World Literature Today back issues from November 2007:
Editor's note.
Nov 01, 2007; ... Only the dead have seen the end of war. --Plato IN HER ESSAY "Women Write War in Iraq," critic and scholar Miriam Cooke offers the daunting reminder that "War has been a way of life for Iraqis for the past thirty years, internal war and then wars with neighbors, ...
Lost City Radio.(Broadcast transcript)(Audio file)(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Lost City Radio, by Daniel Alarcon (HarperCollins, 2007) First aired on NPR March 13, 2007 "A NATION at the edge of the world, a make-believe country outside history." That's how Norma, one of the main characters of Daniel Alarcon's first novel, Lost City Radio, ...
Certainty.(Broadcast transcript)(Audio file)(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Certainty, by Madeleine Thien (Little, Brown, 2007) First aired on NPR March 27, 2007 MADELEINE THIEN is the daughter of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants and lives in Quebec City. In Certainty, her first novel, the irony begins with the title. Nothing in this engaging ...
Exile and the Kingdom.(Broadcast transcript)(Audio file)(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Exile and the Kingdom, by Albert Camus (Vintage, 2007) First aired on NPR April 13, 2007 IT WAS 1957, the year in which French writer Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize in Literature, when Camus's short-story collection Exile and the Kingdom first appeared in an English ...
The Blood Group meets to discuss murder.(CRIME & MYSTERY)
Nov 01, 2007; ... ONE BY ONE they make their way into a Stockholm house, these women with blood on their hands. But they're not the average murderesses; they are some of the foremost Swedish mystery and noir writers in the field today. They're gathering for a meeting of Blodgruppen, the Blood Group, during ...
Viewing war through women's eyes: an interview with Roshini Thinakaran.(SPECIAL SECTION: women & war)(Interview)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Roshini Thinakaran is a documentary filmmaker whose Women at the Forefront project for film and television focuses on war through the eyes of women. Named one of National Geographic's Next Generation Emerging Explorers, Thinakaran was born in Sri Lanka, raised in the United States since ...
Essential books.
Nov 01, 2007 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Earlier this year, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Nairobi-based Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) published The Shame of War: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Conflict. The ...
Dear Iraq.(Two Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> Dear Iraq, They have made a mess out of you while I and others watched, like tombs But what could we do? Voting didn't help, nor protesting Not showing your dying children on TV nor placing horrific war pictures ...
Miriam.(Two Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> Miriam Named after the Virgin Mary,born in an Arabic land,Miriam is the newest cousin in our family.She is eight months younger than my daughterwho lives thousands of miles across the ocean,on American ground. This June, Miriam will experience ...
In Plain Sight.
Nov 01, 2007; ... I was born in Hungary during World War II. As far as I can remember, there just seemed to have been a war that reminded people of other wars or that war was imminent. A revolution expected, happened, was over ... what is next .... This made for strange behavior with warped ...
A story from 1944.(IN PLAIN SIGHT)(Cartoon)
Nov 01, 2007; ... TAKE THIS WITH YOUR GIRLS. THE FOOD ON THE TRAIN IS NOT KOSHER. BUT WHY CANT WE STAY MOM? WHY?! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YOU WILL BE BETTER OFF IN THE CITY. IT IS GETTING MUCH TOO DANGEROUS AROUND HERE. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MOM! DAD! ...
No Man's Land.(Three Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> No Man's Land The dogs are amazingsweaty with lightthey race by the dung heaps Infants crawlsucking dirt from stickswhose blunt endssmack of elder fleshand ceaseless bloodiness. The soldiers thoughare finally restingby ...
Comfort Stop.(Three Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> Comfort Stop We sat in a place they call a comfort stopTepid coffee, piped music you found hard to bear We were meeting in a time of trouble, this much I knew.Through soiled glass I saw a pool of asphalt, pile of cars, puckering sky. Perhaps you ...
Fragile Places.(Three Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> Fragile Places The world is a forest on fire --Sankara Rain blazed over Tiruvella--the red gorge.Sankara speak to me: carry me through the house of siltthe low-slung bone, wind me in raw silkcry to the gulls on the sea coast. Hulls, ...
