entire life offering up their advice and counsel, whether desired or not, shadowing each step as I steered my course through the seas of life. At times they have proven to be more real to me than yesterday’s events. Often, these friendly ghosts have capriciously danced through the corridors of my dreams as real and alive as the last day that I saw them. Like the story of “Brigadoon,” the mythical community of book and song that reappeared every hundred years and for one shiny bright inexplicable moment sparkled through the mists of Scotland, so has the vanished world of Radom, Poland returned to me in dreams and at times in waking just as it was long ago. The joyous community with its various degrees of religiosity, the marketplaces and shops, the places of learning, the observance of holidays, the intellectual liveliness, and of course the devotion and celebration of the Sabbath are all safely locked inside the reels of memory that play like a film in my mind, alive again.
Although I have tried at times to put the war behind me for both mine and my children’s sanity, like the tattoo that I bear, it is burned into me and has colored every moment of my life. With the passage of time there have been endless books with their endless revelations as to why or how such a nightmare could have occurred, but in the end the only lesson learned is that it happened. The Holocaust happened and millions perished through systematic slaughter. A world of people with their joys and sorrows disappeared and with them went a way of life. The apocalypse has long passed and the years have flown by like the clouds in a windblown sky. Soon there will be no survivors left and the keepers of the memory will be just that, a memory. So it has come to me, the bearer of the torch, the last to remember their sweet sojourn among friends and enemies before I, too, leave this world of bitter sweetness. The tale has now been written of those who lived, that they may endure and that you might know them.
Dina Frydman Balbien
Radom, Poland Summer of 1939
Click Image to Purchase. . . .
From the window of our apartment, I look down on the bustling streets. The morning sun shines on my street, Koszarowa Ulica, a busy thoroughfare in Radom’s Jewish quarter. Placing my hand on the window, I feel the warmth radiate through the glass. The bright August morning pours into my bedroom, casting away the shadows of a doubt-filled night. The ordinary ebb and flow of life seems to continue in a reassuring cycle of sunrises and sunsets.
Across the street, the shopkeepers are opening their stores. Michal the baker comes out and looks at the sky. A smile spreads across his plump face as he brushes some flour from his prominent nose. Mrs. Rabinowicz greets him, and with a last wistful glance at the sky, he follows her into his bakery. The birds’ songs crescendo in the tall chestnut trees lining the street, adding to the symphony of daily life. People hurry through the busy streets in pursuit of their daily callings. Bicyclists weave among the horse-drawn carriages, or dorozkas1, the principle form of transportation throughout Poland’s cities. Life seemed normal enough on this warm summer day in 1939. I rub my eyes in an effort to dispel the dream that still plagues me, trying to make sense of the visions of the night. It has been two years since my beloved zaida2 passed away. Last night in my sleep, he came to me. Reaching across the barriers that separate the living from the dead, he touched me in an urgent gesture to communicate. Standing at the foot of my bed, silently beckoning me to acknowledge his presence, he hovered; his large immaterial body shimmered before me. His eyes, the color of blue ice, bore into me through the veil of death. He conveyed a warning I could not fathom. The ghostly apparition had disturbed my peaceful slumber and I had brusquely shooed my grandfather away, reminding him that he belonged in the afterworld of the dead.
I awoke with a horrible feeling of guilt and remorse. Why had I not reached out to him full of the love we once felt for one another? I had not asked him why he was there. Instead, in the imaginary landscape of my dream, I had told him to leave and not to return. How could I have sent my beloved grandfather away? I tried to brush the vision from my mind and replace it with the happy memory of my grandfather as he was in life, Jekiel starke, meaning Jekiel the strong in Yiddish. Rhythmically swaying in his rocking chair, he impatiently waited for our cherished daily routine—when I climbed on his lap and kissed him. Together we would rock as he told me stories of his youth, the security of his arms enfolding me, his white beard tickling until I was reduced to giggles. The fond memories of a favorite grandchild encircled me in a blissful cloak of warmth and safety, shielding me from the terrors of the dream.
Get your copy at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Face-Evil-Based-Frydman-Balbien/dp/1770670815/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352070206&sr=1-1&keywords=In+the+Face+of+Evil
Find more about Tema here:
Website: http://www.inthefaceofevil.net
Blog: http://www.inthefaceofevil.net/blog
MalibuPatch: http://malibu.patch.com/search?keywords=tema+merback
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/pages/In-the-Face-of-Evil-by-Tema-Merback/194512790585067
Twitter: @tema1953
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4655919.Tema_N_Merback
Dina Frydman BalbienHolocaust survivorIn the Face of EvilNazi death campsTema Merback
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Writing Contests and Writing Competitions
Back in April, I wrote a post about how to win writing contests. As a result, I have seen a large number of requests for information about writing contests. Here are a few of my favorite competitions and awards. John Kremer as a more comprehensive list on his site.
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards - The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards recognize books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures.
The Bancroft Prizes - The Bancroft Prizes are awarded annually by Columbia University in the City of New York. Under the terms of the will of the late Fredric Bancroft, provision is made for two annual prizes of equal rank to be awarded to the authors of distinguished works in either or both of the following categories: American History (including biography) and Diplomacy.
James Jones Fellowship Contest - he award is intended to honor the spirit of unblinking honesty, determination, and insight into modern culture exemplified by the late James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity and other prose narratives of distinction.
Los Angeles Times Book Prizes - The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were established in 1980. Finalists and winners are determined by panels of published authors who specialize in each genre. Category winners receive a $500 cash award and Kirsch and Innovator’s Award winners both receive $1000.
The Robert F. Kennedy Book Award - The Robert F. Kennedy Book Award was founded in 1980, with the proceeds from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s best-selling biography, Robert Kennedy and His Times. Each year the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights presents an award to the book which "most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes - his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."
Benjamin Franklin Awards™ - Named in honor of America's most cherished publisher/printer, the Benjamin Franklin Awards™ recognizes excellence in independent publishing. Publications, grouped by genre are judged on editorial and design merit by top practitioners in each field.
What is your favorite writing award or contest?
Mike JecksMay 19, 2010 at 5:55 PMAll these are good prizes - however, you missed the CWA's Debut Dagger competition. Every year, the UK's Crime Writers' Association holds competitions, and the Debut is for unpublished authors. They have to submit the first few thousand words of a novel, together with a synopsis. The prize is not huge, BUT - on average every year, two to three new writers are snapped up by publishers. When I ran it, I think I had seven new authors get into print in two years. That ain't bad!ReplyDeleteDaryl SedoreMay 20, 2010 at 10:23 AMMy favorite is the Writer's Digest Short Story Competition. It's held every year and for a nominal fee your story gets read and you have a chance of going to New York to meet agents as the first prize.In the 75th annual contest at Writer's Digest I had 5 stories place in the top 60 in the category "Genre Short Story".One of mine called, "The Newspaper" made it to the 6th spot out of almost 20,000 entries.ReplyDeleteAdd commentLoad more...
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2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12691 | Ron Gorchov — Recent Paintings — Richard Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris
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Recent Paintings
Past: October 13 → November 17, 2012
Galerie Richard Paris presents the latest series of paintings entitled Recent Paintings by Ron Gorchov. It is his first solo exhibition at the gallery following his joint exhibition with Alain Kirili,Célébration de la main, in 2009. These new works use a new range of pastel tones, an extreme fluidity of painting, as well as dynamism and dancing asymmetry of the central, abstract shapes.
Born in 1930, Ron Gorchov is the last of the American Abstract Expressionists. Additionally, Gorchov was the first artist in the United States to bring a physical three-dimensionality to his paintings in 1966 by inventing a technique that utilized painting upon a curved frame.
Born in Chicago, it is from the age of 14 that Gorchov began his artistic formation by attending Saturday courses at the Art Institute of Chicago. Belonging to the Abstract Expressionism generation, according to him, modernism rhymes with progress. “Part of the difficulty in painting is the glut of images. I have come to fear images”, he expressed in an interview with acclaimed art critic, Robert Storr. Ron Gorchov is not only interested in painting as a medium, but also as an expressive representation.
Gorchov is the first artist to have distorted the frame in order to impose both a convex and concave shape. The frame itself becomes an integral part of his signature. He draws directly on the canvas motifs of biomorphic shapes and reveals his brushstrokes when he finds them interesting. The artist paints with both hands. The painting can give the impression that it was executed quickly. But this is not the case; instead the artist works in a state of meditation. If he were not satisfied by the results, he would scrape the paint away and start anew.
“My painting is mostly made from reverie and luck.” Ron Gorchov
Gorchov lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He was represented in the ‘80s by the Barbara Gladstone Gallery and he was awarded “New Talent USA: Painting” in the magazine Art in America by Dorothy Miller, then curator at MoMA. He has been displayed in numerous prestigious places in the world of contemporary art: the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Queens Museum of art, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. After having been shown in collective exhibitions in 1976 and in 1979, the PS1 MoMA decided to dedicate a solo exhibition to him in 2006, entitled Ron Gorchov: Double Trouble. In 2010, he answered in a creative way to a commission for the new UN building in New York by inaugurating one monumental sculptural painting. A large number of collectors and museums own his work, such as MoMA, the Metropolitan of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The artist and director Julian Schnabel and his son Vito Schnabel actively support Gorchov and participate in the diffusion of his art.
Richard Gallery
3 impasse Saint-Claude
Saint-Sébastien – Froissart
Tuesday – Friday, 2 PM – 7 PMSaturday, 11 AM – 7 PM | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12729 | You are hereHome / Weekly Roundup: Hilary Mantel on the Costa Novel Award shortlist Weekly Roundup: Hilary Mantel on the Costa Novel Award shortlist Weekly Roundup: Hilary Mantel on the Costa Novel Award shortlist Submitted by Natalie on Fri, 2012-11-23 12:56
Man Booker PrizeHilary MantelJeet ThayilMan Booker Prize International 2013 2012 This year's Man Booker Prize winning book Bring Up the Bodies has just been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. No Man Booker Prize winner has ever won the Costa too (perhaps its judges subliminally feel one win is enough) so Hilary Mantel has her work cut out. The next date to watch out for is 2 January 2013 when the five category winners are announced (novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children’s book) and then on 29 January 2013 the Costa Book of the Year, and pocketer of £30,000, is named. Mantel's competition is Stephen May's Life! Death! Prizes!, James Meek's The Heart Broke In and Joff Winterhart's Days of the Bagnold Summer so voodoo dolls at the ready.
Two novelists with Man Booker connections have made it on to the shortlist of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature which was announced this week. Amitav Ghosh – shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 with Sea of Poppies – was included for River of Smoke and Jeet Thayil, one of the class of 2012, for Narcopolis. The winner will be announced in January at the Jaipur Literary Festival where, coincidentally, the Man Booker International Prize will reveal its list of contenders. The Jaipur megaphone is going to be in demand.
