I understand the Chinese political and cultural environment well. I understand people who don't use their voice. As an intellectual and author I should require myself to do it first. If I don't do enough, I can't require other authors to do so. There's always a reason. There's always one book or another; timing. But I think as an author I could have taken more responsibility and I didn't.
My apology to Salman Rushdie. Kolkata is my city and I'm ashamed you were refused permission to visit it.The fact is Kolkata has long been stripped of its cultural and intellectual identity, and is now totally messed up with politics(capital P). How strange that the powers-that-be have no problem with Amitav Ghosh, but they see red in whatever you do, say and write without having any sense or vision of a real writer. Sorry Salman, and my apology to you once again on behalf of the city which was once the cultural capital of India..
Mantel has made her career with fiction and non-fiction of stunning originality. Naturally brave, she has been the opposite of predictable. This novel, however, is nothing if not reassuring. First, it takes one of medieval England's greatest thrillers (the persecution, trial and death of Anne Boleyn) and gives it a clever contemporary spin. Mixed with sharp, modern dialogue, the narrative exploits the historic present tense to give an essentially hardcore historical novel some extra literary pizzazz.
Mario Vargas Llosa must be one of the few great writers ever to have argued that society should place less trust in great writers. “The mandarin writer no longer has a place in today’s world,” he has observed. “Figures like Sartre in France or Ortega y Gasset and Unamuno in their time, or Octavio Paz, served as guides and teachers on all the important issues and filled a void that only the ‘great writer’ seemed capable of filling, whether because few others participated in public life, because democracy was nonexistent, or because literature had a mythical prestige.” But today, “in a free society, the influence that a writer exerts—sometimes profitably—over submissive societies is useless.”
The City has an interesting article by Adam Kirsch on Mario Vargas Llosa. the 1980 Nobel Laureate, who defends liberty and reason, and at the same time seems fascinated by fanaticism and violence. Nadeem Aslam on his writing life
Of
course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a
picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and
spines that remain unkindled. "To take upon us the mystery of
things"—what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia—this
is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously. A poor man is
robbed of his overcoat (Gogol's "The Greatcoat," or more correctly
"The Carrick"); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka's
"The Metamorphosis)—so what? There is no rational answer to "so
what." We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how
one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some
cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you
can neither define, nor dismiss. Beauty plus pity—that is the closest we can
get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple
reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the
matter, the world dies with the individual. If Kafka's "The
Metamorphosis" strikes anyone as something more than an entomological
fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great
readers.
Anyone who could have guessed even five of the 10 novelists
who have just been revealed as the finalists for the fifth Man Booker
International Prize deserves a mass cap-doffing from the wider reading public.
"As a result of rapidly accelerating globalization we are moving toward a world market for literature. There is a growing sense that for an author to be considered “great,” he or she must be an international rather than a national phenomenon. This change is not perhaps as immediately evident in the US as it is in Europe, thanks to the size and power of the US market and the fact that English is generally perceived as the language of globalization, so that many more translations go away from it than toward it. However, more and more European, African, Asian and South American authors see themselves as having “failed” if they do not reach an international audience."
"We try to stay on top of the basic scene, but on the other hand, I don’t really care about the basic scene. I don’t really care what the big houses are publishing. I don’t really care what the big media is selecting to review and write about. We’re trying to do something different, and I don’t want to get too bogged down in that stuff, because we might start to publish that stuff. We’re following our own artistic tastes and our own political tastes. Often enough, that really works"
Sex educator and American University adjunct professor Stef Woods didn't see "mommy porn" when she first heard buzz about the E L James erotic romance bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey at a doctor's office, where the receptionists, nurse, and doctor were
all reading the book. She saw a potential class topic. Having taught
college classes on activism and social media and sexuality and social
media, Woods found the combination of number of books sold, media hype,
and issues related to female sexuality, fan fiction, and social media compelling enough to successfully propose “Contemporary American Culture: The 50 Shades Trilogy,” which she will teach to 25 students starting in January.
