March 31, 2006

Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship

I spend most of my days alone in my office, so it's quite nice to venture out of the house and attend a cocktail party, particularly when that party happens to be the Oregon Literary Arts reception. The event was thrown to honor this year's recipients of OLA fellowships in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. You can see a list of all the authors here.

Arab & Iranian Film Festival

The Seattle Arab and Iranian Film Festival opens this weekend. It will shows feature films and documentaries from and about Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen, with co-productions from Canada, France, Mexico, and the U.S. Yousry Nasrallah's film adaptation of Elias Khoury's novel Gate of the Sun will be shown, as well as the critically acclaimed Moroccan film The Grand Voyage. Check out the rest of the schedule.

March 30, 2006

Well, That Didn't Take Long

A writer using the pseudonym James Pinocchio has just released his debut, um, novel, called A Million Little Lies, USA Today reports:

In A Million Little Lies, written surprisingly well by the pseudonymous James Pinocchio (real name: Pablo F. Fenjves), we meet a tortured young man who wakes in the back of a Manhattan cab with a combination lock puncturing his left ear - like Frey, who wrote that he woke up covered in vomit and blood, with four teeth missing and a hole in his cheek. Pinocchio is in great pain and has no memory of how he pierced his ear. He shows up at his parents' posh home, only to be shipped off to rehab.

More on this here.

Jill Carroll Released

This morning the Christian Science Monitor announced that reporter Jill Carroll was released. Finally there is some good news from that God-forsaken mess known as the "liberation" of Iraq. It is a relief to know that this brave woman will at last be reunited with her loved ones.

I cannot, however, rejoice fully, knowing that there are many more hundreds of victims of kidnappings--some of them reporters like Jill, others embassy staff, and still others just faceless, nameless people that happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. This stupid war has got to stop.

The Original Leo

A new book by Natalie Zemon Davis chronicles the life of Hasan Al-Wazan, the 16th-century traveler (and author) whose life inspired Amin Maalouf's amazing novel Leon L'Africain (or Leo Africanus.)

Using hazy and sometimes contradictory evidence, Davis beautifully renders the chapters of Al Wazzan's life: his birth in Islamic Granada in the 1480s; his family's flight as Christian armies expelled the Moors from Spain; his education in the madrassas of Fez, Morocco, and his years traveling as a diplomat in North Africa and the Levant, among the Berbers, Arabs, Jews and black Africans who populated those lands. She writes of his kidnapping by Spanish pirates who offered him as tribute to Pope Leo X in Rome; his christening as "Giovanni Leone" by the pope; his life of independent scholarship in Bologna and his departure from Italy after nearly a decade, during which he produced "The Description of Africa" and other works.

Read Joshua Jelly-Schapiro's review of Trickster Travels in The Los Angeles Times.

Yto Barrada Solo Show

Speaking of visual art: Moroccan photographer Yto Barrada will have her first-ever solo show in New York at The Kitchen, a non-profit space on 19th Street in Chelsea. You can view details of the show, which opens next week, by visiting the website and clicking on "calendar," and then "exhibitions."

Boundaries Pushed

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the 'Without Boundary' show currently on view at MoMA. Now in a New York Observer piece, Tyler Green reports that some of the artists connected with the show are unhappy about it, including Shirin Neshat, who says:

"My immediate reaction was, how could anyone today discuss art made by contemporary Muslim artists and not speak about the role the subjects of religion and contemporary politics play in the artists' minds?" Ms. Neshat said. "For some of us, our art is interconnected to the development of our personal lives, which have been controlled and defined by politics and governments. Some artists, including Marjane Satrapi and myself, are 'exiled' from our country because of the problematic and controversial nature of our work."

Green points out that it's "highly unusual" for artists included in a MoMA show to criticize "the most powerful art museum in the world." You can read more about the artists' frustrations and MoMA's stance on the merging of art and politics here.

March 29, 2006

Boldtype #30

Boldtype #30 is now available, and the theme for this issue is "Secrets." In the magazine, my pal Mark Sarvas reviews Sheila Heti's Ticknor, which he's recommended to me several times by phone, and which I plan on reading soon.

Urrea Takes Home Kiriyama

As has been widely reported, Luis Alberto Urrea's excellent novel, The Hummingbird's Daughter, has been awarded the Kiriyama Prize. The book is now out in paperback, so you really have no excuse anymore for not reading it.

Related: Review: The Hummingbird's Daughter.

Immigrant Journey

As our nation is in the grips of its once-per-decade, obligatory-hand-wringing about immigration, Sonia Nazario's book couldn't come at a better time. Nazario, you'll remember, was the Los Angeles Times journalist who covered the story of a young Honduran boy's journey to North Carolina to find his immigrant mother. The CSM has a positive review of the book, Enrique's Journey.

