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Svetlana Alexievich wins Nobel Literature prize

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Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich's writing is critical of her home country's government

Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich’s writing is critical of her home country’s government

by BBC

Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich has won the 2015 Nobel Prize for literature.

Announcing the prize in Stockholm, the chair of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, called her writing “a monument to courage and suffering in our time”.

The award, presented to a living writer, is worth 8m kronor (£691,000).

Previous winners include literary heavyweights Rudyard Kipling and Ernest Hemingway. French historical author Patrick Modiano won in 2014.

It has been half a century since a writer working primarily in non-fiction won the Nobel – and Alexievich is the first journalist to win the award.

Her best-known works in English translation include Voices From Chernobyl, an oral history of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe; and Boys In Zinc, a collection of first-hand accounts from the Soviet-Afghan war. The title refers to the zinc coffins in which the dead came home.

The book caused controversy and outrage when it was first published in Russia, where reviewers called it a “slanderous piece of fantasy” and part of a “hysterical chorus of malign attacks”.

Alexievich has also been critical of her home country’s government, leading to a period of persecution – in which her telephone was bugged and she was banned from making public appearances.

She spent 10 years in exile from 2000, living in Italy, France, Germany and Sweden, among other places, before moving back to Minsk.

Witness accounts

The author was born in 1948 in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk, then known as Stanislav,to a Belarusian father and Ukrainian mother.

The family moved to Belarus after her father completed his military service, and Alexievich studied journalism at the University of Minsk between 1967 and 1972.

Svetlana Alexievich’s works also won her the Swedish PEN prize

After graduation, she worked as a journalist for several years before publishing her first book, War’s Unwomanly Face, in 1985.

Based on interviews with hundreds of women who participated in the World War Two, it set a template for her future works, constructing narratives from witnesses to some the world’s most devastating events.

On her personal website, Alexievich explains her pursuit of journalism: “I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves.”

She has previously won the Swedish PEN prize for her “courage and dignity as a writer”.

Ms Danius said the author had spent nearly 40 years studying the people of the former Soviet Union, but that her work was not only about history but “something eternal, a glimpse of eternity”.

“By means of her extraordinary method – a carefully composed collage of human voices – Alexievich deepens our comprehension of an entire era,” the Swedish Academy added.

Alexievich was the bookmakers’ favourite to win 2015 Nobel award, according to Ladbrokes.

She beat other hot favourites Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and Kenyan novelist Ngugi Wa Thiong’o.

She is the 14th woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in its history.

A total of 112 individuals have won it between 1901 and 2015. The prize was suspended several times during the first and second world wars.

In final interview, Günter Grass warned against 'war everywhere'

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German writer, who died on Monday, was known by some as the ‘conscience of his generation.’

Günter Grass died April 13, 2015.

Günter Grass died April 13, 2015.

by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams

Nobel-award winning author and social critic Günter Grass, who died this week at the age of 87, said in his final interview that he worried humanity—now 15 years into the 21st century—could be “sleepwalking” into another world war.

“We have on the one side Ukraine, whose situation is not improving; in Israel and Palestine things are getting worse; the disaster the Americans left in Iraq, the atrocities of Islamic state and the problem of Syria,” he told the Spanish newspaper El País in the interview, which took place at the author’s home in northern Germany on March 21 and was published Tuesday, the day after his death.

“There is war everywhere; we run the risk of committing the same mistakes as before; so without realizing it we can get into a world war as if we were sleepwalking,” he added, also expressing concern about climate change and overpopulation.

The novelist, poet, playwright, and essayist, who pushed his fellow Germans to confront even the most controversial aspects of their history, was known by some as the “conscience of his generation.”

On Monday, the Guardian compiled a video of mourners paying tribute to the author:

Renowned German author Günter Grass dies, aged 87

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Nobel Prize winner and taboo breaker: The German writer was an unruly spirit throughout his life. Grass was an engaged citizen seen by some as a “moral authority,” by others as a hypocrite. He passed away on April 13.

