Mar 11 2010
[Christopher DeWolf, CNN, March 10th 2010]:
The Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival opens tomorrow, celebrating its tenth anniversary with a packed schedule of lectures, readings and discussions. It’s a big change from a decade ago, when the festival was a lonely outpost in the wilderness of Hong Kong English-language literature. These days, more people in Hong Kong are writing in English than ever before.
Mar 11 2010
[Robert Higgs, 'The Daily Cougar.com', March 9th 2010]:
For Tiphanie Yanique, who studied and taught creative writing as a Master’s of Fine Art candidate at UH from 2003-2005, last week represented both the culmination of a life-long ambition and an important first step on her journey as a young author.
With the March 2 release of her first book, a collection of short stories titled How to Escape from a Leper Colony, Yanique has made good on a desire born in childhood to bring Caribbean literature to both the world and her fellow Virgin Islanders.
“Being from the Virgin Islands in particular, I grew up not even knowing there was such a thing as Caribbean literature, which seems impossible because the Caribbean has impacted global literature tremendously,” Yanique said. “I think this is particularly because we’re an American territory, and we don’t necessarily have as much access to what is going on creatively in the region.
Feb 27 2010
[JS Marcus, The Wall Street Journal, February 12th, 2010]:
Sandhamn, like so many towns in the archipelago, has a literary connection—this one to the frequent summer visitor Stieg Larsson, the late author of the “Millennium” crime trilogy, which begins with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Mr. Larsson gave Mikael Blomkvist, one of the trilogy’s main characters, a summer house in the village. A colleague, Stockholm-based journalist Kurdo Baksi, recalls that Mr. Larsson, who suffered from insomnia, would stay up all night in Sandhamn, working on all three books at once.
The writer most closely associated with the archipelago, the pioneer of modern drama August Strindberg, infuriated Kymmendö islanders after he “poorly disguised” them in a novel, says Erik Höök, senior curator at Stockholm’s Strindberg Museum. Another Strindberg haunt, the resort of Dalarö, is reachable by commuter train from Stockholm and is a convenient place to get a taste of the archipelago. An excellent 62-room year-round hotel—The Smådalarö Gård, situated around a restored 200-year-old manor house—offers winter weekend packages, with quayside sauna facilities, allowing for rapid cool-downs in the Baltic, as well as an outdoor Jacuzzi. The January-March packages are 2,395 kronor for two people (including some meals).
Jan 26 2010
Laurie Brinklow has relished working in the beaming glow of Island authors.
The 51-year-old Charlottetown publisher has, for years, shared in the glee Islanders exhibit after having penned works to be bound between two covers.
Between 50 and 55 books of diverse description have been published since Brinklow founded Acorn Press in 1994. Whether a children’s book or a cookbook, the final product that hits the shelf brings unabashed joy to P.E.I. authors that are clearly far more set on simply telling a story than in acquiring wealth from their writings.
“It’s definitely a labour of love,’’ said Brinklow.
“There’s such a prestige about having your name on a book…my favourite part has been actually working with the authors to make something that they’re really proud of.’’
Yet an exciting new chapter yet to be written in Brinklow’s life has led the lover of literature to shelve her publishing company. Prospective buyers have already voiced interest in purchasing the business that Brinklow, a single mother of two, could only operate as a business sideline from her home while holding down a full-time job at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Jan 17 2010
Town is a literary magazine appearing at irregular intervals, based in Port of Spain, Trinidad. It publishes poems and very short prose in two formats: on paper, in broadside editions posted in public locations; and online.
The second issue of Town might be read as an oblique (and rather belated) response to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Port of Spain last November. Or else simply as a collection of poems and images by five writers and one artist based in or connected to a number of countries around the world that happen to belong to the postcolonial entity called the Commonwealth: Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, Gibraltar, Guyana, India, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom.
Read the contents of Town 2 online.
