How the world sees Greece
Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 winner of the Nobel prize for economics and the former chief economist of the World Bank, has just published a new book: "The Great Divide – Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them". He sat down with FRANCE 24's Markus Karlsson.
 |
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.france24.com |
Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes follows the same path as Riordan's previously published Greek Gods in that it's a beautiful coffee table-sized book ...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.hypable.com |
Something extraordinary, even magical, happened in Austin, Texas over the weekend of Aug. 1-2. South Asian poets from different nations and around the country--and many local ones too--came at the invitation of Usha Akella--an indefatigable presence on the Austin poetry scene--to the inaugural South Asian Poets in the Diaspora Festival (aka Matwaala) without quite knowing what to expect. As the weekend progressed it went beyond a formal convocation to listen to poetry and became instead a celebration of the rarefied stuff that goes into making poetry. Matwaala is an appropriate name for the festival. I found this definition online: "Matwaala is literally Hindi for someone who is drunk, inebriated. But more than that the word is used in a transferred sense for someone who is a free spirit, someone who doesn't care for things, someone who does what he/she wishes to do." The word "junoon" is a close parallel in Urdu, implying delirium. And indeed, this was the tone dominating the festival, a spirit of freedom and liberation, sheer joy in the adventure that is poetry rather than worrying about its business aspects or feeling like one had to put on any kind of front. If you already feel accepted, then there is no need to put pressure on yourself. We started off Saturday morning--in a get-acquainted poetry jam session--at Austin Community College's delightful Rio Grande campus, under the auspices of Lyman Grant, who has taught there for close to forty years. We moved on to Usha's dream house--if you have a fantasy about a spacious abode that functions as a retreat, a safe haven, an artist's home par excellence with enormous wide-open sky blue space inside, then Usha's house is the one. Ravi Shankar reading at Austin Community College Here the Matwaala poets were made to feel very special--and I understood at last that this was not the typical conference where writers remain in their shell, straining to be heard above the din, but that we had already been heard, and were to be recognized and celebrated, which defined the complexion of the get-together not as competitive but relaxing. A number of poets and guests sang, performed poetry, and danced, making it the perfect tone-setter for our collective visit that evening to the very hospitable Raindrop Turkish House, where under the aegis of the Dialogue Institute we had another round of memorable poetry readings. Guner Arslan of the Austin Raindrop Turkish Center introducing the concept behind the Dialogue Institute Phinder Dulai reading at Raindrop Turkish House The next day's packed schedule took place at Casa de Luz, the quintessential Southwestern retreat/healing center, in the shadow of downtown--though it felt a million miles away. Here we presented a diverse range of papers (I'll get to the protagonists in a minute): Keki Daruwalla's on the distinction between a poetry of commitment versus a poetry of playfulness, Sasha Pramasad's on silence, Saleem Piradina's on the Bombay poetry revolution of the 1970s, Pramila Venkateswaran's on the representation of South Asians in the top journals and presses, and Ravi Shankar's on the concept of Bhakti in his forthcoming book. Some of the audience at Casa de Luz Each presenter was hilariously introduced by Usha's lovely daughter Anannya and her friend Rehana in hysterical limericks--Keki's went: "Too much easy rhyme we confess: Akella, Matwaala, Daruwaala, / While coming to the point, we'll mention he is an Oxford wallah, / Let's learn to do it better with Keki, / God forbid we mention that Englishman Shelley, / But it's cool to toast the Persians and Greeks in Fire Alta!"--and the sense of celebration and high spirits never left us, all the way through the violin recitation by the twelve-year-old virtuoso Kai Cole, to the rigorous exertions of the Natyalaya dance, presented by Vinitha Subramaniam, and concluding with Lebanese-American singer Julie Slim-Nassif's sweet Arabic and French songs. Anannya and Rehana introducing Sasha Parmasad at Casa de Luz As for the people of delirium, or matwaalas, let me briefly describe some of them, beginning with our keynote speaker and chief guest of honor. Keki Daruwalla is a Delhi-based author of many books of poetry and fiction. He is a Parsi (Zoroastrian), a member of a highly accomplished community that embodies a cosmopolitan outlook and traditions of tolerance and peacefulness because of their mercantile inheritance. Keki was an officer with the Indian Police Service, a