Books

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the quatrains attributed to the medieval Iranian astronomer Omar Khayyam, the Rubáiyát, the renewal that comes with New Year is an important theme. Since the Iranian New Year is held on the spring solstice (typically March 21), it is associated with the rebirth of greenery. This year I’m sharing […]

Books

In the Shadow of War: Life and Fiction in Twenty-First Century America

Tomdispatch

By Beverly Gologorsky ( Tomdispatch.com) – I’m a voracious reader of American fiction and I’ve noticed something odd in recent years. This country has been eternally “at war” and you just wouldn’t know that — a small amount of veteran’s fiction aside — from the novels that are generally published. For at least a decade, […]

Books

Plagues and Painting with Words: Glimpses of Orhan Pamuk’s Writing Process

Erdag Goknar

By Erdağ Göknar | – ( LA Review of Books) – DURING THE LONG summer days in Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk devotes himself to intensive writing on Büyükada, an island in the Sea of Marmara, and in the evenings, he meets with visitors. Last August, Pamuk and I had dinner there and discussed everything from politics […]

Antisemitism

Teaching the Holocaust through Literature: four books to help Young People gain deeper Understanding

The Conversation

By Christine Berberich, University of Portsmouth | – A survey commissioned in 2019 revealed the shocking result that over half of Britons did not know that at least six millions Jews had been murdered during the Holocaust. This result was all the more surprising given the fact that the Holocaust, as a topic, has been […]

Books

The End of Progressive Book Publishing in the Age of Monopoly Capital?

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – No one listened better than Studs. For those of you old enough to remember, that’s Studs Terkel, of course. The most notable thing about him in person, though, was this: the greatest interviewer of his moment, perhaps of any moment, never stopped talking, except, of course, when he was listening to produce […]

Books

Of Course there were Africans in Middle Earth, Just as there Were in Medieval England

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – American white nationalism has attempted to appropriate certain cultures, times and places as quintessentially “white,” and so it is no surprise that, as John Blake at CNN writes, there is controversy on the American Right about the multicultural casting visible in the Amazon Prime series Rings of Power, based on […]

Books

In Honor of Salman Rushdie, Novelist and Stabbing Victim: Midnight’s Other Children, by Juan Cole

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-winning novelist, was repeatedly stabbed on Friday at a literary event at Chautauqua Institution in western New York, where he was arguing that the U.S. should give asylum to persecuted writers. Allegedly one Hadi Matar of New Jersey, wearing a black mask, leaped up onto the stage […]

Books

‘Summer with the Enemy’ by Syrian novelist Shahla Ujayli is a searing summer read

The Conversation

By Michelle Hartman, McGill University | – Wherever you spend your summer, allow yourself to be transported to Syria and immerse yourself in the world of Shahla Ujayli’s sweeping historical novel Summer with the Enemy. The ongoing devastation of the war that began in 2011 has brought Syria to the world’s attention. Reading a Syrian […]

Books

What I Can Still Love about My Embattled Country (and World)

Frida Berrigan

(Tomdispatch.com ) – It’s hot and hazy as July rolls around. Growing up in the Baltimore swamplands, we used to say, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” Meaning that the humidity was harder to deal with than the feverish temperatures. At some point in my family, the phrase morphed into: “It’s not the heat, […]