Ever get the feeling that even with all the news happening right now in the world, you’re still not getting enough? Well, that’s what we’re here for, keeping you covered with the latest in global literary news from our Editors-at-Large who are on the ground as we speak. This week we have reports about censorship and activism from Singapore and Mexico, as well as important news about festivals and prizes in the UK, and much, much more.
Theophilus Kwek, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Singapore:
The Singapore International Festival of the Arts (SIFA)―launched in 2014 to revive the Singapore Arts Festival, a landmark event in Southeast Asia’s arts calendar―drew to a close this week, concluding a month of theatre, film, music, and visual arts shows. These included a number of international partnerships such as Trojan Women, a Korean retelling of Homer’s epic directed by the SIFA’s founding festival director Ong Keng Sen; as well as Becoming Graphic, a collaboration between Australian theatre practitioner Edith Podesta and Eisner Award-winning graphic artist Sonny Liew, who previously had his funding withdrawn by the National Arts Council for his alternative political history of Singapore.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian to mark his final year as festival director, Ong (who has previously spoken out against the censorship of SIFA’s programs by the government) lamented the “restrictive” attitudes of state funding agencies towards the arts, and said that he felt “drained by the fighting” of the past four years. His successor, fellow theatre practitioner Gaurav Kripalani―currently artistic director at the Singapore Repertory Theatre―struck a more conciliatory position earlier this year, saying that he would opt for increasingly “mainstream” programming.
Paul Worley and Kelsey Woodburn, Editors-at-Large, with the latest from Mexico:
On Thursday, September 7, 2017 at 11:49 PM, southern Mexico was shaken by an earthquake said to be between 8.1 and 8.4 on the Richter Scale. The states hardest hit by the quake, Oaxaca and Chiapas, also happen to be among Mexico’s poorest, as well as the Mexican states with the largest indigenous populations. Highlighting the longstanding connections between arts and activism in the region, Mexican indigenous writers such as Natalia Toledo, Mardonio Carballo, and Yasnaya Elena, have been among the central figures on social media spreading the word about how to best connect donations with communities in need.
In San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, the Maya women writers’ organization debuted its latest play, Buscando Nuevos Caminos (Looking for New Roads) on August 31. Anecdotal reviews of the play, which details the trials and tribulations of immigration to the US, have been positive.
Finally, Salvadoran-American and Pipil Nahua writer Jorge Argueta’s latest children’s book, Somos como las nubes / We are Like the Clouds won Best Children’s Fiction Picture Book at the International Latino Books Awards.
Cassie Lawrence, Executive Assistant, reporting from the UK:
Literary prize season is upon us! The Man Booker Prize 2017 shortlist is out. It generated some talk due to the fact that heavyweights such as Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith, who were on the longlist, are out of the running. The contenders for the prize now include Fiona Mozley, Mohsin Hamid, Ali Smith, George Saunders, Emily Fridlund and Paul Auster.
Also announced last week was the The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Literature Prize which recognizes the year’s best work of literary fiction translated into English and originally written in any language of the EBRD’s thirty-seven countries of operations and published by a UK publisher. Three finalists will be invited to London in April 2018 for an awards ceremony, discussion at the EBRD Headquarters and an event at London Book Fair.
The longlist has been announced for The Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize. Last year’s winner was Philippe Sands for his title East West Street. Titles being considered this year include Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge and Border: A Journey to The Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova.
The chairs have been announced for the Wellcome Book Prize, which celebrates “exceptional books that engage with the topics of health and medicine and the many ways they touch our lives.” Artist and writer Edmund de Waal is to chair the prize, and will be joined by Dr Hannah Critchlow, neuroscientist and Science Outreach Fellow at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge; Bryony Gordon, journalist, author and mental health campaigner; Sumit Paul-Choudhury, editor-in-chief of New Scientist; and Sophie Ratcliffe, writer, critic and associate professor of English literature at the University of Oxford.
Comedian Robert Webb has debuted at number one in the UK bestseller lists with his memoir How Not To Be A Boy (Canongate). After speaking on Channel 4 News on the subject, it rocketed to the top of the UK charts. This follows Grayson Perry’s The Descent of Man, proving that masculinity, and the ways to combat it, are very much in the zeitgeist at the moment.
Bloody Scotland took place on the weekend of September 8 to 10. Speakers included Lynda La Plante, Ian Rankin, Vince Cable and Ragnar Jónasson. The festival also saw the presentation of The McIlvanney Prize, Bloody Scotland’s annual prize awarded to the best Scottish Crime book of the year. The 2017 winner was The Long Drop by Denise Mina.
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