News
The Chicago Tribune‘s Monica Eng catches up with Alaa’ Al-Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building, which has become a best-seller in the Arab world, and which has just come out in the States. (If you hit a registration wall, use bugmenot.com for a login/password combo.)
Set in a landmark Cairo building, the novel follows the lives of the straight and gay, rich and poor, and the secular and fundamentalist as they unravel and intertwine against the backdrop of the first Gulf war.
The book also serves as the backbone for a star-studded movie filming in Egypt and expected to be that country’s most expensive ever, costing an estimated $3 million. It’s already being hyped as the Egyptian “Ocean’s Eleven.”
Despite this success, life remains largely business as usual for the 48-year-old dentist. A recent warm Thursday afternoon found him in his spotless Cairo dental clinic after a day’s work and his customary afternoon nap. (…) “You can never make your living as novelist here because we don’t have rights,” he says in a tobacco-cured baritone. “And with the publishers here, you don’t really know how many books you’ve sold. Here we say if you don’t trust your publisher you multiply the number they told you by five. But if you do trust him, you only multiply it by three.”
I’m expecting a review copy of the book, and will report back once I receive and read it.
Related posts by Friday guest blogger Randa Jarrar:
Arabic Translations Up?
More Yacoubian Buildings.
Writer Kenzaburo Oe has expressed criticism of Japan’s shift toward militarism. The remarks are part of a speech for an upcoming conference in Seoul.
Oe leads a movement of Japanese intellectuals called the “Article 9 Group” dedicated to protecting Article 9 of the Japanese constitution from any revision.
Article 9, which renounces Japan’s right to maintain a military or even use the threat of force as a means of settling international disputes, is the main sticking point in the constitutional amendments.
Japan has skirted the article by referring to its military as Self-Defense Forces, which function exclusively for defensive purposes and is claimed not to possess offensive capabilities.
Japanese leaders have regularly visited Yasukuni shrine, a symbol of Japanese militarism, despite fierce protests by former colonies Korea and China. The shrine in Tokyo honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, including convicted World War II class-A war criminals.
Poets Nathalie Handal and Sholeh Wolpe will be reading from their work at Beyond Baroque in Los Angeles tomorrow, May 6. Here are details. I should mention that the event is organized by the Levantine Cultural Center, which brings together artists of all cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle-East, a fantastic cooperative for the arts.
The Complete Review, which now has 1,400 titles in its archives, does its annual round of self-analysis, which basically means that Michael tries to figure out how sexist he is and how international his tastes are. (Answers: Quite and quite.)
Alex forwaded me a message from Audioslave‘s mailing list, in which the band announces that they will be performing in La Havana, Cuba.
[A]udioslave are set to become the first U.S. rock band to perform outdoors in Cuba, sharing the stage with their Cuban music counterparts.
The group, currently touring in support of their upcoming sophomore release, “Out of Exile,” accommodated their touring schedule to be able to give a special performance May 6 at La Tribuna in Havana, Cuba. The concert will be free and open to the Cuban public. In the past, the open air venue has accommodated up to 1 million people.
The performance, the first open air concert by a U.S. rock band in Cuba, was authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Instituto Cubano de la Musica.
All I can say is, lucky bastards.