A brief conversation with Meena Alexander.(Interview)
Nov 01, 2007 ... Could you tell us about the genesis of these three poems? "No Man's Land" was composed at the time of the First Gulf War. I had this vision of women, in a war-torn landscape, standing apart, their bodies "massed with light." I saw them transfigured into sculptural figures, ...
Baghdad burning: women write war in Iraq.
Nov 01, 2007; ... WAR has been a way of life for Iraqis for the past thirty years. Internal wars and then wars with neighbors, especially Iran after its 1979 Islamic revolution, have marked the rhythm of existence in the world's oldest civilization. The interference of the United States on Saddam Hussein's ...
My father, the rebel.(women & war)(Viewpoint essay)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MY FATHER'S DEATH BROUGHT THE WAR INTO MY LIFE. My father was a "dangerous fellagha, slain by security forces while trying to escape." At least that's what the newspapers of the period reported, omitting to add that he had been tortured at ...
Resources.(women & war)(Bibliography)
Nov 01, 2007 ... For Further Reading Blood into Ink: South Asian and Middle Eastern Women Write War. Ed. Miriam Cooke & Roshni Rustomji-Kerns. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994. De Pauw, Linda Grant. Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present. Norman: ...
An Oklahoma centennial tribute.
Nov 01, 2007; ... AS 2007 marks the centennial celebration of Oklahoma's statehood, one is reminded of its rich and distinguished literary heritage. The following special section presents in small measure a sampling of texts by or about three of Oklahoma's finest authors: poet, novelist, and musician Joy ...
A brief conversation with Joy Harjo.(Interview)
Nov 01, 2007 ... What recent book has captured your interest? I keep a stack of several books next to my bed in both Honolulu and Albuquerque. And I always carry a book or two with me. I've just started Lois Ann Yamanaka's novel Behold the Many. Lois speaks "Hawaii." By that I mean she is able ...
No.(Four Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> No Yes, that was me you saw shaking with bravery, with agovernment issued rifle on my back. I'm sorry I couldnot greet you, as you deserved, my relative. They were not my tears. I have a reservoir inside. Theywill be cried by my sons, my daughters if I ...
When the World as We Knew It Ended--.(Four Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> When the World as We Knew It Ended-- It was coming. We had been watching since the eve of the missionaries in their long andsolemn clothes, to see what would happen. We saw itfrom the kitchen window over the sinkas we made coffee, cooked ...
It's Raining in Honolulu.(Four Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> It's Raining in Honolulu There is a small mist at the brow of the mountain, Each leaf of flower, of taro, tree and bush shivers with ecstasy. And the rain songs of all the flowering ones who have called for the rain Can be found there, ...
Equinox.(Four Poems)(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... <Pre> Equinox I must keep from breaking into the story by force,If I do I will find a war club in my handAnd the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun,Your nation dead beside you. I keep walking away though it has been an eternityAnd from each drop of ...
One who brings the light.(Excerpt)
Nov 01, 2007; ... To the children, including my grandmother, of the Rainy Mountain Boarding School 1893-1920 Author's Note about the Play Children of the Sun is a play written primarily for children. The principles of performance, therefore, should be wonder, delight, beauty, and ...
No man is a prophet in his own land: Oklahoman Jim Thompson Emerges from the Shadows.(Oklahoma Centennial Tribute)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] PERHAPS THE ODDEST thing about Oklahoma author Jim Thompson--and there were many odd things about his writings and his life--is how often articles about him also mention Jerry Lewis. It isn't like they have much in common. Thompson's novels and screenplays ...
Background / foreground music: listening at festivals.
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WE OFTEN THINK OF MUSIC as a distinct art form, separate from literature, dance, and visual art. We often assume that music exists only in the realm of sound--the sounds we hear on radio, on recordings, or over the Internet. Before the advent of recording ...
There Are No Names For Red.(Poem)
Nov 01, 2007; ... The following cantos are excerpted from one long poem called "There Are No Names for Red." It is a poem dialoguing with history and the paintings of African American novelist and painter Percival Everett. <Pre> There Are No Names For Red II And the sky is red ...
Praising the riddle: Charles Simic and the Art of Joseph Cornell.(Currents)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] POET CHARLES SIMIC has indicated that he regards poems much like boxes, into which fractured and scrutinized language, images, and symbols are arranged and rearranged until their deeper meaning is uncovered. Reading Simic's work, we are looking into a ...
