Worldcrunch
The death of Ziad Rahbani, Lebanon’s legendary composer, playwright, musician, and political provocateur, leaves a profound cultural and emotional void. His plays and songs expressed the nation’s tragedies, anger, and resilience, making him a “living echo” of Lebanon’s struggles that will continue to resonate for generations.
After a brush with death in Ukraine in 2023, Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince discusses his experience, survivor’s guilt, his new book, Ahora y en la hora (“Now and in the Hour”), and the war in Ukraine.
I don’t want to be ‘rescued’ by Pakistan. I don’t want to be silenced by India. I want to grow in a space that allows me to be both Kashmiri and Indian without splitting my tongue in two. I want the world to know that patriotism can look like criticism, and loyalty can sound like longing.
The phenomenon of retranslation is both paradoxical and inherent in every culture but it’s also a true source of vitality for literature, as well as pleasure for the readers.
Bookshops’ shelves display an increasing number of books with a smaller number of pages. Data seems to confirm that books with more than 400 pages are increasingly becoming a rarity. Why are shorter books being published, and what does that tell us about how we engage in our free time?
Fedaa Zeyad is tired of seeing all the attempts to portray the people of Gaza as superheroes, somehow undeterred in the face of death. She prefers to present them simply as human beings: fearful, tired, desperate, objecting to the terms and conditions of this war.
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.
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The digital age has brought about significant changes in all industries. The cultural sector is no exception, with the rise of social media sparked a bonafide revolution in the way musicians, filmmakers, writers, etc., create and share their content. In Europe, the issue is particularly salient in the writing world, as the region faces a lack of alternatives to the American and Chinese social media platforms dominating the market in terms of online text diffusion. Alexandre Leforestier, the founder of Panodyssey, an innovative social network dedicated to authors and readers, recently shared his thoughts on the need for a European digital industry that serves the culture, citizens, and democracies of Europe.
A bit like the playwright Fernando Arrabal who launched an artistic project of decades after spotting a several disjointed phrases, our columnist reflects on the anodyne coincidences that led him to write these words.
A widely mocked tweet by the Associated Press tells its reporters to avoid dehumanizing labels such as “the poor” or “the French”. But one French writer replies that the real dehumanizing threat is when open conversation becomes impossible.
Readers can be unduly critical of authors for a range of reasons, from old-fashioned spite to the modern phenomenon of wokeness. But writers should not consider these people enemies, but rather guides to help dig deeper.
In his early journalistic writings, the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez showed he had an eye for factual details, in which he found the absurdity and ‘magic’ that would in time be the stuff and style of his fiction.
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.
Born some eight centuries ago, the famed poet and philosopher Rumi offered ideas on religion that bear little resemblance to the brand of Islam being imposed right now in Afghanistan by the Taliban regime.
CAIRO — I’ve been thinking lately about my relationship with anonymity, and the way my understanding of it — which used to be somewhat one-sided — has been evolving, both in personal writing and in political work. In a polarized environment, we become trapped in a reactive position, especially as some of the approaches adopted […]
Forced to stay home from one day to the next, millions of quarantined people were suddenly faced with a rare luxury in our fast-paced world: time. That, of course, came with a question: What to do with it? Where others may have chosen to Netflix, garden, read, meditate or complete a 51,300 pieces-jigsaw puzzle, the […]
In a never-before-published interview shortly before his suicide, the Jewish-Italian author opens up about his adolescent angst and traumas beyond Auschwitz.
PARIS – Among the 2.5 million people who are illiterate in France, there are also executives from the corporate world. Because of the jobs they hold, these people are very good at hiding their inability to read or write, making this phenomenon impossible to quantify — some have dubbed it the “invisible affliction.” When he […]