More Mo Yan and the "C" Word
Mo Yan accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature the other day, giving this acceptance speech: In the fall of 1984 I was accepted into the Literature Department of the PLA Art Academy, where, under the guidance of my revered mentor, the renowned writer Xu Huaizhong, I wrote a series of stories and novellas, ...
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Have You Been Nookd or Kindled?
Courtesy of old college friend Naomi Firestone of the awesome Jewish Book Council, here’s an insane blog post that seems too insane/amazing to be true from a fellow North Carolinian on the blog Ocracoke Island Journal: Some weeks ago I decided that I wanted to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Lou Ann loaned me ...
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@#%&!: Why You Don’t Mess with Mothers in Brazil
A woman receives letters from an unknown man. Racy? Possibly. The story above, “Obscenities for a Housewife” (“Obscenidades para uma dona de casa”), by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão is part of the Brazilian bestselling anthology The 100 Best Brazilian Short Stories of the Century (Os cem melhores ...
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Demand The Immediate Release of Liu Xiabo
Back on December 11th, Liu Xiabo was formally indicted by the Beijing Municipal Procuratorate for “inciting subversion of state power,” a charge that is often leveled against writers the Chinese government wishes to silence. Here’s a bit more background info from PEN America: Liu Xiaobo is a renowned ...
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Filling in Gaps in The Golden Calf
Early this month, Open Letter released its new translation of The Golden Calf by Ilf & Petrov, a satiric Russian writing duo from the 1930s who are most well known for this novel and its predecessor, The Twelve Chairs , which was made into a Mel Brooks movie. Both of these books are insanely funny, although to be honest, ...
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A Few Reasons to Publish Juan Marse's The Fallen
A few of Juan Marse’s books are available in the UK, but all the U.S. versions appear to be out of print. Which is a shame—based on the report below, The Fallen sounds spectacular: Official Censorship Report of 1973 on Si te dicen que cai (The Fallen) SECOND REPORT Author: Juan Marse Title: Si te dicen que cai ...
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Yu Hua's Newsweek Profile and Chinese Censorship
This post by Bruce Humes highlighting all the bits cut out of the Chinese translation of a recent Newsweek profile of author Yu Hua (Brothers) is fascinating: Yu, a former dentist with the charm of a salesman and an unassuming nature that have earned him comparisons to a peasant, has avoided the censorship of Chinese ...
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