And A State of Mind

Morocco: A land, a destination, and now, a fashion style: Banana Republic. Too bad J. Crew beat you to it, guys.

Katrina Denza's Lit Mag Roundup 2.0

The Lit Mag Roundup is a quarterly feature at Moorishgirl.com, in which North Carolina-based fiction writer Katrina Denza shares her literary discoveries of the season. In this installment, she reviews the latest from The Baltimore Review, Small Spiral Notebook, A Public Space, and Gulf Coast.

It's the end of March and evidence of spring's arrival can be found outside my house in various forms: forsythia and hyacinths were the first to bloom; narcissuses, daffodils, irises, violets have now risen up vibrant and lovely from beneath the ground and the first of the azaleas have blossomed. Just as the first flowers have appeared in the yard, so have the latest issues of some of my favorite journals begun to fill my mailbox--and some brand new to me as well.

The Baltimore Review's Winter/Spring issue begins with a note from managing editor Susan Muaddi Darraj, acknowledging the hard work of the editorial staff (fourteen volunteers in addition to the founding and managing editors). Of the six pieces of fiction, the first is Jacob M. Appel's "Waterloo," the hilarious story of a man who attends a birthday party for his girlfriend's dead niece. In Clifford Garstang's "Heading for Home," tension builds as a sheriff is confronted with prejudice and doesn't release until the last sentence. Shawn Behlen's "As Children Do," tells of a man struggling with the truth of his parents' relationship. Told in alternating POVs, "The Middle Stretch," by Holly Sanders, is an expertly controlled story of an exchange between a woman and the trooper who pulls her over. In Louis Gallo's "Dark Matters," a man and his wife ponder dark matters and dreams on the way to the podiatrist. Three siblings use their imagination to cope with violence in their home in the last story of the issue, Alaura Wilfert's "Indians." There are three pieces of creative nonfiction: Melanie Hoffert's prizewinning "Going Home," about the author's connection with the land she grew up on and her attempt to speak openly of her sexuality on her return home; Marcia R. Aquíñiga shares her childhood experience of acting as translator for her Mexican grandmother in "Doing All the Talking;" and Jerry D. Mathes II has a riveting essay on fighting fires in north-central Idaho called, "Falling into Fire." Of the ten poems, my favorites were Colleen Webster's "Voices Along the Yangtzee;" Daniele Pantano's "Patrimonial Recipe;" and Margaret J. Hoehn's prizewinning "Five Prayers of Apples," part of which reads:

Near the place where I stopped to rest,
what hung to the ground, like a bird's injured wing,
was a branch that had splintered
beneath the ripening fruit, a way of saying
that even abundance has burdens,
that beauty sits side-by-side with loss.

The issue ends with six book reviews and a fascinating interview with author Tristan Davies by Nathan Leslie.

Small Spiral Notebook's latest issue is appealing in its elegance, but don't let the slenderness of the volume fool you: it's loaded with rich, sophisticated material. The fiction is impressive. In Aimee Pokwatka's "Perennials," a couple mourns their inability to grow a lush garden. Paul Yoon tells of a friendship between a sea woman and a wounded boy in "So That They Do Not Hear Us."

"You Don't Have to Live Here," by Natasha Radojcic is a moving story of the romantic history of a young woman's parents. Shari Goldhagen's heartbreaking story, "It's Really Called Nothing," centers around a man whose life is pregnant with changes about to occur. In Pedro Ponce's "Fingerprints," a professor discusses his experience teaching Fundamentals of Romantic Detection. In Ladette Randolph's "The Girls," a college student takes a job dog-sitting for her professor and is transformed. Todd Zuniga's "Cheating," is a funny, fresh story of a cheating man, his girlfriend and a banana. A grieving man allows his lawn to grow despite his neighbors' dismay in Joshua Mandelbaum's "Yard Work." In Scott McCabe's "Eucalyptus," a man travels across the country to visit an ex-lover and takes something with him on his return home. Six poets offer sixteen stunning poems between them in this issue. My favorite is Angela Lea Nemecek's "Still Life With Lumberjack," which begins:

I could have told you cruelty has a calendar.
By October, the year
Is sick of itself,
Sick of its trees and their bright green confessions.

And lastly, living out the pattern set by the women in her family before her, Alison Weaver's "Running," is a bravely honest memoir about the time in her life in which she sought the "Band-Aid" of drugs.

