Peace Is What Our Hearts Seek: Kalpna Singh-Chitnis’s Love Letters to Ukraine, by Candice Louisa Daquin Book Reviews [email protected] Tue, 09/19/2023 - 16:07 In Love Letters to Ukraine from Uyava (River Paw Press, 2023), Kalpna Singh-Chitnis writes an urgent tribute for Ukraine, the same urgency she employed when putting together her Ukraine anthology Sunflowers: Ukrainian Poetry on War, Resistance, Hope and Peace. In Love Letters, Singh-Chitnis compiles a series of echo refrain poems for an embattled nation. Her own sympathy is not sentimental so much as pragmatic and hopeful. Hers is not a patronizing tone but a welcoming one: meditate on these things, help others, be more. It is both an antithesis to the me, me, me modern culture and a meditation on what matters most. In “War: A One Way Street,” she observes: “There is no glory in a war. / Every home has a shrine. / A war cannot be defined. / It can only be lived or imagined.” Later, in the poem “Nothing Is Permanent,” the poet considers mortality, how we cease and yet continue, and what part humanity plays in the creation and endurance of the world. These philosophical considerations are presented without pretense and evoke a desire to think beyond the moment, hence the necessity and value of poetry in times of war—a long-established tradition, because who better to speak on war but the poet? To voice metaphorically the machinations of this war, she writes: Let’s not... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2023-09-19 21:07:47 UTC ]
They turned down Ulysses and Animal Farm, but still shaped 20th‑century literatureAll publishing houses have archives, but for anyone interested in 20th-century literature the archive of Faber & Faber is a fabled treasure house. This is the firm that was, as Toby Faber puts it, “midwife at... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-06-20 11:00:08 UTC ]
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An indie publisher has been forced to find a new venue to launch its anti-Brexit poetry anthology Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction after the church where it was due to be held refused to host the event, citing issues with political balance. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-20 07:09:36 UTC ]
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Inspired by Twain’s tales, Krueger decided to write about young people, desperate to swap corruption for freedom, who embark on a turbulent river journey. The resulting standalone novel, 'This Tender Land' (Atria, Sept.), combines outdoor exploits and a meditation on the human condition. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
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Intan Paramaditha will be appearing alongside Syd Moore to discuss re-writing old stories and myths with a contemporary, feminist slant at the Essex Book Festival on 15 March 2019 at 19.00. Find out more and book tickets here. What’s exciting about Indonesian literature at the moment, and... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-02-21 11:15:36 UTC ]
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An odyssey through the landscapes of winter became a meditation on mental health and the human condition for writer Horatio Clare. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-09-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The oral tradition has been a part of the human condition for as long as we have been communicating. If you lost your audience after the first hour of “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” you could forget about a return engagement. Authors now sit in comfy studios and need not memorize their stories. But can... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
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The book trade is a “custodian of empathy” and plays a vital part in reminding the world of the universality of the human condition, writer and broadcaster Sally Magnusson has said. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-02-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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“Fat City” is old slang for prosperity and advantage—the good life. If you’re in Fat City, you’re in luck. But the phrase is wry irony as the title of a novel that has stunned and mesmerized successive generations of readers since its publication in 1969. This month New York Review Books brings... Continue reading at Slate
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