By Bill Marx
Saudi Arabian author Abdo Khal won the $60,000 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arab Booker) for his novel Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles, which is also known as She Throws Sparks.
Taleb Alrefai, who served as chair for this year’s panel of judges, said, “The winning novel is a brilliant exploration [...]

By Helen Epstein
Of the 100 or so events scheduled for Essex County’s Eighth Annual Trails and Sails Festival the last weekend of September, culture vultures should not miss Gloucester’s Committee for the Arts tours of Gloucester City Hall’s wall murals, created by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s. Culture Vulture talked about them with [...]

Can you imagine a scholarly press publishing a book about the Mona Lisa without a reproduction of the painting? Or, perhaps a more pertinent example, a book about anti-Semitic stereotypes without an illustration of them?
Brandeis professor and author Jytte Klausen was asked to sign what she called a “gag order” by Yale University Press.
by [...]

By Bill Marx
In the latest World Books podcast I talk to Robert Chandler, who along with his wife Elizabeth and Olga Meerson has translated Andrey Platonov’s novel “The Foundation Pit” for New York Review Books.
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By Bill Marx

Susan Bernofsky’s translation of Robert Walser’s 1908 novel won her a 2007 PEN Translation Fund Award. She’s followed that up by translating the Swiss writer’s first novel, “The Tanners.”
A recent World Books podcast explores two recent translations from the German of novels by the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, an author whose [...]

By Bill Marx

Soprano Aliana de la Guardia and violinist Gabriela Diaz performing selections of “Kafka Fragments” at a WGBH studio.
A recent World Books podcast serves up a literary/musical treat. A Boston company, Ludovoco Ensemble, presented a performance of “Kafka Fragments,” a short chamber work composed by György Kurtág for soprano and violin in 1985. The [...]

By Bill Marx

In a recent World Books podcast I talk to author and book critic Helen Epstein about two new memoirs that share intriguing similarities and differences. Both are written in English by émigrés living in North America, but very much planted in other cultural traditions.
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Norman Manea wants a nuanced moral reckoning of the sins committed in the Stalinist past.
by Bill Marx
In a recent World Books podcast I talk to Romanian-born essayist and novelist Norman Manea about his article, “A Lasting Poison,” which was published last month in the “New Republic.” In his commentary, Manea explores the recent revelation that, [...]

by Bill Marx

Brain Snuggles with Violin at The World’s Studio
In my latest World Books podcast, which includes video coverage, I examine evolving international views of the relationship between neuroscience and the arts, with a special emphasis on the healing powers of music for those suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. The Longwood Symphony Orchestra recently presented a [...]

By Bill Marx

Novelist Ha Jin — “Only through history can history be conquered.”
On my latest World Books podcast I talk to writer Ha Jin, who in 1985 left China to attend Brandeis University. Since then he has written five novels, including “Waiting” which won the National Book Award and “War Trash,” the recipient of the [...]