director of India's RAW (Research and Intelligence Wing), and special adviser to the prime minister. He is worldly and gentlemanly, and kind and generous, in the way only larger-than-life figures who've earned their stateliness and grace can be: his is the meaningful life experience from which poets and writers ought to be made, and Keki has it--that charisma--in abundance. Yet this charisma is employed not in the service of making people think of him or his talent as something other than what it is, but to bring out the best in others. I've noted this characteristic in many great writers. Keki Daruwalla reading at Casa de Luz There was Saleem Peeradina who has taught at Sienna Heights University in Michigan for almost three decades, since he moved from Bombay. He was one of the figures responsible for bringing about the Bombay revolution: the rejection of outmoded romantic/sentimental tropes for a more realist, modernist poetry, of which Saleem--and others he mentioned in his talk--was one of the avatars. On the way to the airport on Monday, Keki and Pramila were talking about some of the important moments in the rise of Indian English poetry over the course of 45 years, since around 1970, a movement in which Keki was a central figure. Like Saleem, he mentioned poets like Nissim Ezekiel and Arun Kolatkar who are not familiar to me but about whom I now have an intense curiosity. Saleem Peeradina at Casa de Luz Saleem regaled us with his singing of ghazals and classic Indian songs at Usha's home after lunch on the first day, and we also heard Thom Worldpoet (now that I've heard this magnificent Austin bard, I understand why this appellation perfectly suits him). Thom Worldpoet at Usha's house Saleem's own student from the mid-1970s in Bombay, Pramila Venkateswaran (now poet laureate of Suffolk County, New York, and professor at Nassau Community College), whom Pramila credits with her own development as a poet, was present as well. Pramila came to the U.S. to do her PhD in literature in 1982, and in the last decade has published a spate of books. Pramila and I got a chance to interview each other for television--thanks, Farid Mohammadi!--and talk about the different phases of our writing over the years. Pramila is also an astute critic and her migration from one culture to another is surely responsible in large part for her ability to have a macro view of literature, to understand how things fit in context. Pramila Venkateswaran at Casa de Luz Ravi Shankar was also part of the festivities. He teaches at Central Connecticut State University and is founding editor of one of the earliest and best online literary journals, Drunken Boat. Ravi is a poet of well-developed aesthetic sensibilities, steeped in the canon, responding to the sound and flavor of others' investigations of art and poetry. He read mostly from his new book of ekphrastic and collaborationist poetry, What Else Could It Be, from Carolina Wren Press. Ravi is what we call a poet's poet, who takes the art very seriously. Then there was Phinder Dulai from Vancouver, British Columbia, an accomplished poet whose third book, dream/arteries, caused a stir at the festival. The book is about the fate of marooned Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu migrants on board the Japanese ship Komagata Maru, stranded in Vancouver harbor for two months in 1914 and eventually forced to return to India because exclusionary laws wouldn't permit their entry. The book is evocative of the statelessness many experience in the current iteration of globalization. Phinder's ability to give voice to the forgotten group of people on board that ship struck a chord in me, because I've had a similar project in mind, and I recognized that Phinder had totally nailed the voice(s) a book like this needs, he'd got the tone just right. It's exciting to see a poet take on, so successfully, some of the overdue challenges from the poetry that Ezra Pound instigated a hundred years ago. We all loved Sasha Parmasad, originally from Trinidad, who studied in New York and now teaches Transcendental Meditation in Iowa. Sasha's poems, and her paper at Casa de Luz, were about poetry and silence. Silence in poetry, or silence and poetry, have for me emerged in recent months as a recurrent issue in conversations with other poets. We all admired Sasha's honest vulnerability, her gentle soul, because if poetry cannot produce a soul one wants to be near to, then what is it for? Sasha Parmasad reading at Raindrop Turkish House I gave a talk on whether or not I think of myself as an immigrant poet (the answer, in the essay I'd originally written for an anthology just out from Black Lawrence Press, was largely no), and I was delighted to find that it was very much in tune with the preoccupations of many others at the festival. I admire immigrant writing that reaches for utopian ideals of justice and equality--as has been true of many Jewish writers of the diaspora--but I'm also aware of the trap the neoliberal culture industry sets by segregating different branches of writing into insular ghettos, cultural zones cordoned