With its intriguing cover art, its red and black print, and its comfortable size, the debut issue of A Public Space is a hit with this reader. At two hundred seven page, including contributors' notes and founding subscriber acknowledgments, it's no lightweight. This issue begins with a letter from editor Brigid Hughes discussing fiction in our time and the inspiration for the magazine's title. The opening section, "If You See Something, Say Something," is what Ms. Hughes refers to as a "literary magazine's version of an op-ed page. In this section, Ian Chillag writes of the 1972 Buffalo Creek Flood in Logan West Virginia; Rick Moody discusses our culture's responsibility in the James Frey and J. T. Leroy incidents; Antoine Wilson writes about two overheard, related conversations and Anna Deavere Smith writes of her visit to Rwanda after the genocide and explains the Rwandan phrase "Watches are Swiss, cars are Canadian, and women are Tutsi." The fiction is quite beyond ordinary. In Charles D'Ambrosio's "The Dead Fish Museum," a man arrives on a job to build a porn set with a gun in his tool bag for comfort. In Kelly Link's wildly imaginative "Origin Story," a young superhero and her superhero lover get drunk and reminisce in an abandoned tourist attraction. Peter Orner stretches the moment in which a theatre actor forgets his lines in "No Light." In "Galileo," John Haskell tells of a playwright and his star actor. The tension is high in Tim O'Sullivan's "Family Friend," which eerily begins: "You haven't been invited inside that house for three years because Sarah—and she mentions this often to Edgar—doesn't like the way you look at their girls." Of the poems--all beautifu--Eamon Grennan's "Knowledge" and "Rest Stop," two prose poems of nature and love, were my favorites. A Public Space also offers Focus Installments, a feature which, Ms. Hughes explains in her editor's note, serves as a way to "look at literature that readers in other places admire and enjoy--the first installment takes us to Japan--and in that way, to try to understand something new about another culture, and, perhaps, to expand our tastes." Lucy Raven offers "An Illustrated Guide to Copper Extraction," that is as fascinating as it is excellent. The issue ends with a brilliant essay by Marilynne Robinson in which she explores man's recent tendency toward over-simplification when attempting to understand the mind, and the move away from the larger questions of ancient times. Ms. Robinson presents fiction as an arena in which we can overcome that simplification and continue to learn about ourselves.

With over 350 pages, Gulf Coast's Winter/Spring issue is enormous and an excellent value. It begins with an editorial note by Gulf Coast's managing editor, Sasha West, in which she comments on the cover art and compares literary journals to ephemeral museums. The fiction is admirably accomplished. In Bryn Chancellor's "Meet Me Here," a woman vacations in Austria with her widowed mother and discovers grief can have different faces. Murzban F. Shroff writes of a young rejected writer taking a walk in the rain in "Muses over Manholes." In Sandra Novack's "Memphis," a man's mentally-ill brother takes off on a road trip with the narrator's leaf blower and dog. John Weir's stunning "Neorealism at the Infiniplex," is the story of a young man's grief over the death of his lover. In Christian A. Winn's prizewinning story two boys, both dealing with absent mothers—one figuratively, one literally—form a friendship. A boy on the verge of becoming comfortable with his sexuality is the basis for Jonathan Strong's "excerpts from The Dabney Gallery." In Peter Bognanni's "The Body Eternal," a boy deals with the emotional pain of his older brother's drug abuse. A young man thinks of his girlfriend and Van Gogh's last painting in the moment before impact in Kevin Clouther's brilliant story, "On the Highway near Fairfield, Connecticut." The first of six non-fiction pieces is the prizewinning piece on language and AIDS, "One Sentence," by John Medeiros. Diane Comer pays tribute to her mother in her short essay, "Viniagrette." In Joshua Harmon's essay, "The Annotated Mix-Tape #2," he writes of his regret in choosing Spanish I over French I. In Tama Baldwin's evocative piece, "Coastal Lexicon," she reveals her adolescent preoccupation with martyrdom and her encounter with a group of older boys who threaten to crucify her. Miki Howard writes of her love of Pittsburgh and of love lost in "Three Hundred Fifty Ways." Joshua Mohr's heart-wrenching "Dressing the Dead," is an installment of a series of short essays concerning the last days of his father's life. There are six excellent book reviews, and two essays on the art featured this issue: two Houston houses transformed by artists Dan Havel, Kate Petley, and Dean Ruck. In the first of three interviews, Remica L. Bingham interviews poet A. Van Jordan; Gulf Coast fiction editor Guiseppe Taurino interviews author John Weir; and Gulf Coast nonfiction editor James Hall interviews poet Richard Siken. Of the almost forty poems, I simply found too many I loved to list, though Denise Duhamel prose poem, "Moonprint," stands out for me as does David Siegel's "The Love Doctor," and Stefi Weisburd's "Drafting on Robert Hass Writing His Mother's Nipples." I'll end with an excerpt from Alison Townsend's "Forty-Five This Spring:

All this year I have secretly been growing old,
the ovaries spilling their last burgundy stain,

dark as wild blackberries I plunged my hands into
twenty summers ago, heedless of scratches.

Bio: Originally from Vermont, Katrina Denza now lives in North Carolina with her husband and two sons. Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in Lynx Eye; New Delta Review; SmokeLong Quarterly; Emrys Journal; RE:AL; Cranky; The Jabberwock Review; and The MacGuffin among others.