Gunter_Grass

by Cornelia Rabitz, Deutsche Welle

Günter Grass died of a lung infection on Monday, April 13, in the northern German city of Lübeck, the Steidl publishing house announced.

His life, full of ups and downs, moments of triumph and turmoil, began on October 16, 1927. Günter Grass grew up in a rather humble home: His parents ran a grocery store in Gdansk (then known as Danzig), but their customers were so poor that they couldn’t always pay the bills. The Catholic family lived in a very small apartment.

“A childhood between the Holy Spirit and Hitler,” is how biographer Michael Jürgs sums up the environment in which Grass spent his childhood. At the age of just 17, he witnessed the horrors of World War II as a member of the Hitler Youth. He later joined the Waffen-SS, a Nazi special forces unit. It would be decades until he would be able to talk openly about these experiences – which later caused a scandal. During his years as a teenager and a young man, he focused on how to survive the war.

Beginnings of a bestselling author

1952: the Federal Republic of Germany was still in its infancy, and so was the intellectual development of Grass. He was interested in art, studied sculpture and graphic design, joined a jazz band, and traveled a lot. In 1956, he settled down in Paris for some time, where he lived a rather modest life together with his first wife.

That’s where his brilliant career as an author began. Grass produced his first novel “The Tin Drum” in 1959, sparking an uproar in the rather conservative society of the former West Germany before it became a huge international success. The book was translated into numerous languages and adapted into a movie. Exactly four decades later, its writer received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Creative and productive

Günter Grass wrote dramas, poems, and especially fiction, the list of his works is very long, among them “Cat and Mouse” and “Dog Years,” which, together with “The Tin Drum” were part of his famous “Gdansk Trilogy;” “Local Anesthetic,” “The Flounder,” “The Rat,” “The Call of the Toad,” and “Crabwalk.” Most of his works dealt with political conditions and social upheaval, like the sinking of a refugee ship in the Baltic Sea in 1945, the role of intellectuals in the uprising in former East Germany in 1953, the student protests of 1968, federal election campaigns and political relations between the East and West.

As a native of Danzig, reconciliation between Germany and Poland always remained a particularly important topic to Grass. Despite some critics lamenting that Grass’ books were too heavy and political in nature, all of his works became very successful and sparked heated debates among literary circles in Germany. Yet none of them ever managed to match the enthusiasm created by the drumming Oskar Matzerath of Grass’ very first novel, “The Tin Drum.”

Morality and politics

Günter Grass was a multi-talented artist, not only a novelist and poet, but also a sculptor and designer who occasionally also designed the covers of his own books. Considered by some as a moral authority and by others as a radical leftist, his political views divided the nation. Since 1961, he committed himself to the Social Democrats (SPD) without being a party member, and he supported Willy Brandt in his election campaign in 1969. Later on, he did join the SPD – only to give up his membership a few years later in a row over alterations of the right to asylum.

Grass always remained a very critical observer, an independent leftist who, making use of his reputation, interfered in political issues now and then. He spoke out against the deportation of Kurds, for the compensation of former forced laborers during the Nazi era, for human rights, for persecuted writers and against wars.

In 2006, he saw himself forced to admit that, during the Second World War, he himself had not been altogether innocent. His former membership in the notorious Waffen-SS, mentioned in his 2006 autobiography “Peeling the Onion,” caused a stir both in Germany and abroad, besmirching his reputation as a moral authority. Suddenly he who had always advocated stringently dealing with Germany’s Nazi past was accused of being a hypocrite.

A poem as a provocation

A rift seemed to grow between the writer and the public, a moral authority holding up a mirror to the Germans was no longer needed. Grass caused yet another international uproar in April 2012 after publishing a text entitled “What must be said.” The text, which he labeled a poem, contained thinly veiled criticism of Israeli policy with Grass warning of an Israeli nuclear strike against Iran and calling the state of Israel, its nuclear capabilities and its occupation policy a threat to world peace.