off from economic concerns. Anis Shivani reading at Casa de Luz We heard from rising poets like Shubh Bala Schiesser, Archana Vemulapalli, Debangana Banerjee, and Mamata Misra, full of confidence, each with their distinct, sweet presence, their pure expression of joy. Certain themes kept coming up again and again, as they are bound to during an event as intimate and provocative as this one. What is South Asian poetry, what is distinctive about it, and what does it mean to be a poet of the diaspora today? How do we write, who do we write for, how do we make our presence felt, and what are the compromises and reconciliations necessary to get established as a poet? What makes us happiest as poets, what experiences and what immersions, and how can we protect the flickering candle, always in danger of being smothered, that is poetry? What did it mean for us to get together in this way, and could we rise above our immediate interests to preserve something of lasting beauty? The release of Usha Akella's new book at Casa de Luz Dustin Pickering of Transcendent Zero Press introducing Usha Akella's new book at Casa de Luz This event felt important. I'm trying to understand why the feeling is so strong. Perhaps it was the sense of intimacy and kinship, and freedom from cant and one-upmanship. It is rare indeed to walk into a community that feels like one's ideal collective of listeners and readers, fellow poets who value the art above all and have each lived through the experience of making sacrifices to get to the point where we feel that the designation of "poet" is not entirely unearned. The Julie Slim band delighting the audience at Casa de Luz These poets were fun to be with, full of positive energy and vitality, immersed in the life of the mind, precisely the shape one hopes a new intellectual community will take. A lot of us read different kinds of love poetry during the course of the festival. Sometimes we spontaneously broke out in songs or recitations of classical poetry (for example, Keki reciting Faiz or Faraz, along with his own translations, or Ghalib), and this was apt, because it was a festival as much about love as about poetry, or rather, the foundations of poetry in love. That's what made it so different and possibly unrepeatable, though we will surely try to recapture some of the magic in the coming years. This was an event celebrating poetry for itself, and we understood, even as it was unfolding, how precious and rare this emphasis is. Anannya Akella reading at Casa de Luz Many of us are familiar with the exhaustion and loss of inspiration that are often part and parcel of writing conferences. We've all experienced it and promised ourselves not to go through it again. Well, this festival was the antithesis of all those feelings. I came away full of hope and energy and a certain confidence that my trials and tribulations hadn't been wasted, that they were necessary, indeed inevitable. The Matwaala poets after the conclusion of the festival at Usha's house Thank you, Matwaalas everywhere, whether or not you came to this festival, we are full of spirit, intuiting songs about to set us free. Many circles were tied and many circles let loose here, in a whirl whose beginning and end we don't know and don't want to know. Part of the Natyalaya dance to conclude the proceedings at Casa de Luz You can listen to complete audio of the second day's events here, courtesy of Hemant Bhagawatula, and view more pictures of the festival here and here, and watch more videos here. Anis Shivani is the author of several books of poetry, fiction, and criticism, the most recent of which is the novel Karachi Raj, released this summer. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com |
Amidst the Greek economic crisis, a newly- published book comes as another yet account of what led the country to this mess, penned by freelance ...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT neoskosmos.com |
“The Greek Way” no longer has such splendid implications for many. This is the title of a best-selling book on ancient Greece by German-Americ…
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.nwitimes.com |
Greek historian Theophanes Malkides presents the book “Armenia, Armenians, Justification” on the genocide perpetrated against Armenians, Greeks, ...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.panorama.am |