March 28, 2006

'How are we to read this book?'

In the current issue of The Boston Review, Khaled Abou El Fadl reviews Messages to the World: Statements of Osama bin Laden, edited by Bruce Lawrence, and translated by James Howarth.

But how are we to read this book? On one level, reading bin Laden is like reading the writings of a criminal who aims to rationalize his acts by explaining the circumstances of political and social oppression that forced him into criminality. At another level, reading bin Laden is not materially different from reading the tracts of a committed revolutionary who is struggling to liberate his people from foreign domination. But bin Laden himself insists that he be read neither as a criminal blaming the system nor simply as a radical defending its overthrow. He fancies himself a theologian and jurist who, besides acting to defend Muslim lands, is struggling to educate and exhort Muslims to act according to the dictates of their faith.

So who is bin Laden? Is he a criminal, a revolutionary, a theologian, or perhaps a historically unique and significant blend of all three—one who, like a medieval Crusader (perhaps a Bernard of Clairvaux), is armed with a righteous sense of aggression and feels compelled to preach violence while crying out, “Deus lo volt!” (“God wills it!”)?

I am not quite finished reading the essay, but it's so interesting I wanted to bookmark it and post it here.

Hamsa Essay Contest

Hamsa (Hands Across the Middle East Alliance) is sponsoring an essay contest about civil rights in the Middle-East, under the theme "Dream Deferred." (The title comes from a poem by Langston Hughes.) The first prize is $2,000, and the panel of judges includes a whole bunch of people we at Moorishgirl approve of, including Tel Quel editor Ahmed Reda Benchemsi. The deadline is coming up, so hurry up and submit your essay.

Strangers in the Land

Here's something quite au point. In the current issue of The Nation, Corey Robin reviews two interesting books about immigration: Caroline Moorehead's Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees and Seyla Benhabib's The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens.

Despite the efforts of postmodern theorists to convince us that exile is the emblematic condition of modern life, when it comes to immigrants and refugees we still seem incapable of the barest gesture of recognition, much less empathy. We remember Oedipus Rex: lover of one parent, killer of another. We forget Oedipus at Colonus: exiled king who wandered twenty years in search of "a resting place" near Athens, "where I should find home" and "round out there my bitter life." We feel Medea's rage over Jason's betrayal, driving her to kill their two sons. We scarcely notice her equally poignant--and more frequent--lament that she is "deserted, a refugee," with "no harbor from ruin to reach easily."

Read it all here.

Riverbend on Prize List

I know I'm a day late to this, but, hey, I've got a novel to finish. Anyway. Some good news from across the pond: Riverbend's Baghdad Burning, which is based on her blog, is in the running for the Samuel Johnson prize in the UK.

The small literary publisher Marion Boyars brought out Baghdad Burning last year, classifying it under biography and memoir. The publishing house says it knows Riverbend's identity but respects her wish to remain anonymous.

It has already come third in the Lettre Ulysses prize for Reportage, winning £14,000, and was shortlisted for an Index on Censorship freedom of expression award.

Riverbend began the blog with the words: "I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That's all you need to know. It's all that matters these days anyway."

The Guardian has more.

Thanks to Danielle for the link.

Humour a la Marocaine

I came across these two videos last night... I nearly dropped my laptop: Jamel Debbouze and Gad El Maleh spoof rai stars Faudel and Cheb Mami. You can also watch their "infomercial" for "la barre de faire."

March 27, 2006

Randa's Good News

I've been biting my tongue about this, but now that it's been announced on Rockslinga, it's safe to shout it from the rooftops: Randa Jarrar has sold her debut novel to The Other Press, with a publication date sometime in Fall 2007 or Spring 2008. Hop on over to her blog and say congrats!

The Blessing and The Curse

Over at the Observer, Jonathan Haywood, director of the English chapter of PEN, writes about the responsibility and difficulty that writers face when they speak about repressive regimes.

When Orhan Pamuk was charged last year over remarks he made about the numbers of Kurds and Armenians killed in Turkey in the last century, he said that at least he could now hold his head up among his more inflammatory colleagues.

Having decided early on to concentrate on writing rather than go looking for trouble, Pamuk was a stranger to the legal system and his trial last December for 'denigrating the Turkish state' caught the attention of the world's media. This attention, and the support of free-speech advocates, may have helped Pamuk get off, but it played into the hands of ultra-nationalists who claim that liberal writers are in the pay of outside forces.

The tall, bespectacled Pamuk has a donnish, distracted air. When I track him down to the kind of literary cafe that British writers can only dream of - hidden up three, tall flights of stairs in a seedy apartment block behind a locked door; walls of caricatures wreathed in the smoke of a thousand Turkish cigarettes - he is genial, but unwilling to talk of his recent experiences. Pamuk has told friends that he is caught between two poles. On the one hand, it his duty to write. On the other, he believes that authors must engage with the society around them.