Some jaw-dropping numbers are being bandied about regarding the forthcoming film of Yann Martel's 2002 Man Booker-winning Life of Pi. Chief among them is that the film cost $120 million – not bad for something even its director, Ang Lee, calls “a specialised movie”. If it proves too specialised Lee, who won the 2006 Best Director Oscar for another literary adaptation, Brokeback Mountain, can console himself with a restorative swim in the 1.7 million gallon pool (yes, you did read that correctly) built in Taiwan to recreate the book's sea setting. | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12840 | single work poetry "In black chiffon"
O! Baby, Baby, it's a Wild World
Dorothy Hewett
1975 sequence poetry Author:
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/hewett-dorothy
Rapunzel in Suburbia
Collected Poems : 1940-1995
William Grono
APRIL; APL; The Australian Poetry Resources Internet Library
2004- Z1368099
2004- website Abstract
'The Australian Poetry Library (APL) aims to promote a greater appreciation and understanding of Australian poetry by providing access to a wide range of poetic texts as well as to critical and contextual material relating to them, including interviews, photographs and audio/visual recordings. This website currently contains over 42,000 poems, representing the work of more than 170 Australian poets. All the poems are fully searchable, and may be accessed and read freely on the World Wide Web. Readers wishing to download and print poems may do so for a small fee, part of which is returned to the poets via CAL, the Copyright Agency Limited. Teachers, students and readers of Australian poetry can also create personalised anthologies, which can be purchased and downloaded. Print on demand versions will be availabe from Sydney University Press in the near future. It is hoped that the APL will encourage teachers to use more Australian material in their English classes, as well as making Australian poetry much more available to readers in remote and regional areas and overseas. It will also help Australian poets, not only by developing new audiences for their work but by allowing them to receive payment for material still in copyright, thus solving the major problem associated with making this material accessible on the Internet. The Australian Poetry Library is a joint initiative of the University of Sydney and the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). Begun in 2004 with a prototype site developed by leading Australian poet John Tranter, the project has been funded by a major Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC), CAL and the University of Sydney Library. A team of researchers from the University of Sydney, led by Professor Elizabeth Webby and John Tranter, in association with CAL, have developed the Australian Poetry Library as a permanent and wide-ranging Internet archive of Australian poetry resources.' Source: www.poetrylibrary.edu.au (Sighted 30/05/2011). | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12888 | Growing up Poor
By Michael Coles
A Literary Anthology Edited by Michael Coles
Robert Coles
Randy Testa
Growing up Poor by Michael Coles
In a land of seemingly endless plenty, Growing Up Poor offers a startling and beautiful collection of stories, poems, and essays about growing up without. Searing in their candor, understated, and often unexpectedly moving, the selections range from a young girl s story of growing up in New York's slums at the turn of the twentieth century, to a southern family's struggles during the Depression, to contemporary stories of rural and urban poverty by some of our foremost authors. Thematically organized into four sectionson the material circumstances of poverty, denigration at the hands of others, the working poor, and moments of resolve and resiliencythe book combines the work of experienced authors, many writing autobiographically about their first-hand experience of poverty, with that of students and other contemporary writers. Edited and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prizewinning child psychiatrist Robert Coles, Growing Up Poor gives eloquent voice to those judged not by who they are, but by what they lack."
Buy Growing up Poor book by Michael Coles from Australia's Online Bookstore, Boomerang Books.
Imprint: The New Press Publisher: The New Press
Publish Date: 30-Jun-2002 Country of Publication: United States Books By Author Michael Coles
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One of the first books on SQL Server 2008 available, this title enables SQL Server database professionals to make the leap to the latest release on Microsoft's flagship database management system quickly.
» View all books by Michael Coles
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Author Biography - Michael Coles
Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist, Pultizer Prize winning author, and Harvard University professor. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his lifelong work on behalf of children, he lives in Concord, Massachusetts. Randy Testa teaches in the education department of Dartmouth College. He has written two books on the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Michael Coles is a documentary writer and photographer who has taught and coached inner-city children."
Recent books by Michael Coles
Recent books by Robert Coles
» View all books by Robert Coles
Recent books by Randy Testa
» View all books by Randy Testa | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/12920 | Share: Mayumi - a blossoming artist who works in petals, not paints Jack Hoban
May 13, 2014 Mayumi Williamson has been creating unique works of art for her customers in the Lewes area for 15 years. BY KATHRYN HARRIS She approaches her floral arrangements the way a sculptor approaches her clay or a painter approaches her canvas - with the goal of creating a unique work of art. She also goes the extra yard, literally.
Once, while creating a funeral arrangement for someone she knew, she needed some specific branches. Instead of using materials she had on hand, she drove through Lewes. She saw the branches she needed in a front yard. She knocked on the door and asked permission to take some.
“If I know the person, I try to think about what that person would like. Depending on the time of season and what’s available, I try to make it a good match. The way I was taught, it has to be authentic. It’s the Japanese way,” she said.
Mayumi (Shoyi) Williamson has been creating exquisite floral arrangements since studying art in Kyoto, Japan, in the 1980s. For the past 15 years, Flowers by Mayumi on Second Street in Lewes has designed beautiful, living arrangements for weddings, funerals, events and other special occasions.
Her approach to floral design is a refined natural style - East meets West, not only influenced by Japanese Ikebana style, but inspired by Dutch, English and French styles. Her company strives to be one of Delaware’s most innovative and unique florists. She specializes in high-style floral designs and offers a wide variety of merchandise as a specialty store for nature, plants and flower lovers.
Mayumi was born in Shizuoka, Japan, near Mt. Fuji. Her parents had a small garden business selling seeds, plants and gardening tools. They were also into organic farming. “We frequently had vegetable tasting at the dinner table,” she said. Although she doesn’t remember thinking she would ever have a future in flowers, the organic fruits and vegetables she was raised on gave her an appreciation for quality fruits, vegetables and plants. “I could tell the difference between the taste of a fresh watermelon and one that wasn’t,” she says. She adopted the same high standards when it came to her flowers.
Mayumi studied Japanese traditional arts in college including tea ceremony, Japanese painting and Ikebana flower arranging. She soon discovered that flowers were a wonderful medium to work with for artistic expression. “I used to paint, but Japanese art takes a lot of patience, and floral design allows you to express yourself artistically in a shorter amount of time.”
After graduation, she worked as a volunteer for the Sangetsu Ikebana School that was expanding to the U.S. She moved to Washington, D.C., and was soon working, learning English - and meeting her future husband, Jeffrey Williamson. They married in 1984 and moved to Lewes.
Over the next 15 years, Mayumi worked as a floral designer at several area stores honing her skills and raising her daughter, Ann. While visiting her family in Japan in 1998, she got an excited phone call from her husband that changed her life. “He called and said there was a little store space on Second Street in downtown Lewes and did I want to open my own floral business.” She did.
Her first location was in the back of Twila Farrell, a woman’s apparel boutique. Nobody knew where she was at first, but over time, and because of the quality of her work, word spread. “The people in Lewes are very kind,” said Mayumi. “There are no Buy Local programs here, but they do it on their own to support downtown businesses. The flower business is unique in that only a small percentage of people buy flowers, but those who do tend to buy frequently.” In 2003, she moved to her current location at 128 Second St. “From the beginning, it’s been fun coming to work,” she said. “To be able to work at what you love is a dream come true.”
Competing with the big boxes
But even a creative business has to play by the rules of business. Mayumi admits that she still struggles balancing art and business. “Business is not my field,” she admitted. “If I had my choice, I’d stay on the creative side. Large companies are separated into different departments: sales, advertising, and artistic creation, etc. With a small business, you have to do it all. That’s the biggest challenge for me.”
And speaking of big floral companies, they pose the biggest threat to her business. There are two types of companies: the giant retailers and supermarkets, and the internet- based flower-ordering companies.
“When we receive phone calls asking, ‘Are you actually located in Lewes?’ I know they’ve had a bad experience placing flower orders with a big company," said Mayumi. They know that the big internet/phone florists do not actually own flower shops. They take the order, then call a local florist like us to fill the order. She’s better off calling us first to place her order.”
Today, most big floral companies operate outside the U.S. One made national news after Valentine's Day when it disappointed a large numbers of customers. “If you order locally, you save money, get better service and support a local business," said Mayumi. “We have a toll-free number, or you can place your order online." She said the high quality of her product also separates her service from the big retailers.
And she has been successful going toe-to-toe with the big-box florists. Flowers by Mayumi was voted Best Wedding Florist by Delaware Today Magazine. Mayumi wants to be involved with every arrangement. “People tell me, 'You’re here all the time; you work too much’. But I feel I have to be if I’m going to give my customers the best possible service. If I’m away from the shop and there’s a problem, I feel terrible. I have a great staff, but I still want to be there.”
“What makes her unique is the way she listens,” said longtime customer Stacy Short of Lewes. “You explain what you want, and she comes back with something creative. She also has a way of using natural material like branches to make your arrangement unique.” Mayumi personally designs 80 percent of her arrangements. She has fresh flowers delivered daily from all over the world. So why are her flowers such a popular gift? “Most people want something special when they give flowers," she said. "I’m not really into material things, but flowers are a gift from nature. They are living things - their colors, their scent. They’re just beautiful.”
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2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13293 | Historical Young Adult Fiction Around the World
Revision as of 20:37, 31 December 2012 by Monica Olivarez (Talk | contribs)
Article in Young Adult Fiction, Location, Historical, and Diversity categories.
1 North America
1.2 Mexico
1.3 Dominican Republic
2 Latin America
2.1 Argentina
3 Europe
3.1 Great Britain
3.2 France
3.3 Netherlands
3.4 Denmark
3.5 Germany
3.6 Austria
3.7 Italy
3.8 Poland
3.9 Greece
4 Africa
4.1 Morocco
4.2 Northwestern Africa
4.3 Egypt
4.4 Nigeria
5 Middle East
5.1 Israel
6 Asia
6.1 India
6.3 Mongolia
6.5 Korea
7 Australia and South Pacific
7.1 New Zealand
Another Shore by Nancy Bond (18th Century)
Lyn, who works in a reconstructed colonial settlement in Nova Scotia, finds herself transported back to 1744, when the French inhabitants are at war with England.
The Broken Blade by William Durban (18th and 19th Century)
When an injury keeps his father from going into northern Canada with fur traders, 13-year old Pierre decides to take his father's place.
Dust by Arthur Slade (1930s)
A stranger shows up in Robert's Saskatchewan town during the Dust Bowl years of the Depression, promising to bring rain to the community, but at the same time area children begin to mysteriously disappear.
In the Shadow of the Alamo by Sherry Garland (19th Century)
15-year-old Lorenzo is conscripted into the Mexican Army and finds himself in the middle of the battle for the Alamo against the Americans.
Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez (1960s)
In the midst of a reign of terror in the Dominican Republic, Anita discovers that her father and uncle are in a plot to overthrow the dictator.
The Disappeared by Gloria Whelan (1970s)
Silvia is determined to save her brother after he is captured and imprisoned because of his political activism.
The Ramsay Scallop by Frances Temple (14th Century)
Elenor and Thomas, unhapy at being chosen by their families to be wed, discover love and respect for each other during a pilgrimage taking them across Europe to Spain.
Check the titles in Holocaust fiction for stories from the era of World War II.
Song for a Dark Queen by Rosemary Sutcliff (England, 1st Century)
A fictional account of the life of Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, who led British tribes in a revolt against the Romans in 62 A.D.
Frontier Wolf by Rosemary Sutcliff (England, 4th Century)
An inexperienced Roman army officer is sent to England as a punishment to command a group known as the Frontier Wolves.
Black Horses for the King by Anne McCaffrey (England, 6th Century)
Galwyn, son of a Roman Celt, escapes from his tyrannical uncle and joins King Arthur to acquire the Libyan horses that Arthur hopes to use in battle against the Saxons.
The King's Shadow by Elizabeth Alder (England/Wales 11th Century)
Evyn's experiences as slave to King Harold of England.
The Winter Hare by Joan E. Goodman (England, 12th Century)
Will's dreams of experiencing the adventure and excitement of aknight come true when, as a page at his uncle's castle, he becomes involved in a battle for control of the English throne.
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman (England, Middle Ages)
Catherine knows the limitations of women in the Middle Ages, but her diary tells of her dreams of adventure and her efforts to avoid being married off until she experiences those adventures.
The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman (England, Middle Ages)
In medieval England, a homeless girl is taken in by a midwife and finds stability and a purpose in life.
Sword of the Rightful King: A Novel of King Arthur by Jane Yolen (England, Middle Ages)
King Arthur prepares to assure his role as the rightful ruler of England, which will be guaranteed to the person who removes a sword placed in a stone by the magician Merlinnus...until someone else removes the sword first.
Quest for a Kelpie by Frances Hendry (Scotland, 18th Century)
During the Scottish uprising against the English throne, Jeannie's loved ones are in great danger, and she must seek out the Kelpie, a Scottish spirit in the form of a horse, in the hopes of saving her family.
The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman (England, 19th Century)
Sally, recently orphaned, becomes involved in a deadly search for a mysterious ruby.
Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman (England, 19th Century)
Sally tackles the mystery surrounding the 1878 collapse of a shipping firm and its ties to the sinister North Star.
The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman (England, 19th Century)
In London in 1881, Sally finds her young daughter and her possessions assailed by an unknown enemy, while a shadowy figure involves her in his plot to defraud and exploit recent immigrants. Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman? by Eleanor Updale (England, 19th Century)
In Victorian-era London, a badly injured thief is brought back to health by an innovative physician and uses the knowledge he has gained about the city's new sewer system to create a profitable dual life for himself. Continued in *Montmorency on the Rocks: Doctor, Aristocrat, Murderer?, *Montmorency and the Assassins, and *Montmorency's Revenge.
Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian (England, World War II)
A battered child learns to trust again when he is adopted by an old man during World War II.
Dove and Sword by Nancy Garden (15th Century)
In this fictionalized account, Gabrielle joins her friend Joan of Arc on a pilgrimage to learn about the art of healing and to help crown the French king.
The Burning Time by Carol Matas(16th Century)
In a very oppressive, hysterical era, Rose's mother is accused of being a witch, and Rose is challenged with clearing her name.
The Hunted by Peter Carter (World War II)
In this gripping story of one soldier's efforts to save a Jewish boy from the Nazis, the quiet heroics of ordinary people caught in war come to life.
Waiting for Anya by Michael Morpurgo (World War II)
With German soldiers rapidly advancing on France, Jo and Benjamin devise an escape plan for Jews being hidden in the area.
Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers (World War II)
A modern story of Jacob, an English teen who travels to Amsterdam and meets a Dutch woman who had cared for his soldier grandfather when he was wounded in battle alternates with an historical tale narrated by the woman about her relationship with Jacob's grandfather during World War II.
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (World War II)
Annemarie helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis during Germany's occupation of Denmark during World War II.
Chase Me, Catch Nobody by Erik Christian Haugaard (1930's)
On a school trip to Germany in 1937, a Danish boy becomes involved in the activities of the anti-Nazi underground.
The Final Journey by Gudrun Pausewang (World War II)
Alice has lived hidden away with her grandparents in Nazi Germany. But they have been discovered and are now riding on a train with other Jews to an unknown destination.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (World War II)
Death tells the story of a young girl in World War II-era Germany, whose book stealing helps to sustain her and others around her through the horrors of the war.
The Devil in Vienna by Doris Orgel (World War II)
A Jewish girl and the daughter of a Nazi have been best friends for years, but with the onset of World War II, they find their friendship difficult to maintain.
The Apprentice by Pilar Molina Llorente (Renaissance)
Working as an artist's apprentice in Renaissance Florence, Arduino makes a discovery that may cost him the chance to become a painter.
Stones in Water by Donna Jo Napoli (World War II)
During World War II, Roberto is captured by Nazi soldiers and taken out of Italy to a concentration camp in Ukraine, where he struggles to escape. The story continues in *Fire in the Hills.
King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak (19th Century)
Upon his father's death, Matt becomes both an orphan and a king. His hope is for children and adults to truly understand one another, but his idealism is viewed with suspicion by others in power.
The Man from the Other Side by Uri Orlev (World War II)
Living on the outskirts of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, Marek and his grandparents shelter a Jewish man from the Nazis.
The Courtesan's Daughter by Priscilla Galloway (Ancient Greece)
Inside the Walls of Troy by Clemence McLaren (Ancient Greece)
A fictional account of the Trojan War, as told by Helen of Troy and Cassandra.
The Beduin's Gazelle by Frances Temple (14th Century)
In this sequel to *The Ramsay Scallop, Etienne reaches the Middle East in 1302, where he meets an engaged couple who are separated because of warring tribes.
Northwestern Africa
The Legend of Tarik by Walter Dean Myers (Middle Ages)
After witnessing the annihilationh of his people by El Muerte's legions, Tarik undergoes training in order to destroy the fierce leader.
Pharaoh's Daughter by Julius Lester (Ancient Egypt)
A retelling of the story of Moses and his sister Almah, told from both their viewpoints.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (19th Century)
Okonkwo and his family see their native ways challenged when his favorite son converts to Christianity.
Song of the Magdalene by Donna Jo Napoli (Ancient Israel)
The story of Miriam, who grows up in ancient Israel to become Mary Magdalene.
After the War by Carol Matas(1940's)
Having survived the Holocaust, Ruth is recruited by the Jewish underground to help smuggle children into Palestine.
The Garden by Carol Matas (1940's)
In this sequel to AFTER THE WAR, Ruth and her friends are struggling for the formation of a Jewish state.
The Lady with the Hat by Uri Orlev (1940's)
Yulek, believing he's the only member of his family to survive the German concentration camps during World War II, joins other Jews who are headed for a kibbutz in Israel, unaware that his aunt in London is trying to find him.
Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth (1940s)
Thirteen-year-old Leela's structured life and arranged marriage comes to an end when her husband dies, leaving her a widow but also aware for the first time of the changes taking place in India during the era of Gandhi's reforms.
The Examination by Malcolm Bosse (15th Century)
Brothers Chen and Hong experience adventure and a secret society while traveling across the country in order for Chen to take government examinations that will determine his future.
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom by Katherine Paterson (19th Century)
After being abducted by bandits, Wang Lee is rescued from slavery by a girl who introduces him to a secret society planning the overthrow of the Manchu government.
I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane L. Wilson (13th Century)
Oyuna's dream is to become a great horsewoman, but when Kublai Khan's soldiers raid her village and take all the horses, she disguises herself as a boy to remain with the herd.
Sisters of the Sword by Maya Snow (13th Century)
The daughters of a Japanese feudal lord, barred from being samurai due to their gender, disguise themselves as boys to seek revenge against a relative who had betrayed the family. The story continues in *Chasing the Secret and *Journey through Fire.
The Samurai's Tale by Erik Christian Haugaard (16th Century)
Taro, an orphan, is taken in by a great warlord and grows up to be a samurai fighting for the enemies of his dead family.
Samurai Shortstop by Alan Gratz (late 19th Century)
Sixteen-year-old Toyo is receiving a modern education in the changing Japanese society of the 1890s but learns to draw from traditional practices as well when playing on his school's baseball team.
Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi (1940's)
Sookan survives the oppressive Japanese and Russian occupation of North Korea and later escapes to freedom in South Korea.
In Lane Three, Alex Archer by Tessa Duder (1960's)
Alex struggles to overcome personal trauma and hardship as she competes with a rival for a spot on New Zealand's swimming team at the 1960 Olympics.