Anglophone fans of South Asian literature get an end-of-year bonanza this week when Intizar Husain's 1979 Urdu novel Basti, regarded as a contemporary classic among readers of Urdu, receives its belated first American publication
World Literature Today showcases Indian-Canadian novelist Rohinton Mistry in its January/February 2013 issue. A part of it is available online. Incidentally, Rohinton Mistry is 2012 Neustadt Prize laureate.Samrat Upadhyay has an interesting essay on Mistry's works. Mistry is not a writer of linguistic riffs, he is not enamored by language for its own sake—and thank god for that. He’s a writer who’s interested in telling stories . . . stories about the human heart and the human mind and of how we all struggle in this world, whether we are migrants or bank workers, beggars or college students, tailors or pavement artists. Deborah Levy on new thinkers Every generation throws up its new thinkers and they tend to make a cultural revolution. They have energy and purpose and sometimes wear
really nice shoes. They make everyone else look exhausted and clapped
out. That is how it should be.
I'm no fan of "Best books of the year" lists. Every list seems random or compiled without much thought or consideration. May be some of them have their own agenda. So I don't really follow them. What interests me is the publishers' take on the books they published or lost or wished they'd published. It also offers a fascinating glimpse into the minds of today's big publishing personnel and their attitude about literature and quality of books.
I didn't get exactly elated to learn that Jamie Byng of Canongate, wished he had published Fifty Shades, but Philip Gwyn Jones of Portobollo Books made my day by saying," To see great literature triumphant is always energising. It proves again that publishing can be surprising, and the masterpieces can still sell to the many."
So take heart, not everything is lost in traditional publishing.. There
are still some editors out there who care about good books and literature.
Bolaño the literary rock star may be condemned to suffer the fate of
Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison about whom Mr. Bolaño also wrote, in
which every last scrap and fragment of the deceased’s creativity is
marketed to his most ardent fans. In NewYork times, Larry Rohter reviews "Woes of the True Policemen" by the Chilean Master.
When I read I tell myself this: no compromises for the publisher, no
compromises for the reader. I write for my ideal reader. This is the
only condition that allows me to finish a book. Of course when you don’t
compromise, at the end of the day you risk being left all alone with
your ideal reader—just you and the guy in the mirror. But I’m lucky
enough to have found my reader in reality. The reading process is like a
blood transfusion. I am sharing the most important essence of life with
my reader. But we need to have the same blood type. Mikhail Shiskin is interviewed by Elizabeth Kiem in The Morning News Also read an excerpt from the Maidenhair
"It’s a constant feeling of being outside, of wanting to be
outside. It’s not a choice. I’ve just never felt that I belonged anywhere—not in Guatemala, not in the United States, not in Spain. I don’t know why that is,
but it’s my reality. It’s a very fluid existence. I can pretend to be where I’m
at: I’m very American if I’m in the U.S., and I’m very Guatemalan if I’m in
Guatemala, and I’m very Spanish in Spain. I can modify my voice and my physical
appearance and pretend to be from where I’m living at the moment. Yet I’m not
really there."
I like being an outsider, because I want to keep the privilege of an observer, I want to keep the distance. I don’t like getting involved in causes, communities and movements, I don’t like building Hungarian or cosmopolitan identities for myself, because I insist on moving freely between categories, on keeping every door and window open. This is my notion of freedom as a writer.
"Maybe it’s working because I’m an author, or maybe it’s working because Karen toils away like life depends on this bookstore, or because we have a particularly brilliant staff, or because Nashville is a city that is particularly sympathetic to all things independent. Maybe we just got lucky. But this luck makes me believe that changing the course of the corporate world is possible. Amazon doesn’t get to make all the decisions; the people can make them, by choosing how and where they spend their money. If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore. If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read a book. This is how we change the world: We grab hold of it. We change ourselves."
"For a writer, the best way to speak is by writing. You will find everything I need to say in my works. Speech is carried off by the wind; the written word can never be obliterated. I would like you to find the patience to read my books. I cannot force you to do that, and even if you do, I do not expect your opinion of me to change. No writer has yet appeared, anywhere in the world, who is liked by all his readers; that is especially true during times like these." I'm moved by Mo Yan's simple, honest and unpretentious autobiographical details in the lecture. Forget the controversies, he deserves to be read and tasted as a writer.
Censorship in China: two views
Nobel Prize laureate Mo Yan, who has been criticized for his cozy
relationship with China’s Communist Party, has compared censorship to
security checks at airports, suggesting it is unpleasant but necessary.