I'm endlessly fascinated by this double-duty that writers in repressive states face. (In the immortal words of Tahar Djaout: "Silence is death. If you speak, you die. If you are silent, you die. So, speak and die!") They have to create art and they have to be engagé. The rules of "engagement," though, are not theirs to set. Some stances can earn them respect, and others can get them scorn, depending on the when and where of their actions, as both Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak have found. Read it all here.

Nelson Collection

Antonya Nelson has a new collection of short stories out, called Some Fun, and Joyce Carol Oates reviews it for the New York Times Book Review. "Rarely has the dysfunctional middle-class Caucasian-American family been so relentlessly dissected and analyzed, and rarely with such patience, sympathy and verve," Oates writes.

Ben Jelloun in Review

Over at the San Francisco Chronicle, John Freeman reviews Tahar Ben Jelloun's The Last Friend. " Readers who come to this novel under the impression that stories from the Muslim world will be prudish or full of allusion are in for a surprise," Freeman warns. "This is a sexy, racy novel, energized -- for a long stretch -- by its two protagonists' frantic search for a girl who doesn't prefer sodomy to vaginal intercourse. None of their prospects wants to break her hymen." And in this, the characters of Ali and Mamed are no different than many of the boys in my high school. I could tell you stories that would make you question what you think you know about sexuality in Morocco.

Fugard Interview

Andie Miller interviews Athol Fugard about Tsotsi for the Mail and Guardian. They discuss the writing of the book, how it was set aside for years, and then revived and edited, the film adaptation, the way in which Fugard writes about black experience, etc. Worth a look.

March 24, 2006

Sexy Sheikhs

Over at the Guardian, Brian Whitaker wonders about the bizarre and continuing appeal of "desert sheikh" romance novels:

She is a slender blonde from a western country, with long, flowing hair. He is a mysterious dark-eyed sheikh from the east - and fabulously rich. When their paths cross he is smitten by her beauty, and by fate or trickery she is whisked off to his desert kingdom, with little prospect of escape.

While he declares his undying love for her, she remains unsure about him. In the end, though, he proves his worth by fending off his jealous brothers and other foes. After surviving a few terrorist attacks, robberies, kidnappings and that sort of thing, the couple finally turn their attention to perfumed baths and nights of unbridled passion.

Excuse me while I go barf.

Racism Report

The Center Against Racism based in Haifa released results of a recent survey, which found that:

68 percent of Israeli Jews surveyed were unwilling to live next to an Arab neighbor, compared with 26 percent who said that they would agree. Forty-six percent of respondents also said that they would refuse to allow an Arab to visit their home although 50 percent said that they had no such qualms.

In this context, it's not hard to imagine why poor Amir Peretz doesn't stand a chance in Tuesday's election.

Related: Moroccans Pulling for Native Son in Israel.

Dept of Fair and Balanced

U.S Government: Do you want American funding for your local media?
Morocco: No, thanks.

March 23, 2006

The May Queen

An essay of mine appears in The May Queen, an anthology by thirty-something women reflecting on life, work, and "pulling it together." The essays are written by a diverse group of women, including Samina Ali, Jennifer Weiner, Meghan Daum, Tanya Donelly, Heather Jurgensen and Erin Ergenbright.

The May Queen was recently reviewed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Check it out.

Abouzeid: The Director

Although I keep a close eye on literary news, I had no idea that Leila Abouzeid had a new book out in the United States. Released in January, the book is a collection of stories, titled The Director. Here's the publisher's blurb:

The stories in this volume deal with issues both traditional and modern-relations between parents and children, between husbands and wives, and between citizens of newly independent Morocco and its new nationalist representative government.

Independence from French colonial rule has brought many changes to Morocco--some more beneficial than others. Women have entered the work force in great numbers, a development which has brought them new freedoms, but which has also caused problems within the traditional family. Abouzeid shows us how these changes have affected ordinary men and women, how small everyday events loom large in individual lives.

If you are new to Abouzeid's work, you may want to start with Year of The Elephant ('am al-feel).

Dispatch from Yemen

Stephen has posted the impressions of Heather Rogers, a lawyer who just got back from Yemen, where she met with some of the families of people who have been detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by U.S. forces. Take a look.

Border Project

The Border Film Project is an interesting art experiment started by three filmmakers. They gave disposable cameras to two large groups on different sides of the U.S.-Mexico border: undocumented migrants crossing the desert into the U.S., and the American Minutemen trying to stop them. Some of the photos are interesting, not because they show different experiences, but because they show similar ones in fact. (Warning: The site is poorly designed. Click on the individual letters in "Border" to navigate)

Link via Metafilter.

Fugard Review

I'm intrigued by Lisa Fugard's debut novel, Skinner's Drift. It's set in the Limpopo River Valley, and it's about a woman who returns to South Africa after ten years to see her dying father, a man "whose terrible secret [she] has kept since she was a child." Alan Cheuse reviews it for NPR.

