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2008 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2008. Events *January 1 – In the UK's 2008 New Year Honours List, Hanif Kureishi (CBE), Jenny Uglow (OBE), Peter Vansittart (OBE) and Debjani Chatterjee (MBE) are all rewarded for "services to literature." *February 29 – Belgian-born "Misha Defonseca" admits that her bestselling '' Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years'' (1997) is a literary forgery. *April – Signet Books announce they will cease to publish the American historical romance novelist Cassie Edwards after a dispute over plagiarism. *April 25 – The first Twitter novel, ''Small Places'' by Nicholas Belardes, is launched. *May 7– 11 – The first Palestine Festival of Literature is held. *June 15 – Gore Vidal, asked in a ''New York Times'' interview how he felt about the death of his rival William F. Buckley, Jr., replies: "I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, appl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
January 1
January 1 or 1 January is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is also known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the year. __TOC__ Events Pre-1600 *153 BC – For the first time, Roman consuls begin their year in office on January 1. *45 BC – The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Empire, establishing January 1 as the new date of the new year. *42 BC – The Roman Senate posthumously deifies Julius Caesar. * 193 – The Senate chooses Pertinax against his will to succeed Commodus as Roman emperor. * 404 – Saint Telemachus tries to stop a gladiatorial fight in a Roman amphitheatre, and is stoned to death by the crowd. This act impresses the Christian Emperor Honorius, who issues a historic ban on gladiatorial fights. * 417 – Emperor Honorius forces Galla Placidia into marriage to Cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palestine Festival Of Literature
The Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) is an annual literary festival, founded in 2008, that takes place in cities across Palestine. History The festival was founded in 2008 with the stated mission of affirming "the power of culture over the culture of power" and breaking what it considers a cultural siege against Palestine. The festival's founding chair is the novelist and political commentator Ahdaf Soueif. Mahmoud Darwish sent a message to the inaugural festival in which he wrote: “Thank you dear friends for your noble solidarity, thank you for your courageous gesture to break the moral siege inflicted upon us and thank you because you are resisting the invitation to dance on our graves. We are here. We are still alive.” In an effort to overcome restrictions on Palestinians' freedom of movement, the festival travels to its audiences putting on free events in Arabic and English in the cities it travels to. The festival traditionally performs in Jerusalem, Rama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man In The Dark (novel)
''Man in the Dark'' is a novel by Paul Auster published in August 2008. Its topic is a dystopian scenario of the present-day United States being torn apart by a new secession and civil war after the presidential elections of 2000. (The fictional division between the secessionist and loyal states is very similar to the " Jesusland" map.) This is told within a frame narrative of an aging journalist reflecting on his family and the death of his wife. Editions *''Man in the Dark'', Henry Holt and Co. 2008. Reviews *''California Literary Review'', by Garan Holcomb*''San Francisco Chronicle'', by Stephen Elliot*''The Telegraph'', by Ruth Scur*''The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...'', by Michael Dird*The Washington Post, by Jeff Turrentin(Washi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is an American writer and film director. His notable works include ''The New York Trilogy'' (1987), ''Moon Palace'' (1989), ''The Music of Chance'' (1990), ''The Book of Illusions'' (2002), ''The Brooklyn Follies'' (2005), ''Invisible (Auster novel), Invisible'' (2009), ''Sunset Park (novel), Sunset Park'' (2010), ''Winter Journal'' (2012), and ''4 3 2 1 (novel), 4 3 2 1'' (2017). His books have been translated into more than forty languages. Early life Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey,Freeman, John"At home with Siri and Paul", ''The Jerusalem Post'', April 3, 2008. Retrieved September 19, 2008. "Like so many people in New York, both of them are spiritual refugees of a sort. Auster hails from Newark, New Jersey, and Hustvedt from Minnesota, where she was raised the daughter of a professor, among a clan of very tall siblings." to Jewish middle-class parents of Poles, Polish descent, Queenie (née Bogat) and Samuel Auster. He i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uwem Akpan
Uwem Akpan is a Nigerian writer. He is the author of '' Say You're One of Them'' (2008), a collection of five stories (each set in a different African country) published by Little, Brown & Company. The book inspired Angelique Kidjo to write the song "Agbalagba". It made the Best of the Year list at ''People'' magazine, ''The Wall Street Journal'', and other places. ''The New York Times'' made it the Editor's Choice, and ''Entertainment Weekly'' listed it at #27 in their Best of the Decade. ''Say You're One of Them'' won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region), the Open Book Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. A ''New York Times'' and ''Wall Street Journal'' #1 bestseller, it has been translated into 12 languages. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and was picked by the Oprah Winfrey Book Club September 17, 2009, in Central Park. Two months later, Oprah interviewed Uwem in Chicago as part of her bookclub event with Anderson Cooper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Between The Assassinations
