Mario Bellatin introduces his biography Shiki Nagaoka: A Nose for Fiction in this trailer for the accompanying short film.
Poetry Takeaway
Editor David Shook showcases the world’s first mobile poetry emporium, The Poetry Takeaway, which appeared at 2012′s Poetry Parnassus in London
World Poetry Portfolio #53: Nikola Madzirov
Sudeep Sen presents the poetry of Nikola Madzirov, who represented Macedonia at London’s 2012 Poetry Parnassus.
Suggested Collected
Though history has enshrined several of his contemporaries, no doubt at least in part to their active politicking as critics, Countee Cullen, with the exception of his anthology poems, has been overlooked, despite his formal mastery and his engagement with social and aesthetic issues of his day, at turns Keatsian and witty.
No Longer Secondary Characters: CP Heiser in Conversation with Alejandro Zambra
CP Heiser talks to Alejandro Zambra about the Great Conspiracies of the family, who tells Chile’s story, and the rhythm of his novels.
Stalin the Poet?
In 1948 W.H. Auden wrote that “The poetic imagination is not at all a desirable quality in a statesman.” Here, Stalin’s poetry offers proof positive.
Art in Dhaka
Drik Gallery hosts the first ever Bangladesh Cartoon Fest, and The Dhaka Art Center features Samir Aich
Links & Notes
Tomorrow , 29 November, Brazilian novelists Cristhiano Aguiar, Vinicius Jatobá, and Chico Mattoso visit Los Angeles with translator Katrina Dodsonvis, reading and answering questions at UCLA and Book Soup, to celebrate the release of Granta 121: The Best of Young Brazilian Novelists. The Poetry Translation Centre will host a translation workshop featuring the work of Kurdish [...]
Turkish Delights
At Chora, I purchased the inaugural issue of The Istanbul Review, edited by Hande Zapsu Watt, now available at many government-owned tourism sites in greater Istanbul. The 200+ page glossy includes brief interviews with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Gerhard Schröder, Elif Shafak, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Banana Yoshimoto, and an annoying Paolo Coelho. Highlights of the issue include [...]
Three in Spanish
Elisa Rizo’s Caminos y Veredas: Narrativas de Guinea Ecuatorial (Textos de Difusión Cultural UNAM) provides a much-needed update to the selection of Equatorial Guinean fiction available outside the country. The book features one to three short stories each by Donato Ndongo, Justo Bolekia Boleka, José Fernando Siale Djangany, Juan Tomas Ávila Laurel, and Recaredo Silebo [...]
New Walser
This November sees the release in paperback of Robert Walser’s Selected Stories (FSG Classics, $15), with a peculiarly pleasing semi-plasticized cover-stock. It includes well over thirty of Walser’s often very short stories and essays, including pieces about aviators, pimps, and poets, the last of which recounts his knowledge of “a poet, the author of most captivating verses, [...]
Warsame Shire Awale Murdered
Renowned Somali poet and radio broadcaster Warsame Shire Awale was shot and murdered at about 6 PM on 29 October 2012, when ambushed by two armed men on his way home to the Waberi District of Mogadishu from work, the BBC’s Mohamed Mohamed reports. A singer-songwriter and member of the Onkod Singers, the NUSOJ (via [...]