But Han Han, China's most popular literary star, writes in This Generation, “My first book, Triple Door, for instance, took forever to be published because it was too downbeat.
Downbeat is a fatal flaw, because you can always revise something
that’s a bit sloppy or straighten out the kinks in a ropey argument.” Vikram Seth in Absolut vodka ad You can now call him Absolut Seth. Yes, it’s our own suitable
boy, Vikram Seth, in the Absolut vodka ad, etching a blue bottle for the
brand. via
We’re seeing a mass homogenization of culture right now through the loss of
languages around the world, as smaller, more traditional cultures are subsumed
by dominant cultures and the last speakers of native languages die off.
Rescue Operation for Anthony Burgess| Open Letters Monthly brings out aspecial issue on Anthony Burgess. Of course, they have put in huge and sincere efforts and time in it. But I wonder if there is any audience for Burgess in this age. Editors agree, in their conversation (I enjoyed reading it), that Burgess is suitable neither for bestseller crowd nor for the Pynchon crowd ( I liked their using 'crowd' for 'fans'). So why do they bring a whole issue on Burgess? The trigger is the reprinting by Europa Editions of Anthony Burgess’ epic novelEarthly Powers. Editors hope that "this special issue of Open Letters, and this republication, can help get the rescue operation underway." Go read the issue. Read also Earthly Powers, if not any other book by Burgess, to have a taste of the earlier times. Publishers Weekly honors "Fifty Shades of Grey" author E.L James, author of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has been named Publishers Weekly's Publishing Person of the year
Is it the nadir moment of our civilization?
The everyday language in Russia has been changing very quickly in the last years as the everyday life has. But what sounds fresh today will stink rotten tomorrow. As a writer you must make a choice: try to catch up with the slang or create your own language that will be fresh and alive always, even after you pass. My “exile” helped me to realize that I should make the right choice. I think my experience living outside Russia somehow makes my books more readily accessible to non-Russians. Several Russian generations in the 20th century spent their lifetime in jail. They developed their own way of thinking and speaking. The leakproof prison reality gave birth to a very special subculture. And Western readers cannot identify themselves with Russian exotica. It is time not to rummage in exotic Russian problems but rather writing about the “human being” to bring Russia back to the world. Russian literature is worth it.
Nobel Prize to Mo Yan a catastrophe! Herta Mueller, the 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, says the choice to give this year’s award to Mo Yan is a “catastrophe” that never should have happened, and accuses the Chinese writer of praising the Asian country’s tough censorship laws. Anna Sun on Mo Yan's language Open any page, and one is treated to a jumble of words that juxtaposes rural vernacular, clichéd socialist rhetoric, and literary affectation. It is broken, profane, appalling, and artificial; it is shockingly banal. The language of Mo Yan is repetitive, predictable, coarse, and mostly devoid of aesthetic value.
"The idea that there are no constraints on writers [in democratic society] is a mistake. There are constraints even in the US and I myself experienced those constraints around 9/11 and 2001. We experienced literary censorship.
The real threat to freedom of expression in our times doesn’t really come from the government. In most parts of the world now it comes from non-state actors like extremist groups or other various kinds. In India, various kinds of identity groups object to someone saying this or that."
" I believe Proust is important for everyone; although some might not know how to read, what Proust said is of benefit to them, too, despite their not being in a position to read him. He created a type of sensibility vis-à-vis certain things that made individuals capable of being affected by it more sensitive to the situation of more impoverished people. And he made them aware that there were certain human rights. This type of sensibility is the result of culture. When culture isn't behind this sensibility, it is extraordinarily debilitated. This explains why, despite Europe having lived through the atrocious experience of the Holocaust, not only has antisemitism not disappeared but it is periodically reborn. It explains why xenophobia, which is a universal failing, breaks out again, not in primitive, uncultured societies but in extremely cultured societies and in precisely those parts of them that Proust, Eliot or Joyce's Ulysses never reach."
Good news for lit lovers: Mikhail Shiskin’s 2005 novel Maidenhair, is now available in English translation. “This is the kind of book
they give the Nobel Prize for,”a literary critic once
said about this book.