Portland Event: Danielle Trussoni

Here's an interesting Portland even for tonight: Danielle Trussoni reads from her memoir, Falling through the Earth, at Powells. Here's are the details:

7:30 PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
1005 W Burnside
Portland, OR

The author's website is here.

March 22, 2006

Slate's Mistake

Lord knows we could use thoughtful and critical coverage of the Western Sahara conflict here in the United States, but I'm afraid Slate's piece on the subject doesn't meet standards of professional journalism. Written by Carne Ross, the short essay has all the trappings of independent, investigative work, until the end, when one realizes, upon reading the author's bio, that he is "director of Independent Diplomat, a nonprofit group that is advising the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the government-in-exile of the Sahrawi people. " This is just as bad as getting an advisor of the Moroccan government to write about Western Sahara. Couldn't they find someone who isn't an advocate (for either side) and doesn't have a conflict of interest?

Guest Review: S. Ramos O'Briant

A Man Without a Country
Kurt Vonnegut
Seven Stories Press
192 pp.

Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
Jimmy Carter
Simon & Schuster
224 pp.

At first glance, Kurt Vonnegut, author, pessimist and humorist might not seem to have much in common with Jimmy Carter, author, optimist and former President of the United States. But these two members of the so-called Greatest Generation are worried about America, and both have recently published books on the subject.

A Man Without a Country is a slender book of Vonnegut's musings, opinions and insights about the state of humanity, specifically American humanity. It starts out grumpy -- which brings my mother to mind, only eighty to Vonnegut's eighty-three and Carter's eighty-two. Like her, it focuses on all the bad news in the world: greed, religion, politics, and the curious admixture of religion with politics. He ventures into the last subject via an obscure reference to the Great Lakes people, apparently extinct except for Vonnegut, allowing him to mention Socialist Party candidate Eugene Victor Debs, which naturally segues into Stalin, Christianity, the Spanish Inquisition, Hitler and, ta ta ta ta, Karl Marx. Notice a trend here? And I don't mean the K's in Kurt and Karl. No? As with all Vonnegut books, a pattern will emerge. Or not.

His point is that this is not the first time in history that politics and religion have intermixed to frightening results. I almost used the phrase "catastrophic results," but that would have been too Vonnegut. He's at his best when he veers off the pessimist's track and tells a story, like the one about Powers Hapgood. I love that name. If I was still egglicious, and wasn't so jaded with joy over my empty nest, I'd think about that name for a kid. Or consider Vonnegut's story about his joy when standing in line to purchase the envelope and stamp to mail a chapter to his typist. Only a writer who has worked long hours alone and with little human contact, can appreciate the active use of one's senses -- being outside, walking, talking, and smelling in real time, rather than in imagination.

Vonnegut describes himself and the rest of humanity as hopeless "addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial," and he goes on to say that "our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on," and in the process making "trillionaires out of billionaires." Like Carter, he talks about America's standing in the world community: "[T]hey don't hate us for our purported liberty and justice . . . they hate us now for our arrogance." While he doesn't mention fundamentalists, he does describe the people who are running our government as "Christians," who are "smart, personable people who have no consciences."

Vonnegut's book is peppered with side journeys into his extended family history. He makes his case for being "without a country" by convincing us that it's understandable why he personally believes it's coming to the end of all things. I think he is speaking in mythical, rather than metaphorical terms. He is most dismayed because he thinks we don't really care what happens in the future. Vonnegut compares himself to Einstein and Mark Twain, who he says, "gave up on the human race at the end of their lives."

"This is not the country that I once knew," Jimmy Carter lamented in a recent L.A. Times editorial. Carter is also a humanist and a Christian in the old-time definition, as in: actively helping the poor and doing as Jesus said to do in the Sermon on the Mount (also mentioned in Vonnegut's book). In Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, Carter cites current government policies threatening American civil liberties, and environmental protections. He emphasizes the widening divide between the rich and the poor, and a growing disregard of human rights. He pays particular attention to the marriage of religion and politics. He's worried, saddened, and possibly even outraged, albeit in a gentlemanly, ex-President sort of way.

Yet, he doesn't mince words, and he names names. He points out that the Bush Administration has justified actions "similar to those of abusive regimes that we have historically condemned." Carter ticks off a list of prime-time issues in our current government: prescriptive war, fundamentalism, women's rights, terrorism, civil liberties, gay rights, abortion, the death penalty, science and religion, nuclear build-up, America's standing in the world, and the unsettling mix of religion and politics.
Back to the old R & P. Carter builds his case for why fundamentalism is ruining America with stark, simple and earnest prose. He defines fundamentalists as those who "have managed to change the nuances and subtleties of historical debate into black-white rigidities and the personal derogation of those who dare to disagree." Unlike Vonnegut, Carter makes no use of humor to soften his view that the fundamentalist philosophy of our current government threatens American representative democracy. He also focuses on money and taxes stating that "[B]illions in tax breaks [have gone] to the wealthiest" but Congress has refused to increase the minimum wage. "This administration has committed itself to extol the advantages of the rich," he says.