The sea that separates Odysseus from home was the lifeblood of ancient Greece. Homer’s story of return takes us on a journey that goes beyond geographyThis is the first one, the big one, the ur-road movie: the Odyssey. Homer’s poem tells of Odysseus’s decade-long attempt to return to his home island of Ithaca – a “man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy”. (Robert Fagles’ translation for Penguin, which I recommend.)Here’s some context. Banish the thoughts of modern nation-state Greece and think instead of the Hellenes as they were, a widely scattered, littoral people, linked by language and custom, spread thinly from Massilia (now Marseille, founded by the Greeks in about 600BC) to the Black Sea. Edith Hall’s book Introducing the Ancient Greeks reminds me that Plato said his people liked to live “like frogs or ants around the pond”. They were traders and colonists and explorers. One Marseillais, Pytheas, circumnavigated Britain and perhaps got as far as Denmark and Iceland, and wrote about it in his lost book On the Ocean. The trackless wastes of the sea were the Greeks’ element. Aside from the Odyssey, in antiquity there existed an epic account, called Returns, of other Greek heroes’ homecomings from Troy, thought to have included the stories of Agamemnon’s catastrophic return to Argos, only to be slaughtered by his wife Clytemnestra, and Menelaos’s journey back to Sparta, via a long detour to Egypt. A fragment of Sappho, discovered on papyrus last year, has the narrator-poet anxiously awaiting her brother Charaxos’s return from a voyage. The perilous maritime journey was not only a Greek poetic theme, but part of Greek lived experience. Continue reading...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com |
A book I recently read about Albert Camus, A life worth living, by Robert Zaretsky, reminded me very much about the current Greek political and ...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.timesofmalta.com |
The Channel 4 economics editor behind new book Postcapitalism is joining us answer your questions in a live webchat on Monday 27 July at 1pm BST – post them in the comments below 1.26pm BST Paul Mason has struck a chord. An extract from his book Postcapitalism, published in the Guardian, has been viewed over 2 million times in less than a week, and shared over 317,000 times on social media. The book’s thesis – that the old, wildly unequal methods of doing business could be coming to a close – is bracingly utopian, and looks set to be one of the most-discussed of the year. As economics editor for Channel 4 news, and in his former work with the BBC, Mason has reported from the rocky terrain of global finance: the fall of Lehman, the Libor scandal, the Occupy movement and the standoff between Greece and the rest of the EU. To viewers’ delight, his professional distance would sometimes dissolve into on-screen exasperation at the failures of the world’s financial elite. He also wrote Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere, an exploration into the Arab Spring and other protest movements. Continue reading...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com |
The E-Edition includes all of the news, comics, classifieds and advertisements of the newspaper. And it's available to subscribers before 6 a.m. every ...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.dispatch.com |
Four years ago, my father passed away in Turkey. My mother and I went there this year to settle some undealt paperwork. "It was only two years ago that I learned of your existence, there was a TV series in which one of the characters named Joseph, was the Assyrian/Syriac," the administrator of the municipal office said unashamedly. She has since traveled to my native city Midyat in southeast Turkey - to see for herself - the old grounds of Assyrian / Syriacs. I pointed out my childhood home on a picture she showed me. She carefully asked my mother and I about why my Turkish is poor, why we left the country, and why we never moved back. Her nervousness made her drop some papers on the floor. She held up her sun-bleached hair with a pair of Louis Vuitton sunglasses, wearing a gray sleeveless top and a skirt. Outside you could hear the call to prayer - it was the month of fasting - Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Most outdoor cafés were still full of people who either drank traditional tea or ate ice cream. They were dressed as if in any other tourist resort. I told her about my grandparents' suffering, why my parents are illiterate, and about how we got stuck in Sweden; because they were afraid that something would happen to us children if Turkey ended up in war with Greece. A Christian country fighting a Muslim country. The Christians in Turkey were therefore seen by some as the enemy. She wanted to know about the genocide of my people in the shadow of the First World War. When I told her most of my grandmother's family was thrown into a well after being brutally murdered, as well as how my grandmother survived the well, the tears began to flow from the administrator's eyes. With wet eyes, she ordered tea for us while I gathered her papers that had fallen by my feet. Mother felt safe with our new acquaintance. She couldn't stop talking about the five Assyrian / Syriac girls, briefly kidnapped from school when she was a child. The scare tactics, so Christians could be excluded from education. That is why my mother can't write. "It feels like I'm the perpetrator, as if it is I who has kidnapped and killed. I have gone to the best schools in the country, researched at one of the better universities. "You are our country's shame, the fact that you don't even exist in teaching materials means I can never trust research again." While she wiped away her tears, she asked if there were books about us in Turkish. I thought of the book I am reading this summer, "The last Christian", how it keeps me awake at night. The author Klaus Wivel traveled to Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria to answer the question if Christians are persecuted. What he saw shocked him, and he managed to convey the feeling. This is a book that should be in every school, the book that all politicians ought to read. But it has barely been mentioned, with only Swedish and Danish versions available. She asked a vital question. "I read the newspapers in other languages. Why don't journalists report on the expulsion of non-Muslims currently taking place in many Muslim-dominated countries?" -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com |