The critical novel in France, today.(Currents)
Nov 01, 2007; ... FOR FORTY YEARS NOW, we have been told that the novel is in its dotage as a cultural form--and the most strident among those brayings typically proclaim that the novel is in fact already dead, having given up the ghost when nobody was looking. It is hard to account for the persistence of ...
An American story.(Fiction)(Short story)
Nov 01, 2007; ... HIS NAME WAS JOHN. J, O, H, N. He had a surname just like that, too, totally ordinary, Yankee: Smith. His little pug nose was freckled, and he had reddish hair and dark blue eyes on account of which Miss Smith, his maternal aunt, called him Blue Violet when he was little." "Now ...
Roberto Bolano. The Savage Detectives.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Roberto Bolano. The Savage Detectives. Natasha Wimmer, tr. New York. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 2007. 577 pages. $27. ISBN 978-0-374-19148-1 IN TERMS of every aspect of its consistent brilliance, The Savage Detectives immediately makes one rethink Hopscotch and One Hundred Years ...
Rilla Askew. Harpsong.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rilla Askew. Harpsong. Norman. University of Oklahoma Press. 2007. 245 pages. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-8061-3823-7 RILLA ASKEW is an author who takes risks. After the controlled realism of Strange Business (1992), she opened up the ending of The ...
Marcel Cohen. Faits, II.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Marcel Cohen. Faits, II. Paris. Gallimard. 2007. 311 pages. 19.50. [euro] ISBN 978-2-07-078358-8 MARCEL COHEN'S latest book offers 105 brief narratives, ranging broadly over the horizon of contemporary experience, both individual and collective. Some of these pieces are very ...
Jaime Hernandez. Maggie the Mechanic: A Love and Rockets Book.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Jaime Hernandez. Maggiethe Mechanic: A Love and Rockets Book. Kim Thompson, ed. Seattle. Fantagraphics (Turnaround, distr.). 2007. 271 pages, ill. $14.95. ISBN 978-1-56097-784-1 TIRED OF THE MAINSTREAM COMICS they had grown up with and inspired by the do-it-yourself punk rock ...
Felicitas Hoppe. Johanna.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Felicitas Hoppe. Johanna. Frankfurt a. M. S. Fischer. 2006. 171 pages. 17.90 [euro]. ISBN 978-3-10-032450-4 FELICITAS HOPPE (b. 1960) has avoided the themes and problematics of postwar German writers. In an interview in Die Zeit, when asked about the public roles taken on by ...
Nancy Huston. Lignes de faille.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Nancy Huston. Lignes de faille. Montreal / Aries, France. Lemeac / Actes Sud. 2006. 481 pages. Can$32.95 / 21.60 [euro]. ISBN 2-7427-62590 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LIKE HER ILLUSTRIOUS predecessor Samuel Beckett, the anglophone Nancy Huston has created a remarkable body ...
Sandor Marai. The Rebels.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Sandor Marai. The Rebels. George Szirtes, tr. New York. Knopf. 2007. 278 pages. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-375-40757-4 SANDOR MARAI'S Embers (200l; see WLT 76:1, p. 169) was set in the opening days of World War II, though the two characters are too old to participate. The Rebels is set ...
Hisham Matar. In the Country of Men.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Hisham Matar. In the Country of Men. New York. Dial / Random House. 2007. 246 pages. $22. ISBN 978-0-385-34042-7 SET IN LIBYA as Qaddafi's reign begins, Hisham Matar's first novel captures a world "full of men and the greed of men," wherein dictatorship and patriarchy rule ...
Panikos Peonidhis. Ghalateia: Ola ta hromata tis thalassas.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Panikos Peonidhis. Ghalateia: Ola ta hromata tis thalassas. Lemessos, Cyprus/Athens. Kyproepeia. 2006. 78 pages. ISBN 9963-628-41-9 PANIKOS POENIDHIS is a veteran prose writer of Cyprus with a very cosmopolitan life and relevant experiences from traveling, even living, in ...
John Milton Oskison. The Singing Bird.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... John Milton Oskison. The Singing Bird. Timothy B. Powell & Melinda Smith Mullikin, eds. Jace Weaver, foreword. Norman. University of Oklahoma Press. 2007. xlvii + 185 pages. $19.95. ISBN 978-0-8061-3818-3 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE SINGING BIRD is about the more ...