Much of what appears in both the Vonnegut and the Carter book has appeared elsewhere, in both speeches and articles the two have written. As early as 1995, Vonnegut spoke about the "computer age minimum-wage conspiracy,"* his extended family, humanists, and Iraq. Likewise, in Carter's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Oslo in 2002, he stated that "we have not yet made the commitment to share with others an appreciable part of our excessive wealth."

To Vonnegut's credit, by the end of A Man Without a Country he admits that he might be a tad on the crotchety side, but more specifically, and in true secular humanist mode, he says, "There have never been any 'good old days,' there have just been days." This admission, stated in the form of an apology (something I'll never hear from my mother), doesn't appear until almost the last of the essays. Carter tells us that our bond of common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices: "God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make changes - and we must."

It's fine to look at an issue from as many different angles as possible, but eventually you have to take a stand. Which is what Vonnegut and Carter have done. Both authors, in very different ways, incite their readers to think hard on the subject of values, and take action. Read them together or back-to-back. They make a nice desk set.

S. Ramos O’Briant’s work has appeared in Whistling Shade, AIM Magazine, Ink Pot, NFG, La Herencia, The Copperfield Review, Cafe Irreal, Best Lesbian Love Stories 2004, and is scheduled to appear in Latinos in Lotus Land, (Bilingual Press,2007). She recently completed her first novel, The Sandoval Sisters: The Secret of Old Blood.

See http://www.links.net/vita/speak/vonnegut

Paperback Love

The New York Times' Edward Wyatt asks a bunch of publishers and editors about their reasons for increasingly turning to paperback originals.

"In the last four or five years, it's gotten hard to publish fiction by lesser-known authors, and even by some better-known authors," said Morgan Entrekin, the publisher of Grove/Atlantic. And when a book fails in hardcover, booksellers often will limit their orders for a paperback edition, making it harder to sell the author's next book. "When you're taking back 50 to 70 percent of the hardcover copies you shipped," Mr. Entrekin said, "the stores — rightfully so — are not willing to take another chance."

There's a picture of Entrekin with two of his paperback originals, both of them nominated for this year's Orange Prize: Leila Aboulela's Minaret and Alice Greenaway's White Ghost Girls.

Etiqueta Negra

Peruvian magazine Etiqueta Negra, which now has a circulation of 11,000, gets some love from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Founded four years and 33 issues ago by two brothers born in a remote part of the Andes Mountains who had no experience in publishing or journalism, Etiqueta Negra has grown from an idea "that probably wouldn't make it in a place like Peru" to a circulation of 11,000. The magazine is available in the United States only via pricey special-order subscriptions (www.etiquetanegra.com.pe), but it is read across the Americas -- from Argentina to Canada. While plans are in the works to distribute the magazine more widely around the world, annual online subscriptions (PDF files) will soon be available for $30.

More here.

Akbar Ganji Released

This is a bit of good news from PEN: Iranian journalist Akbar Ganj has been released rom prison this week for the Iranian New Year. The email announcement states that "Since his sentence is officially over on March 30, it is unlikely he will be returned to prison. Additionally, there appear to be no maneuverings to re-arrest him, despite his outspoken criticism of Iranian policies. His family says that his is very weak due to his imprisonment and long hunger strike, but that he is in good spirits and recovering." More about Ganji here.

March 21, 2006

New Head of PEN Center Announced

Author and biographer Ron Chernow is set to succeed Salman Rushdie as the head of PEN, the writers' organization.

"I felt that with the enormous increase in interest in nonfiction, it would be good to have a major nonfiction writer," Mr. Rushdie said in an interview at the organization's offices on lower Broadway in SoHo, "especially in view of the problems we've seen arise there recently. And his Alexander Hamilton biography constantly reminded me of a time when the best writers in America were also changing American history."

I have to say, I'm sorry to see Rushdie go. I thought he did a great job the last two years, particularly with the World Voices Festival. This year's edition will bring many important world writers, among them Orhan Pamuk, Nadine Gordimer, Amartya Sen, and Toni Morrison, to New York for readings. In addition, the festival will feature media stars and polar opposites Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan, so it should make for a very interesting discussion on reform in Islam. Unfortunately, however:

Since 2004, though, Mr. Ramadan has been denied a visa by the United States government on grounds of a Patriot Act provision that his writings "endorse or espouse terrorist activity." Together with the American Civil Liberties Union, PEN has filed suit challenging that decision.

"I felt that more conservative voices were missing last year," Mr. Rushdie said, "and Ramadan would certainly be one."