Contents
2:1….Easter Monday: The North Side, by Nicolette Bethel
2:2, 2:3, 2:4….And Evil Eyes Can’t Even See Their Own Hell, Holes 2, and Holes (all 2008), by Sandra Brewster
2:5….Contemporary Poetry in the UK: An Introduction, Part 1, by Ken Edwards
2:6….Commonwealth of Bees, by Alex Houen
2:7….Lightning in the Fall, by Ian McDonald
2:8….Sickness Brings Not Understanding, by Vivek Narayanan
Notes on contributors
Dec 06 2009
[Jean H Charles, Caribbean Net News, December 5th 2009]:
This crop of writers represents the soldiers of Haiti today who will break the chain of self-flagellation that represent the politics of the country. As the guédé have predicted on November 1st, it will be a good year for Haiti, and a good year for the Caribbean. St Vincent and the Grenadines have already sounded the first note of the conch!
Nov 20 2009
[Suzannah Showler, from 'Walrus Blogs', November 5th 2009]:
When February came out, one critic accused it of being too Canadian. We’re at a point where “Canadian” is sometimes used as shorthand for literature that is too aesthetic or intellectual. What are your thoughts on where such “Canadian-ness” fits into our national literature?
I’m from Newfoundland, and that probably comes before being Canadian, or at least gets mixed up in it: they’re two separate identities mixing together. Since becoming a writer, I’ve travelled through Canada a lot to do readings, and that has really informed my idea of what it means to be Canadian — just travelling in the landscape and seeing how different it is and meeting the people. I really don’t believe there is such a thing as a Canadian kind of writing. I think that Canadian literature is as diverse as the country is big, and it gets more and more diverse every day. I read last night with three other writers, and each of the books that we read from was completely different. Of the three books written by Canadians, one is set in Beirut, one is love poetry, and mine is about the sinking of the Ocean Ranger. That’s a literary experience in Canada: if you go to a reading, you hear all of that.
Nov 08 2009
[Linda Matchan, boston.com, November 8th 2009]:
When you put your mind to it, there are plenty of ways to use a bunker on your property.
Extra storage. Wine cellars. Recording studios. These are some of the creative solutions devised by the resilient residents of Guernsey, a small, scenic island in the far reaches of the English Channel that found itself in Hitler’s crosshairs in World War II. Guernsey was occupied by some 15,000 German troops between 1940 and 1945, and fortified so ferociously it was virtually impregnable. “You can’t go more than 3 miles without seeing a bunker,’’ said John O’Neill, a Guernsey photojournalist.
Nov 02 2009
[Yoani Sanchez, from the blog 'Generation Y', October 30th 2009]:
A young writer asked to speak and lamented that so many had been prevented from entering; then someone came and mentioned terms such as “enemy,” “dangerous,” and “defend ourselves.” When finally I was called, I took the opportunity to ask what relationship there is between the limitations in bandwidth and the many websites censored for the Cuban public. There was applause when I finished. I swear I didn’t collude with any of them. Afterward, a university professor came up and questioned why I had received the Ortega y Gasset journalism prize. I still haven’t managed to find the relationship between my question and her analysis, but the paths of defamation are so twisted. At the end, several came up to me to give me hugs, one woman gave me just a touch of her hand and said “congratulations.” The crisp October night waited for me outside.
Oct 29 2009
[Nicholas Laughlin, Global Voices, October 26th, 2009]:
The anglophone Caribbean’s small but energetic literary blogosphere has taken notice of a new arrival to its conversation. Caribbean Book Blog, created by the St. Lucian journalist Tony Williams, aims to “inform writers and readers about the latest developments in the international book trade and how they are likely [to] affect the literary communities in the Caribbean and other small-island states.” Since launching on 11 October, 2009, Caribbean Book Blog has posted a series of thoughtful, statistics-laden essays on the issues facing Caribbean publishers, writers, and readers, at a time when literary publishing around the world is grappling with financial hardship and technological change. Williams’s posts have provoked thought and discussion both in the blog’s comments fields and elsewhere.