Harper Lee’s third book sees a much-loved character return home to father Yanis Varoufakis
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ft.com |
Fresh fat has been added to the fire of German-Greek relations after the respected and mostly serious Der Spiegel magazine published a front cover depicting an alarmed Teutonic tourist with a fistful of Euros reluctantly dancing Sirtaki with a chain-smoking, Ouzo-slurping Greek.
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.independent.co.uk |
The Zed Collective, who run the radical publisher Zed Books, explain why resistance to austerity is drawing readers to what was once a ‘marginal’ sectorIn their contempt for the resounding NO! of the Greek referendum, the Euro-elite currently inflicting economic devastation on the people of Greece resemble the Stalinists lampooned by Brecht in his poem The Solution:After the uprising of the 17th JuneThe Secretary of the Writers’ UnionHad leaflets distributed in the StalinalleeStating that the peopleHad forfeited the confidence of the governmentAnd could win it back onlyBy redoubled efforts. Would it not be easierIn that case for the governmentTo dissolve the peopleAnd elect another? Related: Yanis Varoufakis: How I became an erratic Marxist Continue reading...
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com |
It may be time for fund to look at rule book and consider following its own advice
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ft.com |
Yanis Varoufakis, the controversial Greek finance minister who resigned from his post early Monday, just got a strange new nickname: "Minister of Awesome." The Wall Street Journal reports that less than four hours after Varoufakis stepped down, his book agents in London sent around a PR blast promoting his 2011 title, The Global Minotaur. In the press release, his publisher, Zed Books, calls Varoufakis “possibly the coolest, charismatic and most intelligent Finance minister ever." The email included the hashtag #MinisterofAwesome. Many people will probably disagree with that description. Varoufakis was a contentious figure known for his aggressive manner and frequent clashes with the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble. While he had urged Greeks to vote "no" in the Sunday referendum against further economic austerity measures, he had also publicly accused European creditors of “terrorism” against Greece. A spokesman for Varoufakis appeared to distance himself from the publicity, telling the Journal that the former minister had “nothing to do with ... the publisher’s emotional overreaction to the news of the resignation.” Varoufakis shared his decision to step down in a Monday blog post. “I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my… ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement,” he wrote, in part. “For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today." "I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride," he added. In its email, Zed Books offered excerpts from The Global Minotaur, which will be republished in a new edition this summer. The book explores the roots of the 2008 economic collapse and the Eurozone crisis. Spokespeople for Varoufakis and Zed Books were not immediately available to comment. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT feeds.huffingtonpost.com |
Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was named No. 1 on Business Insider's Silicon Valley 100 list this year due to her remarkable rise to success. Since dropping out of Stanford at age 19 to found her health technology company in 2003, Holmes has raised $400 million in venture capital and become a billionaire in the process. Theranos is founded on the idea that a single drop of blood can provide enough information for a complete, inexpensive blood test. It already has a deal with Walgreens and in early July reached a major achievement when the FDA approved Theranos' herpes test. In an interview with the Academy of Achievement nonprofit last September, Holmes discussed several books that helped shape her world view. 