RIP Kundera

 

3723 - ams - commemoration digest - Mordecai Richler - The Novelist and the Critic

 

02723 - ams - commemoration digest # 1

 

30623 - ams - commemoration digest - Life and Times of Czelaw Miloz

 

29623 - ams - commemoration digest - The man behind 'The Little Prince', Michael Madhusudhan Datta - The Polyglot, and the life and times of Vasko Popa.

 

26623 - ams - commemoration digest # 2 - Who is Laurie Lee?

 

26623 - ams - commemoration digest - Aimé Césaire Remembered

 

ams - commemoration - The People's Poet - Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova begins Rekviem with these lines: “No, not under a foreign sky/ Nor in the shelter of a foreign wing,/ With my people, there stood I / With them, in their suffering.” Akhmatova spent 17 months waiting in long queues outside a jail in Leningrad to find out what had happened to her son, picked up during a purge. The lines above are based on that experience. Her son’s arrest may have led Akhmatova to write Rekviem, but by doing so she was also giving voice to countless mothers whose irreparable losses must be remembered forever. It is said that Akhmatova composed Rekviem, in her mind. The ideas are based on the thousands of people rounded up and sent to the Gulag, it survived only in the memory of a few close friends she narrated it to. It was first published in 1963 by the Society of Russian Émigré Writers. It never saw the light of day in the Soviet Union till it's dissolution. Anna Akhmatova is one of the best known and most loved Russian poets. In addition to poetry, she wrote prose including memoirs, autobiographical pieces, and literary scholarship on Russian writers such as Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin. She also translated Italian, French, Armenian, and Korean poetry.

 

21623 - ams - Creativity and Anne Carson

Anne Carson is a lover of classical literature and her translations of classical writers such as Sappho and Euripides are popular. A high-school encounter with a Latin instructor, who agreed to teach her ancient Greek over the lunch hour, led to her passionate embrace of classical and Hellenic literature. Carson is a private person. She prefers to be alone. When her husband is traveling, Carson will call and tell him, “I miss you, but I’m having a great time.” Carson’s most popular book is the “Autobiography of Red,” which takes its cue from the legend of Hercules. The story is retold as a modern times and Carson makes some significant choices. In 2001, Carson published 'The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos' , a verse novel which was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize. Carson continues to be an important and exciting translator of classical writers. Carson considers herself as a visual, not a verbal, artist. It is interesting to note that a new comic-book version of Euripides’s classic 'The Trojan Women', is published which us collaboration between the visual artist Rosanna Bruno and Anne Carson. It is a genuine representation of how human beings are affected by warfare.

 

20623 – ams – commemoration – Vikram Seth’s Chinese Connections

Vikram Seth likes to do different things. He developed an interest in Mandarin which drew him closer to China. During that time, he read Chinese literature and explored the art of calligraphy. 'Three Chinese Poets' is a book of poetry translated into English from Chinese by Vikram Seth. The three poets in the title are, Wang Wei (699–761 AD), Li Bai (701–762 AD) and Du Fu (712–770 AD). They are regarded as the greatest literary figures not only of China, but also the world. Wang Wei with his quiet love of nature and Buddhist philosophy; Li Bai, the Taoist spirit, with his wild, flamboyant paeans to wine and the moon; and Du Fu, with his Confucian sense of sympathy with the suffering of others in a time of civil war and collapse. They all belonged to the T’ang dynasty. The originals were written in the Northern Chinese, a language that is lost today. In the introduction to the book, Seth talks about the collection of Chinese poetry translated by Ezra Pound labelled as 'Cathay' which was noted for its errors. "The famous translations of Ezra Pound, compounded as they are of ignorance of Chinese and valiant self-indulgence, have remained before me as a warning of what to shun". Vikram Seth also mentions how difficult the process of translation was. "I have tried not to compromise the meaning of the actual words of the poems, though I have often failed".

 

20623 - ams - commemoration - Lillian Hellman - The Socially Conscious Dramatist

 

Lillian Hellman was the first woman to be admitted to the club of American dramatists, writing a hit play when she was 29. She was a playwright, a screenwriter and a memoirist and a political activist. Her popularity is based on the two enormously successful plays from the 1930s: 'The Children's Hour' (1934) and 'The Little Foxes' (1939). 'The Children's Hour', was Hellman's first play. It is the story of two women running a school for girls whose lives are ruined by a malicious student spreading the lie that they are lovers. The play was banned in London, Chicago, and Boston. 'The Children's Hour' was considered too scandalous for the Pulitzer prize. It was an immense hit in Paris and New York running on Broadway for almost two years. Like many writers of her generation, Hellman was an outspoken leftist in the 1930s whose political convictions often landed her in trouble. Towards the end of the career, she began writing the four volumes of legendarily unreliable memoirs, 'An Unfinished Woman', 'Pentimento', 'Scoundrel Time' and 'Maybe'. All four were critical and commercial successes, 'An Unfinished Woman' winning the National Book award in 1969. Hellman's plays are still frequently staged around the world.

