Literature
Beirut’s Vanishing Bookshops
Lebanon’s bookshops once thrived as hubs of debate and dissent, but economic collapse, censorship and war have gutted Beirut’s literary scene. Still, readers, publishers and book cafes find inventive ways to resist and revive the culture of reading.
An Independent Intellect
Beatriz Sarlo was one of Latin America’s foremost intellectual figures. She helped shape the canon of contemporary Argentine fiction, edited a leading cultural magazine and stirred debate on a range of issues, from the Falklands War and populism to literature and the role of memory in the aftermath of dictatorship.
Sami Michael Broke New Ground by Centering Arabs in His Hebrew Novels
The novelist Sami Michael died last year aged 97. Born and raised in Baghdad, he introduced characters previously marginalized or omitted in Hebrew literature: immigrants, Mizrahim, women and especially Arabs. His portrayals are sympathetic but unsparing, and his writing tackled issues central to Israeli society that were previously cloaked in silence.
Taiwan’s Literature Is Having a Moment in Central and Eastern Europe
Cultural exchanges fostered by Taiwan are helping its literature to find new audiences in Slavic languages, as support for Taipei’s sovereignty grows in Central and Eastern Europe.
Contemporary Fiction’s Responses to a Changing India
In recent years, several contemporary Indian novelists have written in direct response to ongoing sociopolitical changes in India and painted an intricate picture of what it means to be young and disenchanted in a deeply polarized country.
Caste Is Having a Cultural and Political Moment Globally. It Has Not Always Been So
While caste has recently infiltrated American discourse and become more mainstream in Indian media, Dalit writers and activists have been flooding the Indian literary markets with memoirs, short fiction and poetry since the late 1960s.
Kurdish Musician Hozan Cane Recalls Her Political Imprisonment in Turkey
In 2018, Kurdish musician Hozan Cane traveled from her home in Germany to northwestern Turkey to sing for a pro-Kurdish election campaign. The Turkish authorities swiftly arrested and imprisoned her on trumped-up charges. Her ordeal encapsulates a worrying trend in the country, where human rights abuses are on the rise.