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' by Homer Holmes says she was an introverted child and that books were her "good friends." Two of the books she enmeshed herself in at a young age are Homer's ancient Greek epic poems about the Trojan War and Odysseus' journey home after it, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," respectively. "I've always been fascinated in the fact that so much changes in our society technologically, but as humans we don't change a lot," Holmes said. Robert Fagles' translation is especially accessible while remaining true to the source material. Buy them here 'Moby-Dick' by Herman Melville The 1851 American classic is another book Holmes fell in love with as a girl. While many of us are familiar with the general story of Captain Ahab and the white whale because of its place in pop culture, the story has many more layers than you may be aware of, and is a rich allegory on what constitutes morality and how we create meaning in life. To appreciate the many allusions Melville played with, check out the Norton Critical Edition. Buy it here 'The Complete Story of Civilization' by Will and Ariel Durant From 1935-1975, author Will Durant wrote 11 volumes on Western history, finishing with the Napoleonic era only because he and his wife died, weeks apart. His wife Ariel is a coauthor of several of the final volumes, and they both won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for the 10th in the series, "Rousseau and Revolution." "I've really been fascinated and inspired by reading books about history, because there's so much wisdom in understanding how these great people and great leaders built great organizations, led groups of people and effected change," Holmes said. She thinks there is "very powerful" insight contained within the Durants' massive work. "It shapes your frame of thinking when you encounter people and situations," she said. Buy it here Or, if you'd rather start with a series of essays by the Durants on overarching themes of their work, read "The Lessons of History." See the rest of the story at Business Insider
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT feedproxy.google.com |
The cover of The Economist often captures the zeitgeist on what the world's big geopolitical or economic event is. Unlike The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or another "paper of record," The Economist is published just once a week, and when you've made the cover of the magazine, you have become an event. In a post on Sunday, The Economist said that Greece looks headed towards making its 8th magazine cover in the last 5 years as it increasingly looks like Greece will default on its debt and potentially make its way out of the euro. The magazine also included the last 7 times Greece was featured on its cover: here's what happened then. SEE ALSO: How markets will respond to the Greek debacle over the weekend Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How LeBron James spends his money
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT feedproxy.google.com |
Beloved children's book author Judy Blume released a new book this month. All hail Judy! Except, unlike her 1970 masterpiece Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, her recent work, In The Unlikely Event, is being marketed toward adults. Blume's decision -- or, perhaps, her publisher's decision -- to release another book specifically for adults brings us back to a much blogged about debate in the book world: What is the difference between children's books, YA novels and adult fiction? A succinct delineation between the genres might read: "The sine qua non of YA is an adolescent protagonist, who will probably face significant difficulties and crises, and grow and develop to some degree." Following from this definition, we could expect children's literature to feature child protagonists; adult literature stars the over 18 set. Despite the differentiation, some people are of the mind that a good children's book or YA novel should be readable to any age range, adults included. The boundary between the distinctions is porous, says writer Daniel Hahn. "Books are wayward things, and the good ones, the ones that are really alive with that energy that seems to detonate in your brain as you read, aren’t so easily contained." After all, according to a 2012 study conducted by Bowker Market Research, 55 percent of the people buying fiction geared toward young adults are, actually, just adults. And they're, actually, reading the books for themselves. Yet more than a few critics have expressed their distaste for the adults who like to vacation in YA and children's lit territory, defying the limitations of a staunch acronym -- see here, here and here. Adults, they say, should stick to "the complexity of great adult literature." At the end of the day, we tend to agree with writer Meg Wolitzer, who thoughtfully concluded her take on the "YA war" with a balanced aside: "When you’re deep in a good book, you won’t even hear the drumbeats." But, in honor of Blume's latest foray into the world of adult fiction, we decided to single out a few of our other favorite children's lit and YA authors, and imagine a universe in which they created books for adults, too. Or, more specifically, a universe in which these authors wrote stories with adult protagonists. Behold, the 13 authors we wish would