Born in 1937 in Orsk. Studied math at Moscow State
University and filmmaking at a Moscow film school; a former math teacher with love of chess, Makanin lives in Moscow. Makanin used chess pieces as a metaphor for writing, saying that
white is for topics he knows fairly well and black is for little-known topics
that he likens to a “dark forest” that requires him to “slowly get in touch
with the topic” and avoid quick decisions.
Q: Prostitution, loneliness and human trafficking are issues in Diaspora narratives. How much of these issues form the aesthetic strands of On the Black Sisters Street?
“I wanted to see if I had wasted my time writing. And I thought it was rather successful. At the end of his life, the boxer Joe Louis said: ‘I did the best I could with what I had.’ This is exactly what I would say of my work: I did the best I could with what I had.
"I am a happier person when I paint, but I feel that I am engaged more deeply with the world when I write. Yes, painting and literature are “sister arts” .." -- Orhan Pamuk
End over end, one shuddering thud following another. Fountains of glass showering outward and then -- a vacuum of silence collapsing back in.
The vehicle came to rest on its back, at the bottom of an embankment below the bridge and propped up against a splintered stand of poplar trees. You could see the path it had taken through the snow, leaving a churned trail of mulch and wet leaves in its wake. Read on..
“My question is to organizers who keep giving him lifetime award as though what he has to say about a large section of the Indian population, about a whole rich period of Indian history which was our glory, does n’t matter." I'm somewhat baffled by Girish Karnad lashing out at Naipaul in this way. He echoes what William Dalrymple accused Naipaul of, a few years ago. Nothing new or ingenious. I knew Karnad as a good playwright and actor (despite his acting in some silly movies), but never imagined he was also capable of staging such a high drama on a platform not really meant for his histrionic talents. One should understand that V S Naipul's strength, as a writer, lies not in his non-fiction, but in his fiction. Read his novels, and you would know why he's a great writer who deserves a lifetime award. He might be openly biased, even vociferous at times in his non-fiction - how many of us are rational? - but he's not really anti-Muslim as some of us conceive. Just consider, a trivial point though, he has been living with Nadira, a Muslim lady from Pakistan, for quite a long time. Why attack a veteran writer, and an octogenarian at that, in that shrill and uncivilized manner, Mr Karnad? ( Updated on 10/11/12: Here is a well thought-out response of Anil Dharker, the festival director of Tata literature Live, to Girish Karnad's diatribe: Your other assumption of Naipaul being anti-Muslim is debatable to say the least. He's married to a Muslim, and has been for the last 17 years. His wife's two children from her previous marriage are being brought up as Muslims, all of which would be unlikely if he he were against the religion as you claim to be. In spite of that it is quite possible that Naipaul's view of history may not be as rounded as it should be in that he ignores Hindu -Muslim collaborations of that era which resulted in great art, music and architecture. But many historians - or those who write about history - use a particular focus to their approach to history. Marxists historians are a case in point. Whether they should, or shouldn't, is a good subject for debate. Source: Anil Dharker's post-ed "A matter of debate" in The Hindustan Times dated Nov 10, 2012)
"...much of this writing is made for the
moment, or is mindlessly derivative,
or inurgent need of editing and a grammar
check. You hear of editors
who’re working on over 20-30 books a year—how do you expect them to do a good
job? What is remarkable, though, is the number of young writers who work
to higher standards than the industry currently demands, and who feel no
pressure to write a certain kind of big India novel—they’ve found their own
themes and voices."
U R Ananthamurthy on literary tradition
The big writers in our languages became big
because of their readers. Tagore, Basheer, Karanth, Premchand are
examples. They were acclaimed as great writers by readers and critics.
Some of them took years to gain a place in the readers’ hearts. You
don’t have to wait so long now. The publishers decide who is No 1! This is an insult to the literary tradition. A literary tradition is built
through writing, criticism and debate. The only answer to this insulting marketing strategy is to make our great writers known beyond our borders.
"Publishing is, as life, unpredictable and can be dangerous. I am an optimistic guy, like Voltaire’s Candide, kind of sleepwalking through business and life, bumping every once in a while into a genius who makes me rich, in my head, heart and financially. As a friend of mine put it: the plan is, there is no plan."
One of India's most eminent writers and a stalwart of Bengali literature, Sunil Gangopadhyay, died of a heart attack in the early hours of Tuesday at his residence in Kolkata. He was 78.
