Worldcrunch
Putting authors and artists in categories may help pinpoint their work in socio-cultural and stylistic terms, but is inevitably restrictive of literature’s essential universality. In South America, there is one, tiresome if profitable label literature seemingly cannot shake off, namely Magic Realism.
Lebanese writer Tarek Ismail, who fled his village in southern Lebanon in September, reflects on his new life as a displaced person: “I am now facing a fate that is not in my hands.”
From the Nakba to now, Palestinian authors have used the trope of amputation as a literary symbol of loss and unity in the face of adversity.
The release of “En agosto nos vemos” as a posthumous novel by Gabriel García Márquez would have horrified Colombia’s Nobel laureate, who had described it as useless and wanted it to be “destroyed.”
If Chinese food is a link to the homeland, then so is Chinese literature. Two Chinese immigrants in Europe have found a way to connect themselves and others to their culture by setting up spaces where people can buy or borrow Chinese paperbacks.
A noted expert of the late Gabriel García Márquez is putting to rest the idea that the legendary Gabo was just a fantasist and man of fiction, revealing poignant and pointed essays and literary criticism.
Writer and activist Victoria Amelina died from injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike on a restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. Her death is a cruel irony that reminds the world of both Moscow’s objectives, and tactics.
Novelists from Africa have been receiving some of the most prestigious literary prizes. But there are still questions around who are the world’s literary gatekeepers and what role writers from the Global South can play, writes Mauritian poet and photographer Umar Timol.
In the wake of the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, Haitian writer Yanick Lahens revisits the history of the island, addressing its fractures, but also seeing a reason for cautious optimism.
Police say the published novelist killed his father with a hammer and slit his mother’s wrists to make it look like the wife killed her husband and then herself. The mother is clinging to life.
She was born with her sight and hearing on June 27, 1880. Soon after, an illness left Helen Keller deaf and blind for life.
Novelist and Nobel laureate J.M.G. Le Clézio welcomed the resolve of millions of his fellow Frenchmen uniting against terrorism. But he’s ready to ask the uncomfortable questions.
Adios Gabo! From Bogota to Warsaw and beyond, the passing of the great Colombian writer is marked with Page One features.