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2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13348 | for Looted Art in Europe Home News Press Room About Forum Information by Country | International | Research Resources | Claimant Information | Judaica News:Museum links Leger's 'Aviator' to a German-Jewish art dealer who fled 2017
The Plain Dealer 21 December 2003Steven Litt Plain Dealer Art Critic On the surface, there's nothing to suggest the presence of an unsolved mystery in Gallery 236 of the Cleveland Museum of Art. I t's a smallish room, filled mainly with paintings from the 1910s and '20s by European artists such as Juan Gris, Andre Derain, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse. Among them is the superb Fernand Leger painting "The Aviator," painted in 1920 and purchased by the museum in 1981 from New York art dealer Klaus Perls. It depicts a man with cylindrical arms who stands amid arcs and stripes of color that suggest a whirling propeller and an urban landscape made of flat shapes and signs. A label describes the painting as an example of Cubism, the avant- garde style that swept Europe and America in the first decades of the last century. The label also includes the artist's name, (pronounced LEH-zhay), the year the work was painted and the accession number, which indicates the year in which the museum bought the painting. But this is far from the whole story. For the Leger has a mysterious past that connects it to the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany, the rise of Nazism and the persecution of Alfred Flechtheim, the important German-Jewish art dealer who once had the painting in his possession. The mystery is that to this day, the museum can't explain exactly how the Leger got from Flechtheim's wall to its wall. There's a gap in the museum's provenance, or ownership history, from 1929 to the early years of World War II, when the painting surfaced in Switzerland. This raises the possibility that the painting could have been confiscated by the Nazis and sold illegally either for private gain or to raise capital for the Third Reich. This happened to thousands of artworks during the Nazi era, as German authorities systematically looted the great art collections of Europe and confiscated the wealth of millions of Jews. The connection to Flechtheim also links the painting to the art dealer's niece, Thea Klestadt, 91, who escaped from Germany to the United States in 1937 and who now lives in Beachwood. For her, the Leger is a connection, however tenuous, to the lost world of her childhood in Dusseldorf before World War II, where her once-famous uncle opened his first gallery before expanding his business in Berlin. Klestadt was too young to attend the glamorous parties Flechtheim and his wife, Betti, threw in their posh Berlin apartment. But he sent her small bronze sculptures as presents, published her poetry in his journal of avant-garde culture and signed postcards with the sentiment, "Kisses, Alfred." "My uncle was a very clever, original man," Klestadt said. "He never made money. It wasn't his interest. He just loved the art so much." Klestadt wants to know more about the Leger and its relation to her uncle. So does the museum. It wants to make sure that it has clear title. It also wants to shed light on its collection, and on the vast Nazi campaign to loot, steal and confiscate the art treasures of Europe. "We have a responsibility to individuals who are still alive today and who are descendants of people who are a part of that tragedy," said museum director Katharine Reid. "We have a responsibility that is of a profound moral nature." Proof of the link between the Leger and Flechtheim surfaced in Cleveland four years ago, when Klestadt paid a visit to William Robinson, the museum's associate curator of paintings and a specialist in 20th-century art. Klestadt wanted Robinson to conduct research on her uncle's life. At the time, she said, she had no idea of the link between Flechtheim and the museum's Leger. But when she showed Robinson a book she had brought along, she said the curator had a jolt. The book, "Berlin Living Environments of the 1920s," included a black- and-white photograph taken in 1929 in the library of Flechtheim's apartment. Robinson immediately recognized the painting when he scanned the photograph. "Oh my God," Klestadt recalls him saying. "That's our Leger!" The unknown years in painting's history Since then, the museum has tried to solve the mystery of the painting's lost years by combing archives and contacting galleries in Europe. Just last Wednesday, the museum traced the painting's ownership to 1941, when it was in the hands of Dr. Max Kofler-Erni, a Swiss collector who lived in Basel. But there is still a gap. The whereabouts of the painting from the time it was photographed in Flechtheim's apartment to 1941 are still unknown. Before Klestadt showed up with her book, the museum believed the painting had been owned at some point in the 1920s or '30s by Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, another famous German-Jewish art dealer, who lived in Paris and was a partner of Flechtheim's. Now Robinson thinks the Leger might have been shipped back and forth by the two dealers. Flechtheim also could have sold the painting in Switzerland or London before his death in 1937. But no records exist for many of the transactions between Flechtheim and Kahnweiler. And Flechtheim's personal records were destroyed in London during the Blitz. That gap raises the possibility of Nazi involvement in the painting's past. The Cleveland museum has never hidden the gap in the Leger's provenance. In fact, three years ago, it posted the work on its Web site as one of 373 European paintings whose histories are unknown between 1933 and 1945. Other museums are making similar efforts, not only to illuminate the past but to adjudicate claims by Holocaust survivors who are reclaiming ownership of works stolen by the Nazis. Reid isn't worried about the museum's title to most of the items listed on its Web site. But if proof of foul play emerges and a Flechtheim descendant rightfully claims the Leger, the museum won't keep it. "If it belongs to somebody else, it's theirs, and we will give it back," she said. Klestadt, for her part, doesn't want the painting. For one thing, she has no proof that her uncle owned it or that it was taken by the Nazis. Even if she had proof, she said, "I am the last one who would take it off the wall of the museum." Instead, she wants something far more precious to her. "I want my uncle to be remembered." It's a poignant wish, because it was a goal of the Third Reich to erase the memory of people such as Flechtheim. But the photograph taken in his apartment means that no matter what happens in future research on the Leger, the painting can be viewed as a window into the life of a cultural impresario despised by the Nazis because he had championed the works of artists Hitler hated, and because he was a Jew. Flechtheim's Semitic features - the long nose, the full lips, the heavy-lidded eyes - were caricatured in a Nazi poster advertising the 1938 exhibition called "Entartetekunst," or "Degenerate Art," organized by the Nazis to show that modern art was a foreign virus. "Flechtheim was for the Nazi government, you can say, in art, public enemy No. 1," said Ottfried Dascher of Dortmund, a retired professor of history from the University of Bochum. Today, Flechtheim is a hot topic in Germany, a nation trying to come to terms with its past. The art museum in Dusseldorf celebrated his life in an exhibition in 1987. His hometown of Munster renamed a street for him. And just last month, art dealers and historians, including Dascher, dedicated a plaque on the Berlin building where Flechtheim once lived. "There is no week in which I don't get letters and e-mails from all over the world on this subject," Dascher said in a telephone interview. One reason for the interest is that Flechtheim was part of a group of pioneering art dealers of German-Jewish heritage who were the first to champion the work of Picasso and other modern artists. Flechtheim was also part of the cultural renaissance of Weimar Germany, which brought forth the films of Fritz Lang, the music of Kurt Weill and the drama of Bertolt Brecht. Klestadt remembers encounters with her uncle as magical. When he returned to Dusseldorf after a buying trip to Paris, he'd store paintings by Picasso or Vincent Van Gogh by hanging them in the basement of his parents' house. His mother, who hated modern art, promptly turned the pictures to the wall. "I loved them," Klestadt said of the pictures. "My taste for modern art started very young." Klestadt, whose face brightens when she speaks of her uncle, is short and slim and wears her gray hair in a stylish bob. Her strong-boned face shows a clear resemblance to her uncle, the older brother of her mother, Erna. Klestadt's apartment is filled with mementos of pre-war Germany, including a collection of small bronze sculptures of an acrobat and animals by the sculptor Rene Sintenis, all sent as childhood gifts from her renowned uncle in Berlin. "He was unbelievably interesting, al ways making jokes," Klestadt said, "the opposite of what my family was like." Art captivates a merchant's son Flechtheim was born in Munster on April 1, 1878, into a family of wealthy Rhineland grain merchants. His father wanted him to join the business. But in Paris during the 1910s, Flechtheim fell in with the circle of critics, dealers and artists around Picasso. Soon, he was buying dozens of artworks and bringing them home to Dusseldorf to show and sell. When he married Betti Goldschmidt in 1910, he scandalized his bride's family by spending her entire dowry on art. Within a few years, he quit the grain business and became a full-fledged art dealer. Like many proudly assimilated Jews, Flechtheim enlisted to fight for the Fatherland in World War I. He fought with distinction on the Western Front as a Uhlan, or cavalry lancer. During a furlough in 1916, he was photographed on the lawn of his house in Dusseldorf with Thea, then 4, sitting on his lap, wearing a white dress with a white bow in her hair. Flechtheim looks tan and relaxed. His boots are gleaming, his uniform is neatly pressed, and he's holding one of his ever-present cigars in his right hand. Flechtheim resumed his business in Dusseldorf after the war. But after France took over the city in 1921, he was forced to leave because he had served in the German army. Kahnweiler persuaded him to open a gallery in Berlin. It was a hit with critics and collectors. Flechtheim soon opened branches in Frankfurt, Cologne and Vienna, Austria. He also began publishing a journal, Der Querschnitt (or "Cross-section"), filled with critical theory and fiction. It was the first German publication to print a short story by Ernest Hemingway in translation. These were Flechtheim's glory years. He wore exquisite suits, threw lavish parties, poured the finest wines. His friends included Max Schmeling, the great German boxer. Guests at his flat included Josef von Sternberg, the filmmaker who directed "The Blue Angel," starring Marlene Dietrich. The French painter Jules Pascin painted a portrait of Flechtheim as a Spanish bullfighter. Art critic Christian Zervos described Flechtheim in an article as "nervous, agitated, lively, shrewd, joyful, despairing, sensual, unfair, enthusiastic, chatty, theatrical . . . that was the word, theatrical, in everything and with everyone." To artist George Grosz, a close friend, Flechtheim "was the man-about- town who knew everybody and was at home everywhere." But Flechtheim's world was a fragile one. The financial crash of 1929 dampened the art market, further weakened the Weimar Republic and set the stage for Nazism. Within weeks after taking power in 1933, the Nazis passed a law forbidding Jews from being art dealers. After a scary brush with the SS, the elite Nazi paramilitary unit, Flechtheim fled to Paris and London. Betti stayed behind in Berlin with her sister and spent eight fruitless years trying to liquidate her real estate holdings to pay the punishing exit tax the Nazis levied against wealthy Jews. In 1936, Flechtheim divorced Betti to separate his name from hers and thereby improve her dealings with the authorities. Dascher believes they intended to remarry. Flechtheim, meanwhile, mounted the first show in England on the art of Paul Klee and organized a massive survey of 19th-century French art. But he died in 1937 after stepping on a rusty nail and developing blood poisoning and gangrene. Doctors amputated both his legs, to no avail. Betti survived another four years in Berlin. Dascher believes she was never harassed by her non-Jewish neighbors. But when she was told in late 1941 that she would soon be deported "to the East," she committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Klestadt escaped from Germany in 1937 with her husband, Fred. After a sojourn in New York, the couple settled in Cleveland and made a life. Fred Klestadt died in 1995. Today, Thea Klestadt is thrilled to hear any new information about her uncle, including the Cleveland museum's research on its Leger. Every scrap adds to her attempt to reconstruct the life she lost decades ago. The magnificence of that life is suggested by a small black-and-white photograph of the three-story Mansard-style mansion in which she grew up, with a high stone wall and a big wrought-iron gate out front. The house is gone today, having been bombed in an Allied air raid on Dusseldorf. Klestadt returned after the war to have a look. She found a rubble-strewn yard in which a squatter had built a shelter. Klestadt rummaged in the soil and found a small chunk of polished white marble, which she recognized as part of the grand staircase that once led into her house. She keeps it to this day. Like the Leger that hangs at the Cleveland Museum of Art, it is a fragment of a lost world. Assistant professor Mark Cassell of Kent State University provided translation for this report. www.plaindealer.com | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13389 | Ahem, dear National Book Foundation…
An Aggregated Equality
You Are How You Think
January 31, 2013 by Greg Schutz in Blog “Character is action,” the instructor said, seated at the head of the table. “You are what you do.”
It’s been years since that undergraduate fiction workshop, but those epigrams have stuck with me. In fact, as a teacher of creative writing myself, I’ve stolen them. There’s a certain brand of story, common in undergraduate workshops, to which they readily pertain. In these stories—“stories,” my instructor might have said, pronouncing the word so we could hear the quotation marks—character is rumination. A single character, usually alone, fills the page with his thoughts. Perhaps he moves from room to room; occasionally, he even puts on a coat and ventures forth. Outside, he might interact—briefly, elliptically, without discernible result—with another character. More often, he talks to himself.