have written fiction for adults: 1. Beverly Cleary Aside from a couple of memoirs, Beverly Cleary had a prolific half-century career as a writer publishing only children’s literature. Her Ramona Quimby books redefined kids’ reading for generations, with relatable, funny stories about the family on Klickitat Street. Cleary’s gift for drawing out the humor and poignancy in down-home tales about kids like those she knew growing up has been a great enough contribution to the world of letters. Still, her warmth, honesty and eye for the ridiculous would have benefited the world of adult fiction -- imagine a novel about the Quimby parents’ marriage, as written for mature readers rather than through the eyes of Ramona. -Claire Fallon 2. Walter Dean Myers The best kid’s book writers don’t treat their young readers as inferior or less intelligent than adults; they don’t downplay the gravity or language of their writing, but make adult themes more palatable by sharing them straightforwardly. Walter Dean Myers’ Monster expertly handles the issue of racial stereotyping, through the eyes and literal lens of a character wrongly accused of a crime. Issues such as fate, and narratives as a means of making sense of the world, are at play, and would do just as well in a heavier, lengthier work. -Maddie Crum 3. Zilpha Keatley Snyder Many a child dreamed of having a game so elaborate, well-researched, top secret and exclusive as The Egypt Game, as dreamed up by Zilpha Keatley Snyder in 1967. Snyder's iconic children's tale revolves around two young girls and the fanciful imaginary world they dream up in the storage yard of A-Z Antiques, based on Ancient Egyptian beliefs and rituals. The suspenseful story represented the pinnacle of imaginary game awesomeness, and shaped many an after-school playdate. Though she died in 2014, we wish Snyder would have provided grown-ups with a similar incentive to play pretend. -Priscilla Frank 4. Katherine Paterson The Bridge to Terabithia is one of those YA novels that treats adolescents as what they are: eventual adults. In the book, Katherine Paterson explores depression, death, religion and isolation in ways that few other novels aimed at kids do. She wasn't afraid to talk about anxieties, scary to people far older than grade school age, that wracked the brains of preteens -- Should I have empathy for a bully? How do I reconcile the fact that my friend doesn't believe in God? How can I grieve a person's death when I feel partially responsible? These were not diet lit questions. The Chinese-born American author is still alive today, and wouldn't it be great to see a work like The Day of the Pelican or The Great Gilly Hopkins written with adult leads? -Katherine Brooks 5. Mary Pope Osborne It all began with Dinosaurs Before Dark, the 1992 classic where Jack and Annie find an enchanted, arboreal dwelling, travel through time and make friends with a pteranodon named Henry. Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House series took off from there and never looked back. She published 50 more books in the series, causing it to surpass Harry Potter on the 2006 New York Times Best Seller’s list. How did she beat out J.K. Rowling herself? With artful cliffhangers and the tantalizing hope that children could be whisked away from their routine lives into a new historical period each day. Adult literature could use a dose of her talent for suspense and whimsy -- not to mention rapid serialization. -Colton Valentine 6. Gail Carson Levine If you didn’t read Ella Enchanted growing up, it’s not too late -- based on my frequent re-readings, it totally holds up. Gail Carson Levine’s Newbery Award-winning debut book is an intoxicating stew of fairy-tale tropes, sneaky female empowerment, humor, and above all, lovable characters. Levine recreates (or creates anew) fantasy worlds that feel intimately familiar, with all the human quirks, flaws and emotions that make stories jump off the page. While no one is too old for Ella Enchanted, what about a modern fable designed for adult readers? The world of adult literature could do with a little more magic, especially of Levine’s clever, thoughtful variety. -Claire Fallon 7. Maurice Sendak Maurice Sendak’s approach to writing kid’s books –- to always incorporate both the stormy and sunny sides of life, and not sugar coat plots with neat resolve -– would lend itself well to stories for adults, too. In Where the Wild Things Are, he doesn’t shy away from nudity, and he seems proud, or at least not ashamed, of the frequency with which the title is banned. When asked whether the movie adaptation of his book was unsuited for children, he said: “I would tell them to go to hell.” So, if his frank scruples don’t make him an excellent candidate for novel-writing, his public discussion of his sexual exploration certainly does. -Maddie Crum 8. Madeleine L'Engle The best young adult novelists know adults don’t have to be villains. Madeleine L'Engle -- in this superfan's humble opinion -- knew this better than most. Her books allowed adults and kids, those classically opposing species, to become