The pamphlet sparked outrage. Grass, accused of anti-Semitism, became persona non grata in Israel. Nevertheless, he remained a role model throughout his lifetime – not least for his younger fellow writers. Author and critic Uwe Tellkamp considered him “one of the strongest narrative powers in German literature,” while fellow author Moritz Rinke casually referred to him as “perhaps the most interesting and most versatile dinosaur.”

Amitav Ghosh among 10 finalists for International Booker prize

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Amitav Ghosh

London: Amitav Ghosh today emerged as the only Indian author among 10 finalists for this year’s Man Booker International Prize for his contribution to the English language writing.

Kolkata-born, 58-year-old Ghosh had narrowly missed out on the Booker Prize back in 2008 when he was shortlisted for his work ‘Sea of Poppies’.

The international version of the popular literary prize, to be held in London on May 19, is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.

The winner is chosen solely at the discretion of the judging panel and there are no submissions from publishers.

“This is a most interesting and enlightening list of finalists,” said Jonathan Taylor, Chairman of the Booker Prize Foundation.

“For the first time authors included in the list are from 10 countries with six new nationalities,” said Taylor.

The finalists were announced at the University of Cape Town in South Africa by writer and academic Professor Marina Warner, chair of the five-person judging panel.

They are from Libya, Mozambique, Guadeloupe, Hungary, South Africa and Congo and the proportion of writers translated into English is greater than ever before at 80 per cent.

It brings attention to writers from far and wide, so many of whom are in translation.

The others on the list include from Argentina, Lebanon, Guadeloupe, Mozambique, the United States of America, Libya, Hungary, Republic of Congo and South Africa.

“The judges have had an exhilarating experience reading for this prize we have ranged across the world and entered the vision of writers who offer an extraordinary variety of experiences,” said Prof Marina Warner, chair of the judging panel.

The awards comes with a 60,000 pounds cheque and can be won only once in an author’s lifetime.

In addition, there is a separate award for translation and, if applicable and in accordance with the rules of the separate prize for translation, the winner may choose a translator of his or her work into English to receive a prize of 15,000 pounds.

(PTI)

Book describes the Urdu literary culture of North Indian cities

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the-sun-the-rose-from-earth

Dilli ke na the kuche/ Auraq-e-mussavir the. Jo shakl nazar aayi/ Tasveer nazar aayi.

(It wasn’t the lanes and streets of Delhi: It was the pages of an album. Each and every face that one saw Was a painting.) – Mir Taqi Mir

The thriving Urdu literary culture of 18th and 19th century in North Indian cities of Delhi and Lucknow that remained vigorous and resilient even at the face of glaring defeat in 1857 at the hands of ‘Company Bahadur’ is the subject of the book ‘The Sun That Rose from the Earth’ by noted Urdu poet and critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi.

Only last month, his earlier book The Mirror of Beauty, also describing the high Urdu literary culture of 19th century, was long-listed for the prestigious USD 50,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

First published in the Urdu as ‘Savaar aur Doosre Afsaane’ in 2001 and translated in English by Faruqi himself, the book is a collection of five stories written between 1999-2012, all having a similar quest, “to rehabilitate in people’s mind ,” as Faruqi himself puts it, “the vigour and resilience of Urdu poetry amidst decaying imperial Mughal rule.”

Although fictional, the stories are replete with historical figures of Urdu literature like Mirza Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir, Shaikh Mushafi, Budh Singh Qalandar, Kanji Mal Saba, and are set in the historical background of 18-19th century, some in the immediate aftermath of the calamity of 1857, thus placing the book in the category of historical fiction.

The stories are woven around the historical personage of these towering Urdu poets, and represent a quest for mastering the nuances and subtleties of their poetry. Faruqi, the noted Urdu literary critic is never missed in these stories, and often the protagonists of his stories not only chase, idealise and romanticise these great poets, but also discuss and critique them.

These Urdu poets, whose verses and shadows loom large in his stories, are drawn from a diverse Hindu-Muslim background to deconstruct the popular notion that equates Urdu with the language of Muslims. Budh Singh Qalandar, Kanji Mal Saba, Ikhlas were all Hindus.