Leila Sebbar. Metro: Instantanes.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Leila Sebbar. Metro: Instantanes. Monaco. Rocher. 2007. 139 pages. 13 [euro]. ISBN 978-2-268-06049-1 IN RECENT YEARS, the prose of Leila Sebbar, in works like the novel Marguerite (2002) and the short-story collection Sept filles (2003), has embraced a stylistic and thematic ...
Yves Simon. Je voudrais tant revenir.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Yves Simon. Je voudrais tant revenir. Paris. Seuil. 2007. 219 pages. 16 [euro]. ISBN 978-2-020-88193-7 THE BACKGROUND of Yves Simon's latest novel, a Paris whitened by snow, might metaphorically serve as the blank page facing an author who faces two alternatives, fear or ...
S. Yizhar. Preliminaries.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... S. Yizhar. Preliminaries. Nicholas de Lange, tr. Dan Miron, intro. New Milford, Connecticut / London. Toby. 2007. 289 pages. $24.95 / 14.99 [pounds sterling]. [SBN 978-1-59264-190-1 YIZHAR SMILANSKY, known by his pen name S. Yizhar, has become, along with S. Agnon, one of the ...
Zhu Wen. I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Zhu Wen. I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China. Julia Lovell, tr. New York. Columbia University Press. 2007. xxiii + 228 pages. $24.50. ISBN 978-0-231-13694-5 ZHU WEN (b. 1967) came out of nowhere to burst upon China's literary scene with his first significant work of ...
Kim Ponders. The Art of Uncontrolled Flight.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Kim Ponders. The Art of Uncontrolled Flight. New York. Harper Perennial. 2007 ([C] 2005). 184 pages. $13.95. ISBN 978-0-06-078609-0 --. The Last Blue Mile. New York. HarperCollins. 2007. 304 pages. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-06-084706-7 [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] THE ...
John Ashbery. A Worldly Country.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... John Ashbery. A Worldly Country. New York. Ecco / HarperCollins. 2007. 76 pages. $23.95. ISBN 978-0-06-117383-7 JOHN ASHBERY at eighty is our most celebrated living poet. He is a living sign of the times. In fact, he is a very large collection of signs, all referring to one ...
Ales Debeljak. Ispod povrsine.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Ales Debeljak. Ispod povrsine. Edo Ficor, tr. Zagreb. Hrvatsko drustvo pisaca / Durieux. 2006. 76 pages. 80 kn. ISBN 953-7342-08-5 THE MOST RECENT poetry book is the eighth in a row from Ales Debeljak (b. 2961), a distinguished Slovenian and Central European poet. The title of ...
Mzi Mahola. Dancing in the Rain.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Mzi Mahola. Dancing in the Rain. Scottsville, South Africa. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press (ISBS, distr.). 2006. vi + 74 pages. $17.95. ISBN 1-86914-096-6 DANCING IN THE RAIN is the third book of poetry from Mzi Mahola, featuring numerous new poems alongside a dozen entries ...
Paul Chanel Malenfant. Rue Daubenton.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Paul Chanel Malenfant. Rue Daubenton. Montreal. L'Hexagone. 2007. 146 pages. Can$17.95. ISBN 978-2-89006-796-7 RUE DAUBENTON is the sort of layered text one expects from a well-established poet like Paul Chanel Malenfant. The word "text" is operative because this work is at once ...
Mariana Marin. Paper Children.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Mariana Marin. Paper Children. Adam J. Sorkin, tr. Brooklyn, New York. Ugly Duckling (Consortium / Small Press, distr.). 2006 (released 2007). xv + 121 pages. $14. ISBN 0-939010-90-9 / 1-933254-17-3 MARIANA MARIN was an honored poet before she self-destructed in March 2003 at ...
Mary Oliver. Thirst.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Mary Oliver. Thirst. Boston. Beacon. 2006. xii + 71 pages. $22. ISBN 978-0-8070-6896-0 READERS WHO REMEMBER the Mary Oliver of American Primitive may wonder at the Orthodox Christian poet they encounter in these poems, poems with titles like "Making the House Ready for the Lord" ...
