Featured stories about Literature
Stories about Literature
10 October 2019
Despite last year's ‘alternative’ win, Guadeloupe's Maryse Condé passed over for 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature
The odds appeared to be in Condé's favour, but the Swedish Academy instead named Austrian author Peter Handke winner of the 2019 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
18 September 2019
Once hotbeds of political resistance, Czech secondhand bookstores are slowly disappearing
The few surviving "antikvariat" have turned into nostalgia museums.
14 August 2019
‘The external world doesn't know how rich Nepali literature is': An interview with author Dr. Sangita Swechcha
"Not only is [the number of] Nepali writers who write in English slowly growing but the translation of literary works from Nepali to other languages is gaining momentum too."
6 August 2019
Nigerian creatives bid farewell to Toni Morrison, who wrote race into American consciousness
"The function, the very serious function of racism, is distraction. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being." — Toni Morrison
2 July 2019
In São Paulo's outskirts, theatre groups flourish by turning social issues into stories
Formed by residents of São Paulo's outskirts, theater collectives have been gaining ground with plays in the streets that tackle questions like racism and inequality.
3 May 2019
Running counter: An interview with a French publisher of Turkish literature
"Kontr is a publishing house, and a home where one invites the ones he likes, it is not a factory aimed at producing goods, labels or at making money."
10 April 2019
Four real-life locations that could have featured in Game of Thrones
As viewers gear up for one last dose of dynastic squabbling, political intrigue and looming supernatural doom, four actual locations that wouldn't be out of place on Westeros and Essos.
26 March 2019
Colombian social networks rally behind a local street poet fined for ‘trafficking poems’
Jesús Espicasa's story made waves on Colombian social networks, sparking a nationwide debate about the role of poetry in public life.
‘Representation is not feeling different when I read or see something,’ says scriptwriter of comic with black lead character
"It is my existence not being tied only to slavery, as schools seem to say and TV shows repeat. It is feeling part of the world on an equal footing."
16 March 2019
Hundreds gather in Nigeria to mourn professor Pius Adesanmi: ‘A juggernaut of African thought’
"A thousand years from now, I am hoping that fragments of my writing survive: not all accepted to live as slaves of the most irresponsible rulers of their era."
12 March 2019
Nigerians grieve the death of Pius Adesanmi, postcolonial scholar and public intellectual
"A towering intellectual with a mind that cut through issues like a scalpel who still remained curious about the issues of a younger would-be thinker ..."
8 March 2019
A palace on stilts: Guyanese novelist Wilson Harris returns to life in Trinidad & Tobago's Carnival
"Everywhere in Harris’ book we are asked to look up. At the sky, at the sun, at houses built on stilts."
2 March 2019
For the love of language: The first book of stories printed in Mro language
Bangladeshi organization prints first book in Mro language to support the growth of indigenous languages.
28 February 2019
Dijaawa Wotunnöi: an animated short film helps revitalise the Yekuana language
Several Yekuanas -- an indigenous people who live in Venezuela and Brazil -- participated in the project as translators and researchers, and also contributed their voice to the film's characters.
21 February 2019
A look at Syria's long history of feminist movements
"The 2011 revolution was a revolution against everything, and so the women had a role as revolutionary activists at the forefront of the revolution"
4 January 2019
How preserving folktales and legends help raise environment awareness in the Mekong
"By means of stories, the communities search for ways to accommodate and/or resist changes that are taking place in the Mekong river basin."
28 December 2018
How the comics of Marcelo D'Salete helps us understand Brazil's past and present
"It could help change mentalities regarding the treatment of the diverse groups that we have in Brazil, countering a hegemonic vision, which frames these groups in different and unequal positions."
14 December 2018
Removal of Filipino language and literature as required college subjects sparks opposition
"We believe that Filipino language and literature is vital in deepening the critical, creative, free, and liberating capacities of students and people."
28 November 2018
‘The Little Prince’ now speaks Tsotsil
"Ch’in Ajvali" was released in November 2018 by the independent Argentinian publisher Los Injunables, which published an Aymara translation of the same book in 2016.
16 November 2018
Dissident novelist’s close call casts a shadow on Hong Kong's once-vibrant cultural scene
Since the 1950s, Hong Kong has had a proud tradition of exile literature and art. Recent events suggest they're under threat.