“Urdu was not the property of Muslims alone,” says Faruqi, as he laments its association in the 20th century with the language of the Muslim Lashkar (army), or the language that caused partition.

(PTI)

Writer and poet Amin Kamil passes away

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Amin Kamil

Amin Kamil

Srinagar/Kashmir Reader: Prominent writer and poet Amin Kamil, who gave a new direction to Kashmiri ghazals and stories, passed away Thursday in Jammu. He was 90.

Born on August 3, 1924 in Kaprin village in south Kashmir, Kamil moved to Srinagar when he was a youth. He graduated in Arts from the Punjab University and took his degree in Law from the Aligarh Muslim University. He joined the Bar in 1947 and continued to practice law till 1949, when he was appointed a lecturer in Sri Pratap College, Srinagar.

Kamil was closely associated with the writers’ movement of that time and under its influence switched over from Urdu to Kashmiri as his medium of expression. He joined the Cultural Academy when it was set up in 1958 and was appointed the Convener for Kashmiri language. He later became editor for Kashmiri and edited the two journals of the Cultural Academy—‘Sheeraza’ and ‘Soun Adab’ with distinction for many years. He retired from the service of the Cultural Academy in 1979.

Kamil’s unique style of writing that blends irony, humour, social comment and politics in his stories as well as poems made him shine. He wrote in Urdu before switching to using Kashmiri as his medium of expression. Many Kashmiri poets were influenced by Kamil and tried to adapt his diction.

It’s believed that Kamil’s contribution to the field of fiction by his novel ‘Gati Manz Gaash’ (Light amidst Darkness), published in 1958, was inspired by the condition of Mohandas Gandhi in the aftermath of Partition where he found a ray of hope in Kashmir while the entire subcontinent was in darkness. This novel is the only book in Kashmiri literature which has records of the country’s historical events.

Apart from ghazals and short stories, Kamil wrote many plays and musicals for radio. His works majorly reflect on human life in Kashmir.

Kamil was the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award​, the Padma Shri from the Indian government and Kashmir University’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Recently, a two-day seminar on Amin Kamil was held in Aligarh Muslim University in which Kamil was recognised as a writer of national importance, transcending the boundaries of the vernacular literature of Kashmiri. Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages published a special issue of its literary magazine ‘Sheeraza’ on Amin Kamil’s life and works which was released in Srinagar in the summer of 2011.

Kamil’s collection of short stories, ‘Kathi Manz Kath’ (Story within Story) published in mid-‘60s includes his most highly regarded work ‘Kokar Jang’ (The Cockfight). The Cockfight is considered as the most popular story in the Kashmiri literature. It has been translated into many Indian languages and has appeared in English translation in anthologies such as Indian Short Stories 1900–2000.

The Cockfight is prescribed in the school and university curriculum in Jammu and Kashmir. It has also appeared in Best Loved Indian Stories of the Century published by Penguin India in 1999.

Kamil’s demise is an irreparable loss to the field of literature.

On being R.K. Narayan

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The following is an excerpt from a series of interviews Susan Ram and N. Ram of The Hindu did with R.K. Narayan for over a decade. The author, it is said never liked the concept of a formal interview, so what follows is the result of “indirect method of dropping in for a chat.”

“Don’t seek to interview him. Don’t turn on your tape recorder. Don’t ask direct questions or ask him to explain his work. Just chat with him. Talk about yourself when he asks you questions.”

RK Narayan

On writing

I had no difficulty in writing. I had difficulty in finding someone to publish what I wrote. I’ve always written without any strain whatever, you know, without any deliberate effort. But to get a thing printed or published was very difficult in those days. In those days the difficulty was that the type of stories I was writing made no sense to my readers. It was a very disappointing reading for most of them, but I persisted because I couldn’t write any other way.

They were used to things like romance and plot – and everything was abolished in my style of work. And most of them would say, “What’s there in that story? There’s something interesting that you’ve written, but there’s no ending, there’s no powerful climax or anything. What are you driving at?”

But now I think the critics and readers are able to see my point of view. And they get a lot more out of the stories that I would have suspected. Because a piece of writing is not a thing a writer can judge fully himself. It’s for others – the impact, what it stirs up in your mind. It’s all very different.