Eric Sellin. Ombres de mon soleil: Poemes 1970-2005.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Eric Sellin. Ombres de mon soleil: Poemes 1970-2005. Saratoga Springs, New York. Les Mains Secretes. 2006. vi + 112 pages. $12. ISBN 0-9665360-5-3 ANYONE CONVERSANT with Francophone Studies over the past four decades would know Eric Sellin. Founder in 2981 of the Centre ...
Quincy Troupe. The Architecture of Language.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Quincy Troupe. The Architecture of Language. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Coffee House. 2006. 99 pages. $15. ISBN 978-1-56689-190-5 THE TITLE of Quincy Troupe's eighth volume of poetry, The Architecture of Language, promises the erection of a wondrous structure made possible through ...
Takis Varvitsiotis. Metatropies (1998-99).(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Takis Varvitsiotis. Metatropies (1998-99). Athens. Armos. 2006. 48 pages. ISBN 960-527-363-2 --. I dhromoi tou ouranou (1999-2000). Athens. Armos. 2006. 38 pages. ISBN 960-527-362-4 WELL INTO his nineties by now, Takis Varvitsiotis is one of the most recognized and ...
Hilmi Yavuz. Seasons of the Word: Selected Poems.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Hilmi Yavuz. Seasons of the Word: Selected Poems. Walter G. Andrews, tr. Syracuse, New York. Syracuse University Press. 2007. xiv + 119 pages. $16.95. ISBN 978-0-8156-0879-0 HILMI YAVUZ is a poet with a reputation for difficulty whose books nevertheless hit best-seller lists ...
Gwendolyn Diaz. Women and Power in Argentine Literature: Stories, Interviews, and Critical Essays.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Gwendolyn Diaz. Women and Power in Argentine Literature: Stories, Interviews, and Critical Essays. Austin. University of Texas Press. 2007. xiii + 376 pages, ill. $55 ($24.95 paper). ISBN 978-0-292-71648-3 (71649-0 paper) THIS INSPIRING COLLECTION of the writing of fifteen women ...
Kerstin Ekman. Herrarna i skogen.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Kerstin Ekman. Herrarna i skogen. Stockholm. Bonniers. 2007. 557 pages. 318 kr. ISBN 978-91-0-0113220-9 MOST AUTHORS recognize themselves in Jonathan Swift's sarcasm about the man who wanted to sell his house and "therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he shewed ...
Wendy Lesser. Room for Doubt.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Wendy Lesser. Room for Doubt. New York. Pantheon. 2007. x + 205 pages. $23.95. ISBN 978-0-375-42400-7 ROOM FOR DOUBT consists of three long essays: "Out of Berlin," a poem of praise for a city Wendy Lesser didn't think she would ever like; "On Not Writing About David Hume," ...
Thanasis E. Markopoulos. Anestis Evanghelou: O piitis o pezografos o kritikos.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Thanasis E. Markopoulos. Anestis Evanghelou: O piitis o pezografos o kritikos. Athens. Sokolis. 2006. 712 pages. ISBN 978-960-8264-78-6 ANESTIS EVANGHELOU (1937-94) belongs to the second postwar generation of Thessalonikiot poets that contributed significantly to the literary ...
Julio Ortega. Transatlantic Translations: Dialogues in Latin American Literature.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Julio Ortega. Transatlantic Translations: Dialogues in Latin American Literature. Philip Derbyshire, tr. London. Reaktion (University of Chicago Press, distr.). 2006. 222 pages. 25/$45 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 1-86189287-X JULIO ORTEGA'S importance in the Latin American community ...
Polish Writers on Writing.(Book review)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Polish Writers on Writing. Adam Zagajewski, ed. San Antonio, Texas. Trinity University Press. 2007. xvi + 262 pages. $24.95. ISBN 978-1-59534-033-7 THE PITFALLS awaiting editors in charge of compiling a literary anthology generate dilemmas even the most seasoned of them find ...
Outposts: literary landmarks & events.(Brief article)
Nov 01, 2007 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this vast sphere, thick with war cries blinding the souls of many hearts, only the truth will glow through the fleeting images of time. While you walk along the shores of your soul searching for justice, seek the truth from the deep. ...