19623 - ams - commemoration # 1 - The World of Salman Rushdie

 

Just nine days after the publication of his novel 'Satanic Verses', a fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie. The Japanese translator of the work, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death in 1991. Italian translator Ettore Capriolo and Norwegian publisher William Nygard were also targeted, surviving the attacks with severe injuries. Rushdie's father was a successful business man and the family could afford to send their son to a British boarding school at the age of 14. In 1964, Rushdie became a British citizen and took up English as his preferred language to write in. He studied history at King’s College in Cambridge and took courses in theatre before graduating in 1968. He has written 12 novels and many collection of essays and non-fiction. His second book, 'Midnight’s Children' won him a Man Booker Prize and became a bestseller in the US. Rushdie, in 2021 said that he will set his next novel in India. He is planning to return to India after many years. The author last came to India for the promotion of Deepa Mehta's 2013 film "Midnight's Children". Rushdie has worked with artist Ai Weiwei and writers Margaret Atwood and Isabel Allende on a worldwide campaign by the PEN International writers association to support writers in exile. In 2007, Queen Elizabeth II knighted the award-winning author and freedom of expression warrior. Recently, Rushdie was honoured on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II awarded the Order of the Companions for his services in the field of literature. 

17623 - ams - commemoration - Sara Lidman - The True Voice of Swedish Literature

Sara Lidman as a child suffered from tuberculosis and spent some time in a sanatorium, where she read a lot and listened to the radio. She had worked working as a waitress and post office worker and as a theatre trainee in Stockholm. Her marriage and the publication of her first novel (The Tar Still) happened almost at the same time. In 1960-61, she spent some time in South Africa, where she got to know Nadine Gordimer. She was involved in politics during her stay in South Africa and was imprisoned. She was released on the condition that she will never return to South Africa. She took up other causes such as opposition to the Vietnam War and opposition to nuclear weapons. She wrote some twenty novels, often about her home region, as well as articles and plays. Lidman was interested in reporting social conditions rather than writing fiction. She was one of the first Swedes in the 1960s to promote solidarity with South Africa, for example with 'Jag och min son' (N), 1961, and with Vietnam in her travel book 'Samtal i Hanoi', 1966. Her works have been translated into several languages, and she was the recipient of several literary awards. Her last book was “The Root of Life” in 1996.

17623 - ams - commemorations - The life and times of Dorothy M Richardson

 

Almost a hundred a years ago, a publishing company brought out a little book about a student teacher in Germany. The name of the book was 'Pointed Roofs' and the author's name was Dorothy M Richardson. The story was narrated through the consciousness of the heroine. This new style made the readers perplexed. Critics found it difficult to convey the charm of the book. It was the first book to be labelled stream of consciousness, even though Richardson hated that phrase. But the stream of consciousness became a literary genre which was later found in the novels of Virginia Woolf especially Mrs Dalloway. Today, four authors are interlinked because of this literary genre - James Joyce, Woolf, Marcel Proust, and Dorothy M. Richardson. 'Pointed Roofs' was the first of a series called Pilgrimage, a gigantic 13- volume semi-autobiographical narrative. Her novels can also be treated as a slice of history. She always portrayed the struggles and the joys of a lonely female worker in London. H.G Wells was her friend, and it is presumed that they had an affair. Today we can witness a blue plaque at Woburn Walk in Bloomsbury, where she lived, opposite Yeats, in 1905 and 1906. She has mentioned that across the alley from her flat, she could see W. B. Yeats writing by the light of "two immensely tall, thick white candles." She died on June 17, 1957, alone, greatly forgotten and in poverty.