On writing in English

I was not aware that I was writing in a foreign language. All those books (indicating the bookcase), they’ve influenced me and they’re in English. I could write more easily in English and I was fascinated with the London literary life of those days, the Thirties, when Shaw and Belloc and Bennet and Chesterton and a whole lot of others had interesting encounters. News about them would always be there.

On the writer’s struggle

When I look back at it, I wonder at my foolhardiness in deciding to become a full-time writer (in 1930).

For almost all writers, it’s a struggle. Tamil writers are now in this condition…. In spite of your foolishness, you survive if you have to. And you write, whatever the quality of the writing. There is some drive; otherwise, why write?

You must write. It’s not enough to start by thinking. You become a writer by writing. It’s a yoga.

On the creation of Malgudi

I really can’t explain its persistence, you know. Because it was just a casual idea. It’s not a fixation, a fixed geography. It has grown, developed. I think it has very elastic borders, elastic frontiers, elastic everything – with a few fixed points, that’s all….

I had an idea of a railway station, a very small railway station. You’ve seen the kind of thing, with a platform and trees and a station-master. The railway station to which Swami goes to watch the trains arrive and depart: that was the original idea with which I started Swami and Friends. But in the actual book it comes last, it’s at the end of the story.

And then what happened was I was thinking of a name for the railway station. It should have a name-board. And I didn’t want to have an actual name which could be found in a railway time-table. I wanted to avoid that, because some busybody was likely to say, “This place is not there, that shop he has mentioned is not there.” If it’s a real town it’s a nuisance for a writer.

And while I was worrying about this problem, the idea came to me – Malgudi just seemed to hurl into view. It has no meaning. There is a place called Lalgudi near Trichy and a place called Mangudi near Kumbakonam or somewhere. But Malgudi is nowhere. So that was very helpful. It satisfied my requirement.

On change in Malgudi

Instead of listening to a temple piper, people probably have a transistor radio. And then, instead of a transistor they may have a three-in-one recorder and play cassettes. You can watch villagers playing cassettes in the fields nowadays. But people have not changed.

Human types have remained the same. So they remain, my characters. At least in Malgudi there can’t be much change. And there are hundreds of little places like Malgudi everywhere.

On how his writing has developed

The development of my writing? That I can’t very precisely analyse now. It’s not possible to give any accurate analysis. But I think it gains in depth as the years go and your experiences change. I won’t say it has gained in profundity or literary value, but in some sense, in depth, there is a little more in the recent stories than in the previous.

I don’t know if it’s a development or a retrograde step. I’m not sure. I’m really unselfconscious about my writing. It was really unconscious writing earlier. Even now, when I write, I’m not sure as to what’s coming. But technically I’ve a little more control over my writing now.

On ‘purposive’ writing

Everyone thinks he’s a writer with a mission. Myself, absolutely not. I write only because I’m interested in a type of character and I’m amused mostly by the seriousness with which each man takes himself. I try to write from the inside, of even a villain, and then see his point of view, that’s all. Some amount of identification… their identity is recognised. I can’t be hostile because I see it from his point of view. That’s why even if I write about a politician, it would be a justification for him (laughs).

Politics is the least interesting aspect of life, in my view. I don’t attach too much importance to it as literary material. Because most politically inspired novels die in good time. They don’t last. It’s only the human elements which last, not the political concepts or the pressures. They become just insignificant.

On Talkative Man

Talkative Man – he’s in many of the short stories: where some incredible experience has to be narrated, it’s the Talkative Man who talks. He’s a good link, he can link people up, he’s a man who goes through the city like a breeze everywhere, who knows lots of people. He links up a lot of background and personalities and landmarks very convincingly. Everybody is his friend.

On being around

You see, fifty years is nothing. It might look very big for you, who are quite young. But when fifty years end, you find it just the same – the illusion of time, you know. We are what we are. Whether you grow older, more decrepit, inside, the sense of awareness, of being is the same throughout.