''Between the Assassinations'' is the second book published by Aravind Adiga though it was written before his first book '' The White Tiger''. The title refers to the period between the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the assassination of her son, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991. Indira Gandhi was the serving Prime Minister of India when she was assassinated; Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1984, and left office following his party's defeat in the 1989 general election. ''Between the Assassinations'' is a collection of short stories. It was published by Picador in India in 2008, and in Britain and the United States in 2009. While it reveals the beauty of the rural, coastal south where it is set, its subject is the pathos, injustices and ironies of Indian life. The book had an initial print run of 16,000 copies, which is on the higher side for fiction in India. Overview The stories take place in the fictitious town of Kittur in Karnataka, Southwest India. It was ori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The White Tiger (Adiga Novel)
''The White Tiger'' is a novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was published in 2008 and won the 40th Booker Prize the same year. The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India's class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy. The novel examines issues of the Hindu religion, caste, loyalty, corruption and poverty in India. The novel has been well-received, making the ''New York Times'' bestseller list in addition to winning the Booker Prize. Aravind Adiga, 33 at the time, was the second youngest writer as well as the fourth debut writer to win the prize. Adiga says his novel "attempt to catch the voice of the men you meet as you travel through India — the voice of the colossal underclass." According to Adiga, the exigence for ''The White Tiger'' was to capture the unspoken voice of people from "the Darkness" – the impoverished areas of rural India, and he "wanted to do so without sentimenta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aravind Adiga
Aravind Adiga (born 23 October 1974) is an Indian writer and journalist. His debut novel, '' The White Tiger'', won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Biography Early life and education Aravind Adiga was born in Madras (now Chennai) on 23 October 1974 to Dr. K. Madhava Adiga and Usha Adiga from Mangalore. His paternal grandfather was K. Suryanarayana Adiga, former chairman of Karnataka Bank, and maternal great-grandfather, U. Rama Rao, was a popular medical practitioner and Congress politician from Madras. Adiga grew up in Mangalore and studied at Canara High School and later at St. Aloysius College, Mangaluru, where he completed his SSLC in 1990. After emigrating to Sydney with his family, Aravind studied at James Ruse Agricultural High School. He later studied English literature at Columbia College of Columbia University, in New York City, under Simon Schama, and graduated as salutatorian in 1997. He also studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where one of his tutors was Hermio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives international publicity which usually leads to a sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African (and later Zimbabwean) citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014 it was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial. A five-person panel constituted by authors, librarians, literary agents, publishers, and booksellers is appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation each year to choose the winning book. A high-profile literary award in British culture, the Booker Prize is greeted with anticipation and fanfare. Literary critics have noted that it is a mark of distinction for authors to be selected for inclusion i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midnight's Children
''Midnight's Children'' is a 1981 novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive. ''Midnight's Children'' sold over one million copies in the UK alone and won the Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981.Mullan, John.Salman Rushdie on the writing of Midnight's Children" ''The Guardian'', 26 July 2008. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary. In 2003 the novel appeared at number 100 on the BBC's The Big Read poll which determined the UK's "best-loved novels" of all time. Background and plo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, ''Midnight's Children'' (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize. After his fourth novel, ''The Satanic Verses'' (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a '' fatwa'' calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. On 12 August 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie after rushing onto the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