It’s not that these stories lack a central problem. The narrator is almost always unhappy, and he’s willing to reflect on the sources of his unhappiness at length. What these stories lack is conflict—sustained action in the face of these problems. Conflict is friction, the friction of action against problem. It generates a narrative heat, bringing a story and the people in it to life.
“Character is action,” I say, seated at the front of the room. “Characters reveal themselves through what they do.”
But it’s impossible to say this without a twinge of guilt.
Character is action. You are what you do. These adages are behaviorist: they imply that identity is reducible to externally observable data. They argue that the question of who we are—always the topic, in some sense, of literary fiction—is answerable in terms of the impact our actions have on the world around us. Like the ubiquitous Show, don’t tell, they take a common problem and offers an overcorrection. They advise us to steer into the skid of interiority, bringing the story out of a character’s mind and into the external narrative world.
Such thinking is corrosive to the very moments in literature I find most compelling, moving, and meaningful. They repress the particular species of felt experience I hunger for as a reader, and which I seek to capture in my own work.
Consider, for example, Tobias Wolff’s story “The Chain,” which is often discussed in terms of its perfectly paced, kinetic opening scene. What’s truly remarkable about the story, however, occurs afterward. When Brian Gold’s cousin proposes to kill the dog that attacked Gold’s daughter, Gold doesn’t go along right away. Instead, he thinks about it.
For paragraphs on end—more than fifteen percent of the story.
Throughout this passage of rumination, Wolff only occasionally references the external fictional world. For the most part, we are deep inside Gold’s head, listening as he talks himself into a bad action that will have worse consequences.
Perhaps, “The Chain” argues, you are both what you do and also why you do it.
Many of Amy Hempel’s stories go further, arguing for the primacy of cogitation. Hempel’s characters rarely have epiphanies. Epiphanies are reactive, epiphenomenal, induced by external events. Instead, in story after story, Hempel’s characters think proactively; they ruminate not as a response to the story’s climactic event, but as the story’s climactic event.
Her most famous work, “In the Cemetery where Al Jolson Is Buried,” illustrates this. “I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands,” the narrator tells us at the beginning of the story’s final section. I think. And the emotional crescendo that follows is a consequence of the act of having that thought. This is no epiphany—the narrator’s known the story of the chimp from the beginning. It’s thought as climax, thought driving narrative.
Opening our stories to the possibilities of thought also opens us to the possibility of storytelling as a dynamic, shaping force, particularly when we write in the first-person. Alice Munro is a master of this, as is Peter Taylor. Taylor’s “1939” is full of moments in which the act of storytelling guides the narrator: “I have said that I somehow felt obliged to include everything I have about our car’s last real owner. And now I know why I felt so.”
Or consider Raymond Carver’s narrator in “Where I’m Calling From”: “I’m thinking about chimney sweeps—all that stuff I heard from J.P.—when for some reason I start to think about a house my wife and I once lived in. That house didn’t even have a chimney, so I don’t know what makes me remember it now.”
The act of storytelling asserts the primacy of fictional thought as it shapes and defines the relationships between past events, allowing for digressions that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it makes essential what would otherwise be digressive by building a narrative from the mind’s capacity for connections. Doesn’t the very title of Mary Gordon’s wonderful “I Need to Tell Three Stories and to Speak of Love and Death” say it all? The real narrative isn’t in the events of the three stories being retold, it’s in the narrator’s need. Here, character is thought and feeling. The narrator is defined by how she thinks her way toward an understanding of her storytelling impulse.
Furthermore, when the sculpting presence of the storyteller is abandoned, a story can skid wildly—movingly, hilariously, gloriously—through a character’s mental terrain. Thought, thickly rendered on the page, becomes the stuff of narrative. Consider the stories of Deborah Eisenberg: start with “Some Other, Better Otto” or “The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor” and travel from there in whichever direction you please. Or read John Edgar Wideman in stories such as “What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence.” Or—and now we’ve moved far beyond the realm of effects I can reasonably hope to reproduce in my own fiction—marvel at that long, sublime, and nearly indescribable final paragraph of Mavis Gallant’s “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street.”
All of these stories defend the idea that how we think is at least as essential to who we are as anything that we do.
“What shall I say, then?” the writing teacher in me asks. “What do I tell the student whose characters sit and think, and think, and think, but never do?”
Really, though, the problem in such stories isn’t that the characters think too much; rather, it’s that their thoughts don’t rub against their problems in a meaningful way. We’re back to the idea of narrative heat here. When a ruminating character merely describes his problems to himself (and to the reader), his thoughts simply take the shape of her problems. There’s no friction there, no drama. Other lines of thought, however, can grind away at a problem, causing sparks. Don’t believe me? Take a look at any of the stories I’ve mentioned above.
Physical action, likewise, is not inherently dramatic. If the character turned on the television, or went out for groceries, or took a nap, he’d be doing something, but it might not generate that vital friction. Only certain actions will attach meaningfully to the problem, creating conflict. Action and thought are no different in this regard.
Perhaps, in fact, they’re no different at all.
Say character is action; say you are what you do—as long as you acknowledge that when a character thinks, she’s doing something. She’s taking mental action, and as with any narrative event, it’s incumbent upon the author to make that action meaningful.
To think is a verb, after all. To understand is a desire as powerful as any.
Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Tags:Alice MunroAmy HempelcraftDeborah EisenbergJohn Edgar WidemanMary GordonMavis GallantPeter TaylorRaymond CarverthoughtTobias WolffWriting About the Author: Greg Schutz | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13455 | Culture 13 September 2012 Michael Chabon: "I think elegy is an inevitable outcome of utopia"
The Books Interview.
By Jonathan Derbyshire Your new novel, Telegraph Avenue, has its origins in a TV pilot you wrote in the late 1990s, doesn’t it?
That’s right. It started as a pilot I wrote for the TNT network in 1999- 2000. But before that it started with me walking into a used record store in Oakland, California and noticing there was this little counter up at the front where a bunch of guys were sitting talking. They were mixed races – black guys, white guys. And they seemed to have created this pocket of commonality.
I was struck by that because I grew up in a place called Columbia in Maryland, which is a planned community built in the 1960s in the countryside between Baltimore and Washington. It was intended to be – and for the period I lived there was – racially integrated.
That was a period of quite strenuous attempts, at both federal and state level, to, if not enforce, then at least to encourage racial integration, wasn’t it?
Right, but where I was it was nothing like that. It was a consensual place. It had utopian ambitions. Not the kind of place where you’d be obliged to live together but where you’d want to live together. That’s where I started.
I found myself much later in life, having left all that behind, living exclusively among people like me more or less, always with this nagging sense of loss and betrayal of the place I grew up in.
So when I walked into that record store in Oakland, I got a little frisson of recognition and yearning. Somewhere along that continuum, the idea for Telegraph Avenue was born. It represents a journey from where I started to where I found myself – trying to imagine a different way of being in America.
Is the novel mourning the end of an attempt to forge a different way of being American?
I think elegy is an inevitable outcome of utopia. I do think I have a sense of belatedness, of always having arrived a little too late. I think it’s a very common American characteristic going back to our earliest times – always feeling you missed it by a little bit!
Having grown up in a kind of utopia myself, and having seen that utopia fade, having been part of all that, has made me sensitive or alert to the inherent melancholy of utopian ideas.
Would you agree that this sense of coming too late, of belatedness, is also characteristic of American novelists of your generation?
As an American-Jewish writer, I was coming after the great generation – Bellow, Roth, Mailer and Malamud. But I think that sense of belatedness is inevitable. It’s an eternal condition. We are all growing up at a time when one is being told that all our greatest accomplishments have already occurred.
My teenagers now, when they’re talking about music, they often express to me this sense that it’s nothing like it was in the 1960s or 1970s. Or even the 1980s, which has this weird historical lustre for them that I really can’t understand!
So I think that if that sense isn’t part of the human condition, then it’s definitely part of the American condition. Why else would the Republican Party always be yammering on about the Founding Fathers?
Talking of music, this novel is steeped in the sounds of the early 1970s.
Very much so. It’s what in the 1950s was called “hard bop”, in the 1960s “soul jazz” and eventually came to be called “jazz funk”. Very groove heavy – jazz with a backbeat. Jazz you could dance to.
You once described the TV pilot of Telegraph Avenue as a “family drama”. Has there been a rediscovery of the family saga among American novelists of your generation?
It might seem that way if you only look at male writers. I certainly don’t think that female writers ever abandoned or strayed from the template of the family novel.
But what I might agree to is that it’s possible there was an unconscious sense among writers that the big book, the important book, was not going to be a family saga. But maybe that has begun to change.
Is that what you meant when you said this was a more “mainstream” novel than your previous books?
I felt I’d been away from consensus, from reality in my fiction. I’d been in the 1940s, in an alternate reality. Not since 1995 had I set a novel in a world that was more or less recognisably the world I was living in.
Michael Chabon’s “Telegraph Avenue” is published by Fourth Estate (£18.99).
Jonathan Derbyshire is Managing Editor of Prospect. He was formerly Culture Editor of the New Statesman.
from just £1 per issue This article first appeared in the 17 September 2012 issue of the New Statesman, Who comes next?
Artemis Monthly Distribution Fund: opportunities in volatile markets...By Artemis | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13513 | Kitap > İngilizce Kitaplar > Liverpool University Press > Kültür Sosyolojisi > Porous City : A Cultural History of Rio De Janeiro Porous City : A Cultural History of Rio De Janeiro Yazar
Bruno Carvalho
Liverpool University Press (
Kültür Sosyolojisi During the 1990s Rio de Janeiro earned the epithet of 'divided city', an image underscored by the contrast between its upper-class buildings and nearby hillside 'favelas.' The city's cultural production, however, has been shaped by porous boundaries and multi-ethnic encounters. Drawing on a broad range of historical, theoretical and literary sources, Porous City generates new ways of understanding Rio's past, its role in the making of Brazilian culture, and its significance to key global debates about modernity and urban practices.This book offers an original perspective on Rio de Janeiro that focuses on the New City, one of the most compelling spaces in the history of modern cities. Once known as both a 'Little Africa' and as a 'Jewish Neighborhood,' the New City was an important reference for prominent writers, artists, pioneering social scientists and foreign visitors (from Christian missionaries to Orson Welles). It played a crucial role in foundational narratives of Brazil as 'the country of carnival' and as a 'racial democracy.' Going back to the neighborhood's creation by royal decree in 1811, this study sheds light on how initially marginalized practices - like samba music - became emblematic of national identity.A critical crossroads of Rio, the New City was largely razed for the construction of a monumental avenue during World War II. Popular musicians protested, but 'progress' in the automobile age had a price. The area is now being rediscovered due to developments spurred by the 2016 Olympics. At another moment of transition, Porous City revisits this fascinating metropolis. | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13563 | Hay Sessions 2012
Episode 1 Simon Rattle
by Claire Webb
There’s no need to camp out in Hay-on-Wye (which is rarely fêted for its balmy weather) to enjoy its annual book festival. Recordings of many of the talks will be shown every day for the next fortnight, beginning with a tête-à-tête with Sir Simon Rattle. The Berlin Philharmonic conductor will be in conversation with Tom Service, author of Music as Alchemy: Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras. As always, the line-up is as diverse as it is august: Stephen Fry, Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, Terry Pratchett, Ian Rankin, Julian Clary, Andrew Marr and Monty Don — and that’s just for starters.
