Archive | February 2009
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Waltz With Bashir at The World
The World: World Book podcast has an interview with the artist for the graphic novel version of Waltz With Bashir. Quite interesting, especially the question if the book is just trying to cash in on the movie.
Alias Nick Beal – A Review
Alias Nick Beal (1949) is a rare film noir that until recently was thought lost. Universal, though, has found the negative and a new print of this Faustian noir was show at Siff’s recent film noir festival. It is an excellent film that mixes mysterious cinematography, great acting and a good story to produce an [...]
Night Editor – A Review
The more obscure the noir film, the more it adheres to the genre’s conventions and Night Editor is as obscure and as B as they get. As film noir it has the classic femme fatal and the good man gone wrong who must choose between keeping a secret that will ruin him and doing the [...]
Review of Modern Arabic Fiction in Al-Ahram
There is a good review of the Modern Arabic Fiction: An Anthologyin Al-Ahram Weekly. Of particular interest is the process the editor used in having the stories translated. Instead of translating them all herself she uses a team. Likewise, in her anthologies, she argues that only poets can render poetry and only fiction writers can [...]
Sudan Novelist Tayeb Salih Dies
Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih died. The BBC has an article about him. The Leonard Lopate Show has an appreciation last summer of his work Season of Migration to the North, which I will be reading soon. It sounds truly worth reading.
Best Sellers in Chile February 5 to 11
It wouldn’t be any worse than the best seller lists in the States except they had to import the nonsense that fills their charts. It is too bad globalization means even your local hack has to worry about being outsourced.
The Best of Spanish Language Literature to Be Digitized
El País had an article a few weeks ago noting that some of the greats of Spanish literature will be available on the web, including Camilo José Cela, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Miguel Delibes, Julio Cortázar, Juan Marsé y Juan Goytisol. All of these will be available through the website Leer-e. I’m not [...]
Lobo Antunes to Write Only One More Novel
EL PAÍS notes that António Lobo Antunes is going to stop writing after his next novel. António Lobo Antunes announced yesterday that he will write a novel to “round out his works” and that after he will not publish anything more. In the declaration published yesterday by Diário de Notícias, the Portuguese writer confirmed that [...]
Larry Wilmore at Elliott Bay Books
Larry Wilmore from the Daily Show was at Elliott Bay Books yesterday evening. He is on a book tour for his new book I’d Rather We Got Casinos, and Other Black Thoughts. The book is a collection of fake interviews, essays, radio shows that he wrote over the last year. He was inspired to write [...]
Tomás Eloy Martínez Interview in El País
There is an excellent interview with Tomás Eloy Martínez in El País Sunday. The interview covers his thoughts on journalism, especially new journalism, and how the Internet is changing journalism, mostly for the bad. It also covers how he got his start at a journalist—it paid more than an academic career and had better prospects. [...]
Vilnius Poker – A Brief Review
I just finished reading Vilnius Poker from Open Letter Press. It is a great book, the work of a great writer. When you read a book this good you think, I wonder how many other great books are locked away in the vaults of languages I don’t know and will never know. I will have [...]
Mexico Going Bilingual?
La Plaza reports that Tamaulipas has declared itself bilingual and will teach English to 300,000 students in the state. Interesting idea and makes one wonder if the US could ever do such a thing.
Waltz With Bashir in the Nation
The Nation has a large selection of panels from the Waltz With Bashir graphic novel. Part 1 Part 2
Turkish Noir on Leonard Lopate
The authors of Istanbul Noir (Akashic Noir) were interviewed by Leonard Lopate today.
Scenes from Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s From A Drifting Life
Words Without Borders has a short section from the Manga master Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s new book From A Drifting Life, which is forthcoming from Drawn and Quarterly. As usual, Tatsumi mixes a bit of manga history with everyday life in Japan after the war. Even if you don’t read graphic novels, it is interesting.
Waltz With Bashir at Words Without Borders
Words Without borders is featuring graphic novels this month and included in collection are several pages from the graphic novel of Waltz With Bashir. The pages capture the same fearfulness as the film and are a good taste if you haven’t seen the movie yet. They also include an interview with David Polonsky, the artist [...]
A Sad Telegram
Speaking of the darker sides of life, the LA Time’s Daily Mirror blog had this short and sad piece. It reminds me of the Hemingway’s 6 word short story: For sale, baby shoes. Never used.
Tribute to El Caso – Spain’s Crime Paper
El País has an interesting article about El Caso, a trashy crime tabloid from the Franco period. It is not the material they covered that is so unique, but how popular it was within Spain and how it carved out a space for the salacious in the Catholic Dictatorship. The film director Pere Costa, one of [...]
Waltz With Bashir – A Review
To use the word beautiful is obscene, and powerful is the over used cousin of interesting, and so the best word to describe Waltz With Bahir, the brilliant film from Ari Folman that captures the alienation and denial that comes with the savagery of war, is unsettling. From its blend of haunting images and music [...]
