Archive | November 2008
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Yalo – A Review
Yalo Elias Khoury Through torture one can learn—if you are the reader. Elias Khoury’s sometimes tough, sometimes disorienting novel, but always interesting, uses torture as a tool not only to to examine the politics and history of Lebanon, but the lives of Syriac (Maronite) Christians, and more broadly how can one be certain of what [...]
Michal Govrin on the Leonard Lopate Show
The Leonard Lopate Show has an interview with Israeli author Michal Govrin. I’ve never read her work but according to the site: Israeli novelist Michal Govrin talks about her latest, Snapshots. It’s about a woman’s search for fulfillment in the politically and socially complicated setting of modern Israel.
Amitav Ghosh at Elliott Bay Books
Last night I had the opportunity to go to a reading by Amitav Ghosh at Elliot Bay Books where he read from his new book, Sea of Poppies. He read a long and funny passage from the book the that was part political discussion about the rightness of the opium trade and part comedy of [...]
The Cairo of Naguib Mahfouz
The Cairo of Naguib Mahfouz Gamal Al-ghitani If your are going to read the Cairo Trilogy, you should have this book in your lap as you read it. The pictures provide a beautiful look at the streets and alleys Mahfouz writes about. What makes the book so invaluable, is each photo is linked to a [...]
Four Inches of Borges and Bioy Casares
I just got a copy of Borges by Bioy Casares. I’ve been looking forward to this for some time ever since I read the review in Letra Libres a year or so ago. When I read it was 1600 pages I didn’t realize how big that was, but I have a long delightful road ahead [...]
Beginnings In Chinese Novels
Paper republic has a great post about the beginnings of Chinese novels. According to Howard Goldblat, a thirty year translator of Chinese novels, the Chinese don’t try to open a novel with a catchy first line, instead, they often refer to place. Golblat suggest that since place and history are so important to Chinese culture, [...]
Las batallas en el desierto (sp)
Las batallas en el desierto Jose Emilio Pacheco Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading turned me on to this book. I have always loved Mexican writing and his reviews of the book were quite intriguing. Although, there is a translation from New Directions, I read the book in Spanish, a Spanish is actually quite easy to [...]
Studs Terkel Has Passed Away
Studs Terkel has passed away. The NY Times has an obituary. I always liked the work of Terkel since I first ran across him in college. I thought the Good War was the best of what I’d read. His interview with EB Sledge was impresive. Hard Times, since it was written at the end of [...]