From the Hay Festival of Literature & the Arts, conductor Simon Rattle chats to music writer Tom Service about his work with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
What did you think of Simon Rattle? | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13784 | WCU program gives poets a voice for 20 years
Michael Peich started the West Chester University Poetry Conference, a literary phenomenon that celebrates its 20th anniversary this week at the WCU campus.
By BLAIR STEWART, For 21st Century Media
“I don’t want any poetry that rhymes or has traditional meter. That stuff is over.” These words were spoken by a poetry teacher at West Chester University over 25 years ago. Fortunately, Michael Peich wasn’t interested in taking that particular lesson to heart. A lifetime passion for poetry and the written word would later culminate in the West Chester University Poetry Conference, a literary phenomenon that celebrates its 20th anniversary this week at the WCU campus.
Peich, along with a close friend, poet and writer, Dana Gioia, decided many young poets were returning to “form” poetry that followed the conventions of rhyme and meter and they needed a place to learn their craft.
They hatched plans for the first poetry conferences and in 1995 they came to fruition. A modest showing of 80 to 90 people attended. “I thought we were only going to do only one. One and done, but at the end of the conference the attendees wouldn’t let us out of the room until we agreed to do a second,” laughed Peich.
Twenty years and hundreds of participants later, their humble idea of bringing together poets and word artists has blossomed into the largest poetry conference in America.
The attendees of the conference are an eclectic grab bag from different walks of life. Teachers are there to refine their craft and learn new techniques for their lessons. Several are already accomplished authors while some have just started to explore their craft and their passions. One early attendee, Rhina Espaillat started her writing career later in life, first starting and caring for a family. Years later she would become recognized in the poetry field and taught conference workshops. In 2010 she returned as the Keynote Speaker of the conference.
A sense of community has evolved over the past twenty years. Now, when people attend the conference, it feels like a family homecoming with the comfort of a family dinner, plenty of after dinner wine and socializing and a taste of the first day of school. Peich proudly posits that “this event has enabled hundreds of poets and given them the tools that have led to publications and books. Journalists have been created, even marriages and children.”
Sophia Galifinakis, a professor of Business Communication at the University of Michigan, made the trip down from the Wolverine State for her first conference experience. “I’ve just always had a sheer interest in poetry ever since I received my graduate degree,” she said. Jeanne Delarm-Neri is a poet herself arrived from Connecticut and is looking forward to her first experience as well.
The conference is comprised of workshops in rhyme and meter, sonnet writing, and narrative panels discussing contemporary issues. The Keynote Speaker is Natasha Trethewey, a United States Poet Laureate and celebrated author. She is currently the State Poet Laureate of Mississippi. A concert will be performed by Grammy Award-winning vocalist and pianist, Diane Schuur. Over the years the conference has maintained its core theme: the study and appreciation of contemporary poetry, but it has expanded into different areas such as spoken word and more hip hop themes. “It tells a story and that is what this conference is all about,” explains Peich. “Taste is something you develop by exposing yourself to different things.” This led him to invite Natalie Merchant, the noted pop singer, to perform in concert, singing the works of various poets in 2010.
Spoken word may have origins going back as far as the Ancient Greek Olympics, but it wasn’t until the 1960s did it breathe back to life in New York during the Harlem Renaissance. It became a favored form of beatniks everywhere and today usually carries an urban flair. The conference further explores the musical concept of lieder, the setting of poems to music and song, commissioning original pieces especially for the event. Peich retired from the conference in 2010, and it has now been coordinated by Dr. Kim Bridgeford the past three years. He considers himself retired, but continues to work in the art of hand-printed book making as founder of Aralia Press.
Now he meticulously places the letters and words of his favorite poets into a visual style that is meant to accent their beauty, by subtly adding his own physical style.
“You need to take risks,” Peich offered. “You have to have vision if you’re going to do anything in the Arts.”
Information: www.wcupoetrycenter.com | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13920 | Endler Hall to resound with Bach’s B Min Mass – 12/09/2010 – Artslink.co.za News September 8, 2010
Endler Hall to resound with Bach’s B Min Mass
The Endler Hall in Stellenbosch will resound with Bach’s B Min Mass by Stellenbosch Libertas Choir and Orchestra on Sunday 12 September.
The Stellenbosch Libertas Choir and Orchestra conducted by Johan de Villiers, with concert master J?rgen Schwietering, will be performing the second concert of this monumental work on 12 September in the Endler Hall in Stellenbosch at 16:00.
The first concert on 5 September was met with a standing ovation in the Paarl Toringkerk. “This performance was truly a fulfilling experience of Bach’s music,” wrote Wayne Muller of Die Burger.
Acclaimed Capetonian soprano Lente Louw will again be on stage with the choir, with Violina Anguelov (mezzo soprano/alto), Nick de Jager (tenor), Andre Howard (baritone), and Zorada Temmingh on the organ.
The Mass in B minor is a musical setting of the complete Latin Mass by Johann Sebastian Bach. The work is said to be one of his last, with much of it consisting of music that Bach had composed earlier. To finish the work, Bach composed new sections of the Credo such as Et incarnatus est, said to be some of his last major compositions.
Tickets for both these performances are available through Computicket. (See Link: http://www.computicket.com/web/event/bach_bmin_mass_stb_libertaschoir).
Box office for ticket sales and collections open one hour before the performance. Doors open 15:30.
Note to editors
About the Libertas Choir
The Libertas Choir was established in January 1989 to promote a spirit of trust and unity in a country characterised by divisions. The language and cultural diversity of the choir members of the Libertas Choir is representative, just like their singing, of the kaleidoscope of the South African society, bound together by a love of music and the gift to sing. The choir is proud of their status as South Africa’s first permanent adult choir representing the diversity of the country whose members transcend cultural, racial, religious and social status borders.
The choir’s mission is to demonstrate reconciliation, solidarity, peace and freedom through the shared experience of choral music while honoring God with trust, joy and gratitude. They are also committed to the upliftment of historically disadvantaged communities, and a large percentage of the income generated by their concerts is donated to social projects.
For more information on the Libertas Choir please visit the website http://www.libertas.co.za, or contact Louwina de Villiers on [email protected].
Artslink.co.za Account:
Cilnette Pienaar
The Famous Idea Trading Co.
[email protected]
Libertas Choir
http://www.libertas.co.za
Petersburg Quartet tour raises funds for charity – 29/09/2010 – Artslink.co.za News
classicsa.co.za September 2010 Newsletter | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/13945 | Topic: Anne Bradstreet vs John Winthrop
Compare and Contrast paper on the authors Anne Bradstreet vs John Winthrop.
NameUniversityCourseTutorDateAnne Bradstreet vs. John Winthrop Both Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop were born in England. Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 in Northamptonshire, while John Winthrop was born in 1588 in Groton England (Academy of American Poets para. 1). Both Bradstreet and Winthrop migrated to America. Bradstreet got married to Simon Bradstreet when she was 16 years. After two years, Bradstreet, in the company of her husband and parents, migrated to America alongside the Winthrop puritan group, and they settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Both Bradstreet and Winthrop migrated onboard a vessel called Arbella alongside 200 colonialists who called themselves Massachusetts Bay Company (Reuben para. 5). Winthrop began writing during his migration to America. He wrote his first work while crossing the Atlantic Ocean and his first work was in form of a journal known as the Journal of the Transaction and Occurrence in the Settlement of Massachusetts and other New-England Colonies (Reuben para. 6). The journal was written from 1630 to 1649. While in transit to America, Winthrop delivered one of his most famous sermons referred to as Christian Charitie. This sermon helped in establishing Winthrop as a power...
Topics:Essay on article 'Small Change'Description: The world is in the process of revolution. Social activism has been renovated due to the impacts of the new devices of social mediaThe Jilting of Granny Weatherall's JournalDescription: Essay: The Jilting of Granny Weatherall's JournalFrankenstein by Mary ShelleyDescription: The monster is alone and feels like an outcast, and Mary Shelley highlights this by mentioning God’s creation of Adam as the first human being | 文学 |
2017-09/0319/en_head.json.gz/14010 | Category Bollywood
A Toonsie Roll Caricature of Hrithik Roshan…
…Who Goes Bang Bang this Thursday, Despite his Health Problems!
This post is the result of Hrithik’s interview that was published in today’s TOI. At the onset, I must tell you that I am not a fan of Hrithik the Bollywood Actor. In fact, I’ve seen just one movie of his (one of the Krishh’s, and I’ve forgotten which one.) And yet, now I have become one of the biggest fans of Hrithik the person behind the actor. I like brave people, and I think that bravery is an attribute of the human mind. It doesn’t depend upon anything external to a person – neither their station in life, nor their physical strength. Some people are brave, others just aren’t; they whine and cry and want the whole world to understand their problems, without ever taking the first important step, which is realizing that they are the only ones who can solve their problems and all that whining actually drives the right kind people away from them.
( Note: The above caricature was done using Toonsie Roll – A Caricaturing/Caricature-making iPhone/iPad app.)
In my estimate, Hrithik Roshan is one of the bravest celebs that clutter our waking moments. He is someone who is an inspiration to many who battle chronic illnesses and debilitating pain. Almost all his life, he has lived with excruciating pain and with bones that broke on the slightest pretext. He has been suffering from arthritis from a very young age, and when he was a teenager, his doctors had told him that he had the skeleton of an old man. He was advised against becoming an actor. In Bollywood, you can’t be a star if you don’t dance (yes, pelting your pelvis as far as you can in all directions and gyrating on the beats of a raunchy number – stuff that is really really bad for your back); or if you don’t do stunts (toss yourself up in the air with your limbs flailing and hitting ten goons at once)! So Hrithik, the boy with a spine that was proclaimed geriatric by the medicos shouldn’t have done any of what he did. Instead, he should’ve stayed home, watched dvds, ate potato-chips, grown corpulent, started a blog, and talked about how unfair life was.
But Hrithik did something different. He looked at the hand of cards that fate had dealt to him, figured out a strategy to beat the odds, and stayed in the game. Yes, he came from a fairly affluent family. Yes, he could get a doctor’s attention whenever he needed it. But nothing could’ve made him the star that he is today – nothing except his own determination to beat the odds.