Do you expect in a literary novel a low-down on World Bank,
its past and present role in development of third-world countries? But this is
exactly you get in Debesh Roy’s recent novel published in the autumn number of Aajkal.
Okay, the regular readers of this blog knows, during this
puja time, every Bengali newspaper and periodical brings out its Puja
issues, most of them tomes, comprising full-length novels, stories, memoir,
poems, you name anything. Most of these are, needless to say, are shitheap. But
if you trawl enough and in right places, you might come across a few gems here
and there.
Debesh Roy is a world-class Bengali author. The octogenarian
author, despite his odd allegiance to a degenerated leftist party, is
wonderfully active and still evolving. Every year he comes up with a new innovative,
almost original novel around this time. Too tempting for me. In fact, I look forward to reading it every year.
The protagonist of this year’s novel Duratar Janmabhumi is a Harvard-educated
economist, a Bangladeshi Muslim, now an American citizen. Zedda Matlab, Zet
to his friends and colleagues, was an university teacher at first, then worked
for the World Bank with its various development projects in Somalia, Indonesia
and other third-world countries, and now makes a living by providing “economic
intelligence” to institutions or bodies who work in various poor countries with hidden
political agendas.
The novel opens with Zet’s landing at Dacca airport with
Alice, his live-in partner. He is returning to his country after thirty years,
but on an espionage job: he is assigned to find out why the bridge over the
Padma is lying stalled and unfinished. He wanted to do it under cover, but in
his hurry he exposes himself, and hurts an old man who is shocked by Zet’s
attitude with regard to the country in which he was born and raised.
Now, for Bengali novels or should I say for those of any
languge, it’s a great theme. And if you
see an essay-type insertion on World Bank in the middle of the novel, it is just apt and
you have nothing to complain.
But what astounds me is the readabilty of the book. It is
such an effortless and smooth read that you can’t simply put it down.
To conclude, Debesh Roy is continually pushing the boundary of literature – Bengali literature in particular,
and world literature in general - with his inimitable narrative. My kudos to
him.
Thursday was the 161st anniversary of Moby Dick's release. Google celebrates it with its latest Doodle. Moby Dick, Melville's classic novel, was largely unread and unrecognized in his time, but later would be considered as one of the great American novels. If you want to read the novel as e-book, here is the link for a free download.
Let me confess it: I
had no interest in Jeet Thayil, the author of Narcopolis, until recently. In fact, I took him for yet
another of Indian novelists who are now
swarming over the literary scene like bugs on dirty, smelly beds.
But Thayil is not really
one of them. He’s different and if you read him, you can easily distinguish him from
the herd. He is a stand- out with his own voice. He’s sophisticated,
cosmopolitan, knowledgeable and has great tastes for art and other classy
things, his penchant for opium notwithstanding.
Narcopolis is about a seedy world where you see a line-up of
characters, from different regions and religions of the planet, involved as
consumers or sellers or intermediaries, in the business of opium in the not too
distant past in Bombay. The opium den is a melting pot, and showcases a life
which is in many ways a mirror of the larger world outside. Thayil chronicles and evokes the world in all its fine details in a fascinating way.
This is a novel about
real people, based on the writer’s raw life-experiences, authentic, rich with
innuendos and insights, but full of empathy for its characters. Sometimes it
reads like a memoir, but it’s actually a
novel done in a different mode.
I’m stunned by Thayil’s prose which is precise, lucid,
fluent, lyrical, abrasive, even bawdy. The text is always right for its context.
So, here is a novel for you if you love reading for purposes
other than just entertainment.
The sun rose, a bright red ball (the eastern sky a flaming pall), from Qingdao a German contingent looms. (Red hair, green eyes.) To build a rail line they defiled our ancestral tombs. (The people are up in arms!) My dieh led the resistance against the invaders, who responded with cannon booms. (A deafening noise.) Enemies met, anger boiled red in their eyes. Swords chopped, axes hewed, spears jabbed. The bloody battle lasted all day, leaving corpses and deathly fumes. (I was scared witless!) In the end, my dieh was taken to South Prison, where my gongdieh's sandalwood death sealed his doom. (My dieh, who gave me life!)
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