Murakami

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel

Christmas afterthoughts

I wish everyone a joyous holiday and a sparkling new year.

The BBC Middle East published a video of Aleem Maqbool's foot journey from Nazareth to Betlehem, the road followed more than two thousand years ago by Joseph and Mary. This is a nice way to celebrate Christmas.

Also, take a look at a photo from Thailand, portraying a group of people remembering the South East Asian Tsunami and its victims. It is the fourth anniversary this year.

Economist's Books of the Year

The Economist published its list of books of the year, out of which I picked my favourites. Most of my choices are related to globalisation, in different ways (but what isn't global these days?). These books will be my post-Christmas reading list.

I will start with Dinner with Mugabe, by Heidi Holland, a South African journalist who give an intimate and well-researched portrait of the freedom fighter turned tyrant. A very important read for anyone interested in postcolonial African history. Have a look at the Economist review.

Equally interesting is Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World HC, by Don Tapscott. Tapscott is a Canadian author who wrote several books on how technology "revolutionise" business and society. Among them are Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation (1996) and Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (2006, in collaboration with Anthony D. Williams). In Grown Up Digital, his last work, he discuss the result of a study of nearly 8,000 people born between 1978 and 1994 in 12 different countries, presenting a portrait of the next digital generation. It might sound too enthusiastic in saying that “as the first global generation ever, the Net Geners are smarter, quicker and more tolerant of diversity than their predecessors”, but for sure he is an expert on the subject and his opinions must be read carefully. The Economist review of the book can be read here.

Two books discuss Middle East and Islamism: The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Council on Foreign Relations), by Noah Feldman, and A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East, by Lawrence Freedman. On the subject one should read also Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, by Edward Said, and a book by Robert Fisk (The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East or The Age of the Warrior: Selected Essays by Robert Fisk. Or both.) And perhaps, always from the Economist list, also The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran, by Hooman Majd.

Last but not least, here is a list of books perhaps more related to personal and academic interests:

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, by Richard Holmes

The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919, by Mark Thompson.

The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul, by Patrick French.

Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts, by Joseph Horowitz.

The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English, by Henry Hitchings.

How Fiction Works, by James Wood.

Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music, by Ted Gioia.

To which I will also add a new novel by Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies: A Novel.

Constraints and Creativity

Theoretically, translating a text from one language to another is an impossible task. But luckily it happens all the time. Reading translated books and discuss how translators achieved this impossible task is delightful. At least according to A. M. Correa, a student of literary translation:

I think this is a favorite aspect of studying literary translation: learning how translators have used creativity and a love for what they do to find solutions to complex situations and create something wholly new.

You can read Dispatches: Creativity through Constraint, Correa's enjoyable discussion on translation, at Words Without Borders. Or read her own blog, Out of the Woods Now.

Le Monde, the French newspaper, published yesterday an article (Prix littéraires : la fin d'un système ? -Literary Prizes: the End of a Era?) that discussed the 2008 literary prizes in France, noticing that it was a transformational year. Alain Beuve-Méry wrote that, even though one cannot speak of a revolution, a "changing wind" can be perceived.

Mais que s'est-il donc passé cette année ? Les jurés des prix littéraires seraient-ils devenus vertueux ? Il est peut-être trop tôt pour parler d'une révolution, mais un vent de changement a soufflé, cet automne, sur l'attribution des récompenses. Le système bien huilé grâce auquel chaque rentrée les prix reviennent dans leur majorité aux grands éditeurs parisiens n'a pas fonctionné. Aucun n'a décroché la timbale, sauf le Seuil, et encore, pas comme il le souhaitait. Ni Grasset ni Gallimard, pas plus qu'Albin Michel et Flammarion, généralement habitués à grappiller les miettes du festin.

Big guns did not get what they expected, and smaller publisher fared better.

Finalement, ce sont des outsiders qui ont été plébiscités : Atiq Rahimi, Jean-Louis Fournier, Tierno Monénembo, Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès, Serge Bramly et Marc Bressant ont respectivement reçu les prix Goncourt, Renaudot, Femina, Médicis, Interallié et de l'Académie française. Eux et non les favoris qui avaient été mis en avant, dès fin août, par les éditeurs et par la presse : Christine Angot, Catherine Millet, Olivier Rolin, Catherine Cusset, Alice Ferney, Régis Jauffret, Tristan Garcia, Michel Le Bris, Jean-Paul Enthoven [...]

Autre singularité pour le cru 2008, la très grande diversité du paysage éditorial récompensé. Pour la première fois, des maisons comme POL ou Zulma ont été célébrées, mais aussi JC Lattès, qui a reçu le prix Interallié pour Le Premier Principe, le second principe de Serge Bramly, les éditrices Jacqueline Chambon (Un garçon parfait, d'Alain-Claude Sulzer, Médicis étranger), Odile Jacob, mais aussi Bernard de Fallois.

But the main change, in my view, is the fact that the prize-winners were authors who use French language in their work, even though they are coming from different countries in the world, such as the Guinean Tierno Monénembo and the Franco-Afghan Atiq Rahimi. If this is true is a good thing for a better globalization.

Tierno Monénembo is not a new author. He wrote his first book (Les Crapauds-brousse) in 1979, followed by nine other books. Le Roi de Kahel, winner of the Prix Renaudot, is the newest one.

Atiq Rahimi wrote three books in Afghan before writing Syngue Sabour
(a Persian title that means Stone of Patience) in French. The story is told by a woman, the wife of a paralyzed combatant in a country similar to Afghanistan, who sits at his bedside and, not knowing if he can hear or understand, talks freely about their life, revealing buried secrets. He won the 2008 Prix Goncourt. The literary site of Nouvelle Observateur published a Dossier Rahimi. (in French)