So far, this year has been terrible for Hrithik. When he was shooting for Bang Bang, he got ill because there were blood-clots in his brain and he had to undergo a brain-surgery. His backache, his companion of 27 years, has been troubling him so much that he travels in a convoy of three cars, because he can’t sit in one position for more than 30 minutes. On the personal front, he has filed for a divorce from his wife, who he confirms, has not asked for an alimony of 400 Crs. (The amount sounded ridiculous any way,) and when the divorce is through he may lose the custody of his two sons to his wife. That’s a lot for anyone to handle – and yet he handles it all so well. The boy whose was advised not to be an actor, is the one who has made Roshans a recognized name in the Indian Film Industry. He’s an excellent dancer, he looks muscular in his movies, he does all those stunts that movies require him to do – and I think he is able to do it because he has a beautiful mind.
He says that he always tried being a nice person, but it didn’t work, because when you try to be nice to everyone and not hurt anyone, you try to achieve the impossible and end up hurting yourself; so you must try to be a good person instead. A good person does good whenever he or she can, but doesn’t try to please everyone. I agree – totally.
So that’s that about Hrithik. I wish him the best and I hope that he continues to win the battle that he is fighting with his illnesses. Another braveheart that I want to mention here is Shubhpreet Kaur Ghumman. This post isn’t about this one-legged brave beauty, but here’s the link to her Facebook page.
I’ll be writing a set of tutorials on How to Create Caricatures with Toonsie Roll, so do return.
Posted in Bollywood, bollywood actors, Bollywood Celebrity Caricatures, Caricaturing App - Toonsie Roll, Entertainment, General Cartoons, Inspirational Stuff!, iPhone Apps and Games, learn to draw caricatures, Serious Stuff Tagged bang bang, caricature hrithik roshan, caricature maker apps, caricature making software, caricatures from photos, caricaturing apps for iPhone, how to caricature, Hrithik roshan, hrithik roshan back problems, hrithik roshan health, shubhpreet kaur Ghumman, toonsie roll caricature, toonsie roll caricaturing app
The Indian Caricatures and Portraits Gallery!
I know that each time I disappear, you think Atlantis, but this time it wasn’t Atlantis that pulled me away – it was India.
So, here’s a collection of all Indian Caricatures, Portraits, and Drawings that’ve appeared on this blog so far (almost – unless I missed a couple.)
Amitabh Bachchan – During his “Angry Young Man” Days!
Anshan Karenge, Jail Jayenge, Ek Majboot Lokpal Payenge!
The Halo of Music…or Controversies?
Congratulations for 100 100s!
Bollywood ka King Kaun? Aamir, Salman, or, I?
Question – How many bees will earn their stripes today?
Ben Kingsley as Gandhi
Bipasha magically appears in my diary.
Bollywood ka King – Aamir Khan!
Mario Miranda (1926 – 2011) with his characters.
A Portrait from the Mists of Time – Queen Padmini of Chittor
All Buttoned up!
More later 🙂
Posted in About Art, About Caricatures, Bollywood, bollywood actors, Bollywood Celebrity Caricatures, Caricatures - Musicians & Singers, Cartoons-Bollywood Heroines Tagged best indian cartoonists, caricature a r rahman, caricature aamir khan, caricature ajit ninan, caricature amitabh bachhan, caricature kareena kapoor, caricature mario miranda, caricature shahrukh khan, caricatures bollywood, indian caricatures, indian caricaturists, portrait anna hazare, portrait mahatma gandhi
Caricature/Cartoon of A.R. Rahman, Indian Music Composer and Oscar Winner!
A.S. Dileep Kumar who for some personal reasons changed his religion to Islam and his name to Allah Rakha Rahman is an Indian musician and music-composer, who won two Academy Awards for Slumdog Millionaire a movie directed by Danny Boyle.
Here’s my take on this legend.
The Halo of Music...or Controversies?
A Short Biography of Rahman:
A.R. Rahman was born on January 6th 1966, in an affluent Hindu Tamil family. His father composed music for Malayalam films. He lost his father at a very young age and it was somewhere around that time when he and his entire family decided to change their religion and convert to Islam. According to this article here AR Rahman’s mother (Kareema) was a Muslim and after his Hindu father’s death, the family reconverted to Islam and acquired Muslim names. The reason why he changed his religion is still shrouded in mystery, however, it’s said that he did it to save his sister’s life.
Rahman is married to Saira Banu (not the emaciated yesteryear beauty though!)
An Interesting Bollywood Coincidence, which will make more sense to Indians:
Here it goes.
Saira Banu (of vintage Bollywood variety) married Dilip Kumar, who changed his name from Muhammad Yusuf Khan to Dilip Kumar – she did have to struggle with Yusuf Khan’s polygamous nature though. However Yusuf Khan took up the name Dileep Kumar only as a screen name with a wider appeal, and saw he was never on the wrong side of the law by having more than one wife. Saira Banu (wife of AR Rahman) married AR Rahman, who changed his name from Dileep kumar (don’t worry about the spelling) to AR Rahman.
Coincidences happen in a chaotic world…right?
A. R. Rahman’s Meteoric Rise:
Rahman’s rise in Bollywood began with his meeting with Mani Ratnam in an advertising awards function, after which he gave music for Roja in 1992 (Note that Rahman was paid 25K INR (about USD 1000 in those days) to compose music for Roja, this is in stark contrast to around Rs. 5 Crores equivalent of USD 1 Million for composing the Commonwealth Games 2010 Anthem) After Roja, he created music for many Tamil films, until he got the opportunity to compose the songs for Rangeela. After the success of Rangeela’s songs, Rahman continued to work for the Mumbai Film Industry to compose many hit songs. Among his noteworthy films are: Rangeela, Dil Se, Taal, Rang De Basanti, Bombay!
His Album “Vande Mataram“, which he released on August 15, 1997 (the fiftieth anniversary of India’s independence,) sold more than a Million copies in India.
Find an extremely detailed biography of Rehman here.
Rahman’s Jai Ho wins him the Oscars:
In 2009, Rahman wrote the score for “Jai Ho“, which helped him win the first two Oscars for India. He got the Oscars for Danny Boyle directed movie “Slumdog Millionnaire”. (Unfortunately, the only movie about India that became internationally famous is an extremely biased movie, which completely ignores the positives of India to accentuate and glorify its poverty.) The two Academy Awards that he won were for Best Original Music Score and Best Original Song.
Visit Rahman’s official website here.
Rahman in News Again:
The newest news on the international scene is that AR Rehman has bagged 2 Oscar nominations for Danny Boyle’s 127 hours. What’s noteworthy is the ease with which Rahman has been able to establish a long-term relationship with Danny Boyle – I’d have loved to see him work with other Hollywood Directors too…but Rahman is a steady goat, isn’t he? I hope he gets the Oscars this year, because after the CWG Anthem fiasco, which gave us a soggy song (read about it here) touted to be better than Shakira’s waka-waka, I’d love to get a confirmation that the awards were for the musical score and not for a fantastic rendering of India’s poverty. Go Rahman Go! Get those awards and win back my trust…if you’d care to.
Want to know if I am an ARR fan?
I love some of his work – if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have drawn his caricature here:) But I saw him on the CWG stage – and I don’t think that if his…what was the CWG Anthem again?…well that anthem needed the crutches of Jai ho, especially when after the whole corruption scandal we were waiting for him to spin gold or silver at least…so – my current status is “NOT FAN!”
I believe there are things that are bigger than money, fame, and even Oscars. A sense of pride in being what you are and carrying it through with your head held high. I’d never work for a Slumdog Millionnaire nor would I ever charge Rs. 5 Crores for composing an anthem for my country. (Remember that it was the first time in its history that India was hosting a sports event at International scale!) But I guess I am being the milkmaid, if you know what I mean:)
Posted in Bollywood, Bollywood Celebrity Caricatures, Caricatures - Musicians & Singers, Cartoons - Bollywood Heroes, Entertainment, Expressions - Negative, Expressions - Positive, Famous Indian Personalities, Famous People, humor, jokes, Parody, portraits, Satire, Verbal Caricatures Tagged 127 hours, a r rahman, ar rahman, ar rahman caricature, ar rahman religion change, ar rahman's conversion to islam, ar rahman's wife, ar rehman, arr fans, bollywood caricatures, caricature, caricatures, cartoon, cartoon ar rahman, cartoons, celebrities, celebrity, commonwealth games 2010 anthem, danny boyle, drawing, drawings, funny, how to draw, humor, image, indian musician cartoons, is ar rahman hindu, jai ho music composer, mani ratnam films, music for slumdog millionaire, picture, portrait, portraits, rahman charged 5 cr for cw games anthem, rahman's anthem, rehman oscar nomination, shakira's waka waka, sketch
Caricature/Cartoon – The Angry Young Man of the Indian Film Industry – The Great Amitabh Bachchan!
I had been thinking of drawing the caricature of Amitabh Bachchan ever since I began this blog some ten months ago, but I didn’t because I couldn’t decide which version of Amitabh should grace this space. The young Amitabh who I grew up with, or the older and the currently popular Big B! I vacillated. I got my references in order for both – and waited.
For reasons unknown to me – I can’t connect with Big B. He isn’t the Amitabh who we talked about when I was a child – Big B is a father and an exemplary one too, who sits with his son on his lap so that his halo blinds us into believing that his son too has got one; he is a patriarch trying to put together an inheritance for his next twenty generations; he is an anchor of a very serious show built around the middle-class dream of becoming a millionaire – Big B is different from the Amitabh of my childhood. I loved his image of the angry young man, the young and emotional persona that swept the entire country off its feet in the 70s and 80s! If that young Amitabh wasn’t there, Big B, Abhishek Bachchan…and all the rest of them wouldn’t be!
I present, with my respect, regard, and love, the caricature of the legendary Bollywood hero, the Great Actor of the Indian Film Industry – Amitabh Bachchan, in his young Avatar!
Here’s a short biography of Amitabh Bachhan.
Amitabh Bachchan’s Shortest Biography on the Web (which still is long enough!)
Amitabh Bachchan, was born on 11 October 1942, in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. His father Harivansh Rai Bachchan was a Hindi Poet, who was as modern in his ideology as he was in his poems. Long back when the caste system still ruled the roost in India, he got married to a beautiful Sikh girl called Teji, and their union resulted in Amitabh and Ajitabh! Harivansh Rai Bachchan was a Shrivastav, who used Bachchan as his pen name, which became extremely popular, and so the family decided to adopt Bachchan as their surname.
Amitabh, unlike the scions of the affluent and the influential didn’t study at Oxford or Harvard, because he probably was born before Harivansh Rai Bachchan had reached the pinnacle of his success. Thus, the Kirorimal College of Delhi University can boast of being his Alma Mater! Three Cheers for KMC at DU.