I don’t see any difference between myself when I was seven years old in Madras and now here in Mysore. The chap inside is the same, unchanged. Others see a little baldness, a little stooping and say, how’d you manage to live at all?

Govinda Pai memorial award to K. S. Nisar Ahmed

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Poet K.S. Nisar Ahmed at the function to receive the Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Memorial Award in Udupi.

Poet K.S. Nisar Ahmed at the function to receive the Govinda Pai Memorial Award in Udupi.

Udupi: Celebrated Kannada poet and writer, Prof. K. S. Nisar Ahmed was honoured with the prestigious Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Memorial Award at a function organised by the Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Research Centre and other organizations here. The award carries a citation and a cheque of Rs. 1 lakh.

Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake, who spoke after presenting the annual award, said that Prof. Ahmed’s contribution to Kannada literature was invaluable.

Mr. Sorake said that it was fitting that the poet should get the Govinda Pai award. “Prof. Ahmed is a jewel of Kannada literature whom we all like and treasure,” he said.

In his acceptance speech, Prof. Ahmed said that poets such as the late D.V. Gundappa and the late Govinda Pai had a big influence on him. In addition to being a poet, Govinda Pai was a scholar who did a lot of research, he said.

Earlier, B.A. Viveka Rai, former Vice-Chancellor of Kannada University, Hampi, said that writers such as the late D.R. Bendre and the late Kuvempu liked Prof. Ahmed a lot. It was when Prof. Ahmed became the president of the Kannada Sahitya Academy that literary programmes were held for the first time at the hobli-level, he added.

Kota Srinivas Poojary, MLC; Kusuma Kamath, principal of MGM College, and H.P.R. Hande, Assistant General Manager of Karnataka Bank, were present at the event.

U. R. Ananthamurthy no more

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U. R. Ananthamurthy (Photo credit: Roy Sanai/Tehelka)

Bangalore: Renowned writer and Jnanpith awardee U. R. Ananthamurthy, passed away in a hospital here on Friday, where he was undergoing dialysis for kidney failure.

The condition of 82-year-old writer, admitted 10 days ago, had deteriorated for the past few days and was closely monitored for infection and fever, and was undergoing treatment on multi-support system.

“…Ananthamurthy has been unwell for a while, he had multiple problems including kidney disease for which he had been on dialysis for the last few years…,” Manipal Hospital Medical Director & Chairman – Medical Advisory Board H Sudarshan Ballal told reporters earlier today.

According to doctors, Mr. Murthy’s “condition had deteriorated in the last day or so.”

Born on December 21, 1932 in Melige, a tiny hamlet near Thirthahalli taluk of Shimoga district, Udupi Rajgopalacharya Ananthamurthy was the sixth of the eight Jnanpith awardees from Karnataka. For his readers and admirers, his work came to symbolize humanity and its courage in questioning cultural norms. Best known is his 1966 novel, Samskara, a story that asks: Can culture survive only if it is followed with blind fervour?

A Padma Bhushan award winner, Ananthamurthy was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize in 2013. The Man Booker committee called him as, “one of the most important representatives of the “Navya” or “New Movement” in the literature of the Kannada language.”

A vocal opponent of mindless bigotry and fascism of every kind, Ananthamurthy became an ardent critic of Narendra Modi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and said he would leave the country if Modi won the election and became the Prime Minister of India. Explaining his views on Modi, he wrote that, “Modi symbolises all the greed that development has brought—heartlessness, the lack of sense of duty, and intelligence. It has all been lost to development. And they become blind to hungry children and mothers, schools without teachers, bad roads. It is a nightmare. Modi stands for that more than anyone else…Modi has built his political fortune by giving a big bali during the Gujarat riots. He silenced the Muslims.”

U. R. Ananthamurthy was said to be not keeping well for more than a year now. In one of his last interviews published by Mint in April this year, the writer said that, “I have lost my kidneys. I was on peritoneal dialysis for a year. The man who attended to me had to wash his hands 10 times or have gloves on, which was very expensive.”

He is survived by his wife, Esther, and two children, Sharat and Anuradha.

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