But change is good, and it will be interesting to see what direction Ron Chernow will take the organization. The positions of vice-president and secretary will be taken over by Jhumpa Lahiri and Rick Moody, respectively.

Women's Rights Report

Writing in Reuters, Alaa Shahine reports:

Arab women are taking more senior government posts than before but many are still years away from challenging men's domination of key decision-making positions, a top U.N. official said on Monday.

Several Arab states have allocated parliamentary seats and cabinet portfolios for women, but the failure to challenge stereotypes depicting women as inferior to men could hamper such progress, U.N. Under Secretary-General Mervat Tallawy said.

"Despite the many achievements in the last five years, women in the Arab world are still far from equality and still face many challenges," said Tallawy, also executive secretary of the Beirut-based Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.

"Soap operas still give the woman roles where she sits and chops vegetables while the man is sitting in front of a computer. The woman cries and screams in the face of the first problem, while the man is wise," she told Reuters.

Read it all here.

'Un Raggazo Gentile'

My short story "A Nice Young Man" has been translated into Italian by Chiara Manfrinato for the magazine El Ghibli. The story originally appeared in Pindeldyboz in 2003. Spero che lei piace la lettura!

NYC Event: Rachel's Words

Those of you in New York may be interested in this important event celebrating the life of activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer. Co-hosted by Amy Goodman and James Zogby, it will involve readings and performances by Maya Angelou, Patti Smith, Eve Ensler, Suheir Hammad, Vanessa Redgrave, Mariam Said (widow of the late Edward Said), Najla Said, Betty Shamieh, Alice Walker, Maysoon Zayid, Howard Zinn, and many others.

Rachel's Words
March 22nd, New York City
Co-hosts: Amy Goodman and James Zogby
Riverside Church
490 Riverside Drive
8.00 pm
$20 Suggested donation (No one turned away for lack of funds. Doors open at 7.30)

Further details about the event here.

Related: Too Hot for New York, by Philip Weiss.

Sahara Update

King Mohammed began a five-day visit to Laayun and other cities in Western Sahara yesterday. The visit comes only a month before the Moroccan government is to submit a proposal to the United Nations on the status of the region. The conflict between Morocco and RASD has now become Africa's oldest territorial dispute.

Related: Reuters slideshow on the Western Sahara dispute.

March 20, 2006

Iraq Invasion: Year Three

This past Sunday marked the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I still believe pretty much everything I said back on March 19, 2003. And now 2,300 American soldiers and 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died for no other reason than Bush's lies. The idea that we're nowhere near disengagement brings me to the edge of despair.

What Ails Harvey Mansfield

Deborah Solomon interviews Harvard professor Harvey C. Mansfield, who has a new book out called Manliness.

Were you sorry to see Harvard's outgoing president, Lawrence Summers, attacked for saying that men and women may have different mental capacities?

He was taking seriously the notion that women, innately, have less capacity than men at the highest level of science. I think it's probably true. It's common sense if you just look at who the top scientists are.

Ah, women. Those poor, poor deficient souls. How did we ever give them the right to vote?

"Repurposing" Books

Why would you bother to read books when they make such great home accents? This article offers ten helpful tips, including: "Stack books on the floor or in baskets. The casual arrangement makes them inviting." Or: "A lamp that is too low for its location can be raised by placing it on a stack of books. Custom bases can be ordered to raise lamps, but a stack of books is a more personal touch."

And, if using books as decor isn't your thing, they also make great pret-a-porter:

Photo: AP/Efrem Lukatsky

Gate Review

Another week, another rave review of Gate of the Sun, this time from Ilan Stavans in the San Francisco Chronicle:

However, it took almost a decade for it to materialize, courtesy of Archipelago, a small publisher in Brooklyn. The reviews have been dazzling. I wonder, though. Why didn't a Manhattan publisher bring it out? Are they asleep at the weal? [sic] Or is it that they're exercising a form of mercantile censorship by shying away from works of unquestionable credentials with unavoidable political bent? Do they fear an unpleasant reaction from their clientele? It is no secret that Americans are consistently misinformed about Muslim society. Isn't a book like "Gate of the Sun" the perfect excuse for a deeper analysis?

More here.

March 17, 2006

HODP at the University of Tennesse

I've mentioned before that Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits was selected by the University of Tennessee at Knoxville for their freshman reading program. The website for the selection is now live, with information and reading questions for students. It's both humbling and exciting to know that so many kids will be reading this book.

Al Ryami Profile

The Guardian has a profile of Yemeni poet Ali Al Ryami, who was recently blacklisted in Oman for speaking out against human rights abuses.

Al Ryami's background in experimental theatre has also played a major role in shaping his poetry, according to one of his translators, Hafiz Kheir. In the carefully composed work that Kheir has seen, "he often manages to create imaginary spaces of inner worlds, while retaining a restrained language that resists the t