Now young Amitabh tried to work for a shipping company run by birds – but his Mom Teji Bachchan possibly told him that he was made for bigger and better things. Young Amitabh decided to give acting a shot in 1969 and debuted in Saat Hindustani (7 Indians! Wow…and all of them in the same movie! No wonder that the movie didn’t do great at the box office. If you are reading between the lines…there’s nothing…honestly.) However Amitabh ended up with an award!
Then onwards, there was no stopping the tall young man with those smoldering eyes and with that deep baritone voice. In 1973, came his biggest success – Sholay (The Violent Sparks of Fire)! By this time, Amitabh had established his Angry Young Man image completely. His fans were beginning to copy his hairstyle, his dance moves, his dialogs, even the angry look in his eyes! Amitabh was fast becoming a phenomenon in Bollywood.
Sometime around the late eighties, when Amitabh was shooting for Coolie, he was injured. With that almost fatal injury, he turned somewhat pessimistic. One thing led to another (as it always does in my posts,) and Amitabh disappeared from the scene for almost a decade. However, the new century brought about a change in the Bacchhan family’s fortunes. It began with Mohabattein in which he worked with Shahrukh Khan. In the same year, he also appeared as the host of the TV Show “Kaun Banega Crorepati” (the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”).
His most recent success was Paa, in which his son Abhishek played his father, and for which he won the National Award for Best Actor.
Amitabh Bachchan – Interesting Infobytes:
Amitabh could’ve been called Inquilab (Revolution) had his name not been changed to Amitabh. I wonder whether his name would’ve changed his fortune.
Amitabh and Jaya (his wife) worked together in a movie called Guddi, before they got married. There’s about a 14 inch difference in their heights.
Amitabh has been romantically linked with the beautiful Bollywood actress Rekha (his co-star in Silsila.)
He is the first Asian actor to have his wax model at Madame Tussaud’s
His most common screen mom was Nirupa Roy.
His most common screen name used to be Vijay.
He was awarded the Hottest Male Vegetarian Award by PETA.
Amitabh Bachchan’s family has not one but two legends – Amitabh and Aishwarya, his daughter-in-law!
A List of Amitabh Bachchan’s Films:
Saat Hindustani
Reshma aur Shera
Guddi
Namak Haraam
Roti, Kapda, aur Makaan
Chupke Chupke
Deewaar
Kabhi Kabhi
Trishul
Muquaddar Ka Sikandar
Mr. Natwarlal
Do aur Do Paanch
Lawaaris
Yaraana
Satte pe Satta
Namakhalal
Khuddaar
Coolie
Sharabi
Shahenshah
Mohabbatein
Nishabd
(This, of course, is a partial list of his movies, but I guess it covers the collectibles!)
You can find the Complete List of Amitabh Bachchan’s Films here.
Find the List of Amitabh Bachchan’s awards and nominations here.
Find Amitabh Bachchan/Big B’s Blog here.
Posted in Bollywood, bollywood actors, Bollywood Celebrity Caricatures, bollywood heroes, Cartoons - Bollywood Heroes, Cartoons-Bollywood Heroines, Celebrity Cartoons, Comedy, Entertainment, Expressions - Positive, Famous Indian Personalities, Famous People, humor, Inspirational Stuff!, jokes, Personal, portraits, Satire Tagged aishwarya rai, amitabh bacchan, amitabh bacchan's birthday, amitabh bachan, amitabh bachchan awards, amitabh bachchan's biography, amitabh bachchan's hairstyle, art, big b, bollywood caricatures, bollywood legends, caricature, caricature amitabh bachhan, caricature of amitabh bachchan, caricatures, cartoon, cartoon drawing amitabh bachchan, cartoons, celebrities, celebrity, drawing, drawings, Entertainment, funny, harivansh rai bachchan, humor, image, India, indian cinema actor caricatures, indian middle class dream, interesting facts about amitabh bachchan, kbc, kbc-3, life, national award best actor paa, paa movie, picture, portrait, portraits, saat hindustani, sholay, silsila movie, sketch, teji bachchan, vijay of indian cinema, wax models at madam tussad's, young amitabh
Caricature/Cartoon – Shahrukh Khan or King Khan wondering Bollywood ka King Kaun!
Shahrukh Khan (SRK), the second Bollywood Khan to grace this blog with his caricatured presence, is a famous Hindi Film Star, who started his acting career literally from scratch, and became one of the most celebrated actor of Indian Cinema.
Here’s my take on Shahrukh. He sits here contemplating who is the real King of Bollywood (and hence, King Kaun!)
Shahrukh Khan’s Shortest Biography on the Web:
Shahrukh was born on November 02, 1965, in New Delhi, India. Though he was born and then educated in New Delhi (completed school at St. Columba’s, graduated from Hansraj College in Delhi University, and completed his post-graduation from Jamia Milia Islamia) he moved to Mumbai in 1991, after he lost his parents. Shahrukh (a Muslim) married Gauri (a Hindu) and he says that though he is a devout Muslim himself, his wife follows Hinduism – and the children follow both the religions (This can be really tricky, if you ask me…but don’t ask me – ask him.)
Shahrukh Khan’s Film-Career:
Guess the story began in Delhi, when Shahrukh joined the TAG (Theatre Action Group – Barry John) after which he acted in a television serial called “Fauji” in which he played the role of a commando. This was in the late eighties…and I remember people appreciating his work in the serial.
When he moved to Mumbai in 1991, he began his acting career with a movie called “Deewana”. Dewaana was followed by hits such as “Darr” and “Baazigar“. Unlike the other two Khans (Aamir Khan and Salman Khan, who were his contemporaries) Shahrukh’s initial movies cast him in semi-villainous roles. The movie that broke the villain-mold (which hadn’t had the time to harden and so broke easily) was “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge“.
Then came “Pardes” , “Dil To Pagal Hai“, and “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai“, and Shahrukh was established as a Star in Bollywood.
In the decade of 2000, among other movies, Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) gave us:
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham
Veer Zaara
Chak De India
Om Shanti Om
This how Shahrukh Khan transformed into King Khan!
Shahrukh Khan’s Six Pack Abs:
This post wouldn’t be complete if I don’t write about his six-pack abs, which he developed for his son Aryan and flaunted in the song Darde-disco in “Om Shanti Om”.
According to Shahrukh:
“I decided to get ’sexy’ for a boy … my son. He kept telling me to go get a six-pack. He’d say that Salman, Hrithik, John were the ‘good physiques’. And even though I’ve always been fit, never fat, he wanted me to get abs, so I did. This one’s for him.”
View Shahrukh’s Six-pack abs here,
Read about more about it here, and…
Watch the video of “Darde Disco” song here.
(Girls…stop drooling…we don’t want to smudge his caricature – do we?)
Here are some other links for SRK’s Fans:
http://www.shahrukh.com
http://www.shah-rukh-khan.info/
http://www.shahrukhkhan.org/srkvb3/
http://vluvshahrukh.com/
As Always,
Thanks to Wikipedia for being such a wonderful source of information:)
And…special thanks to Barb, whose passion for Shahrukh made this caricature happen:-)
Posted in Bollywood, Bollywood Celebrity Caricatures, Cartoons - Bollywood Heroes, Celebrity Cartoons, Entertainment, Famous Indian Personalities, Famous People, humor, jokes, Parody, portraits, Satire, Uncategorized Tagged aamir khan, actor cartoons, actor of Indian Cinema., asoka, Baazigar, Barry John, bollywood, bollywood cartoons, Bollywood Khan, caricature, caricature of bollywood actors, caricature of shahrukh khan, caricatures of the three khans, cartoon, Chak De India, Deewana, Devdas, Dil To Pagal Hai, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, drawing, famous Hindi Film Star, Fauji, Hai, Hrithik roshan, image, indian cinema cartoons, John abraham, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, King Kaun, King Khan, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Mohabbatein, Om Shanti Om, Pagal, picture, portrait, Portrait of Shahrukh Khan, portrait shahrukh, salman khan, shah rukh khan, shahrukh khan, shahrukh khan cartoon, Shahrukh Khan's Film-Career, Shahrukh Khan's Shortest Biography, Shahrukh Khan's Six Pack Abs, sketch, sketch srk, song Darde-disco, SRK, television serial, the real King of Bollywood, Theatre Action Group, Veer Zaara, video of Darde Disco song | 文学 |
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in Dataset Viewer.
Industry models play a crucial role in driving enterprise intelligence transformation and innovative development. High-quality industry data is key to improving the performance of large models and realizing industry applications. However, datasets currently used for industry model training generally suffer from issues such as insufficient data volume, low quality, and lack of domain expertise.
To address these problems, we constructed and applied 22 industry data processing operators to clean and filter 3.4TB of high-quality multi-industry classified Chinese and English language pre-training datasets from over 100TB of open-source datasets including WuDaoCorpora, BAAI-CCI, redpajama, and SkyPile-150B. The filtered data consists of 1TB of Chinese data and 2.4TB of English data. To facilitate user utilization, we annotated the Chinese data with 12 types of labels including alphanumeric ratio, average line length, language confidence score, maximum line length, and perplexity.
Furthermore, to validate the dataset's performance, we conducted continued pre-training, SFT, and DPO training on a medical industry demonstration model. The results showed a 20% improvement in objective performance and a subjective win rate of 82%.
Industry categories: 18 categories including medical, education, literature, finance, travel, law, sports, automotive, news, etc. Rule-based filtering: Traditional Chinese conversion, email removal, IP address removal, link removal, Unicode repair, etc. Chinese data labels: Alphanumeric ratio, average line length, language confidence score, maximum line length, perplexity, toxicity character ratio, etc. Model-based filtering: Industry classification language model with 80% accuracy Data deduplication: MinHash document-level deduplication Data size: 1TB Chinese, 2.4TB English
Industry classification data size:
| Industry Category | Data Size (GB) | Industry Category | Data Size (GB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Programming | 4.1 | Politics | 326.4 |
| Law | 274.6 | Mathematics | 5.9 |
| Education | 458.1 | Sports | 442 |
| Finance | 197.8 | Literature | 179.3 |
| Computer Science | 46.9 | News | 564.1 |
| Technology | 333.6 | Film & TV | 162.1 |
| Travel | 82.5 | Medicine | 189.4 |
| Agriculture | 41.6 | Automotive | 40.8 |
| Emotion | 31.7 | Artificial Intelligence | 5.6 |
| Total (GB) | 3386.5 |
For the convenience of users to download and use, we have split the large dataset into sub-datasets for 18 industries. The current one is the sub-dataset for the literature industry.
Data processing workflow:
- Downloads last month
- 78
Size of the auto-converted Parquet files (First 5GB):
3.15 GB
Number of rows (First 5GB):
880,031
Estimated number of rows:
33,873,965