friends and confidantes, and thus, to learn from each other. Surely she would have made a fabulous adult fiction writer had she taken that path. A simple optic shift switches her genre. Her most famous contribution to literature is A Wrinkle in Time, a sci-fi classic whose energy comes from this interplay. Meg and Charles Wallace Murry adore their mysterious, absent father so implicitly, they venture into alternate dimensions to rescue him. Love between child and adult seduced legions of young readers, but for me, a quieter example sealed the deal. I came to know L'Engle could write grown-ups as compellingly as she could kids somewhere in the depths of her poetically realistic series starring Vicky Austin. The scene I remember most vividly isn't romantic at all. It comes from A Moon by Night, when Vicky’s family takes a cross-country road trip pit stop at her uncle's house in California. One early morning, she and Uncle Douglas find themselves the first ones up. Dawn works its magic, and Vicky begins to let her teenage defenses down. She is distraught over the death of a family friend -- the very concept of death, really. Her uncle states his take, honed over years of questioning. When we rage at the universe, he proposes, we are really asking, "Why aren't you doing things my way?" This struck young, sullen me as a bit of true wisdom, not to mention my first inkling that adults are simply kids given more time to reason through problems. -Mallika Rao 9. Ellen Raskin Ellen Raskin blessed elementary schoolers everywhere with her 1978 novel The Westing Game, about sixteen heirs working to crack the mystery behind millionaire Sam Westing's unceremonious death. The Newbery Medal-winning book features a badass 13-year-old girl protagonist, secret identities and Americana-centric clues that will make you proud to be an amateur sleuthing American. Raskin is hilarious and clever and, though she died in 1984, we would have loved the opportunity to see her craft a thriller for the adult set. -Priscilla Frank 10. Chris Van Allsburg Chris Van Allsburg is the American illustrator and writer responsible for epic works of children's literature like The Sweetest Fig, The Wreck of the Zephyr and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. (Oh, and Jumanji and The Polar Express.) While his books rested almost entirely on his adept imagery, realist cartoons that were beautifully horrifying to the kinds of small children who enjoyed a well-crafted scary story, the words he wrapped around them created absurd, sometimes nightmarish plots that kids just gobbled up. He could easily turn the episodic illustrations from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick into short stories geared toward adult eyes only. -Katherine Brooks 11 & 12. Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire If there’s one thing adult life is lacking, it’s mythology: the unabashed belief in mystic tales that hold clear moral principles and connect readers to a common history. Enter the d’Aulaires, an immigrant couple hailing from Munich, Germany and Kongsberg, Norway, who paid their way to the U.S. with their illustrating talents. Though they’re best known for their gorgeous books of Norse and Greek myths, the d’Aulaires also made captivating picture books on Norwegian folktales and famed American figures like Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln. Their stories gave scores of children a first introduction to the worlds of ancient Gods and heroes -- an epic scale we’d love to see repackaged for adults. -Colton Valentine 13. Lois Lowry When a book has been banned as much as it has been made mandatory on elementary school curriculums across the country, you know an author has achieved something great: a real conversation has started. The Giver quartet is one of those dystopic series that attempted to kick-start kids' appetites for critical analysis and a healthy sense of defiance. Lois Lowry's M.O. is simple: "For my own grandchildren -- and for all those of their generation -- I try, through writing, to convey my passionate awareness that we live intertwined on this planet and that our future depends upon our caring more, and doing more, for one another." We can only hope that when her grandchildren age, she contemplates the possibility of writing something for the adults they'll become. In an era when environmental politics are as pressing as ever, it seems a story told through the eyes of adult protagonists could benefit from Lowry's emphasis on caring more. --Katherine Brooks Notable Runner-ups: S.E. Hinton and E.L. Konigsburg. Let us know your picks in the comments! .articleBody div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;} .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;} div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;} -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.huffingtonpost.com |
British bookmaker William Hill has re-opened its book on whether Greece will leave the eurozone by the end of this year, it said on Thursday.
|
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ekathimerini.com |