15623 - ams - commemoration # 1 - Issa and the Healing Power of Art

 

Kobayashi Issa reminds us that the realm of sympathy and concern is limitless. He is a Japanese haiku poet from the late 1700s. 'Issa' in Japanese means 'Cup-of-Tea’. He is regarded as one of the four haiku masters in Japan, along with Bashōō, Busonand Shiki — "the Great Four. His catalogue of poems is vast – some 20,000 haikus. Issa wrote 54 haiku on the snail, 15 on the toad, nearly 200 on frogs, about 230 on the firefly, more than 150 on the mosquito, 90 on flies, over 100 on fleas and nearly90 on the cicada, making a total of about one thousand verses on such creatures. Issa was a lay priest in the True Pure Land Buddhism school. Issa’s mother died when he was young. He was perpetually impoverished and sick, occasionally homeless. He was a widower and the father of three children who perished in infancy. Issa lost his house and was forced to live in a windowless storehouse. This building was designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1933. Just before his death, his disciples asked him to give them a last verse, he opened his eyes and murmured 'A bath when you're born, a bath when you die, how stupid.

14623 - ams - commemoration #1 - The book that launched a civil war - 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' remembered

 

Abraham Lincoln greeted Harriet Beecher Stowe with these words: "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war." ‘Uncle Tom's Cabin’ touched the hearts of northerners and forced them to fight against the Southerners and slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe is recognized as a writer who played an important role in changing history with her book. She published the book in two volumes in 1852. Within the first year of publication, ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ sold 300,000 copies. ‘Uncle Tom's Cabin’ has now been published in over 75 languages and is still an important text used in schools all over the world. This book was written at a time when women did not have a right to vote, have legal rights, or the right to speak in public meetings. One year after the publication of the book, she wrote another one titled ‘A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. This was done to defend her novel against her critics, who accused her of falsifying and exaggerating the novel’s representation of slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe House is a project aimed at preserving the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Beecher family home in Cincinnati, Ohio.

13-6-23 - ams - commemoration # 2 - Life and Times of Dorothy L Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers is considered by many as a pre-eminent writer of mystery stories. She was quite scientific in her approach towards crime fiction. She is the inventor of the voice-activated lock featured in the 1928 short story ‘The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba’. Dorothy L. Sayers is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, which remain popular to this day. However, Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work. Miss Sayers was one of the first women to obtain an Oxford University degree after attending its Somerville College. She is also known for her plays, literary criticism, and essays. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. Her work, carefully researched and widely varied, included poetry, the editing of collections with her erudite introductions on the genre, and the translating of the Tristan of Thomas from mediaeval French. She admired E C Bentley and G K Chesterton and numbered among her friends T S Eliot, Charles Williams, and C S Lewis. During her latter years she abandoned crime fiction to write dramas and interpretive essays on the Christian religion. In her middle years she liked to drive a motorcycle.

 

13-6-23 - ams - commemorations - The Father of Indian AI

Raj Reddy is a pioneer in robotics, artificial intelligence, and speech recognition. He was awarded the prestigious Turing Award. He has been working with computers for more than six decades. The Computer History Museum (CHM) located in Mountain View, California inducted him as a fellow on Thursday, June 24, 2021. International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) has opened the Raj Reddy Center for Technology and Society (RCTS) to promote the use of technology for social impact. Speaking at the event, Prof Raj Reddy said, “Technology and society has been a key theme in my life for a long time. Reddy founded the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, one of the top three labs in the world exploring applied robotics technology research. Reddy has influenced thousands of students, many of whom have gone on to make vital and important contributions to computer science, artificial intelligence, and robotics, over a five-decade teaching career. His current research interests include: Universal Digital Libraries - Anytime Anywhere Access to Monuments, Books, and Newspaper Archives-1000 newspapers for 1000 years, Role of ICT in Developing Economies; and Learning Science and Technologies.

12623- ams - Commemorations - Harriet Martineau - Life and Times

Harriet Martineau is considered to be the first female sociologist. Harriet's education was largely at home through self study. University study was barred to women at the time, but Harriet maintained a regime of intense, self directed investigation throughout her life. When her family's wealth declined, she was able to earn money through writing essays, tracts, reviews, novels, journal articles, travelogues, biographies, how-to manuals, newspaper columns, histories, children's stories and sociologically informed non-fiction. She lived in London during a time when the social circles were quite active. The circle included: Charles Babbage, Thomas Carlyle, George Eliot, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, Thomas Malthaus, William Wordsworth, Charlotte Bronte, and Charles Darwin. Her trip to America resulted in two books based on empirical research, 'Society in America' (1837) and 'Retrospect of Western Travel' (1838). She examined social class, religion, suicide, national character, domestic relations, women's status, criminology, and interrelations between institutions and individuals before Marx, Engels or Weber 

after - the memory space - commemorations 23523