The death of Gabriel García Márquez is being mourned and reported around the world. Here are a few of the tributes, in English.
The Guardian (UK)
The New York Times
Sydney Morning Herald
RT (Russia)
Xinhua (China)
Al Jazeera (Qatar)
Friday 18 April 2014
Thursday 17 April 2014
Questions & Answers with R. Ramachandran, Executive Director, National Book Development Council of Singapore
The National Book Development Council of Singapore promotes and encourages the local
community of writers, publishing professionals, librarians, and booksellers
working in all four of the country’s official languages: English, Mandarin,
Malay, and Tamil. Its aim is to
establish Singapore as a hub for publishing and the literary arts. I spoke to
the Executive Director, R. Ramachandran.
How far has The Council succeeded in developing Singapore as a regional centre of literary activity? What
still needs to be done?
Our own
programmes, in conjunction with those of the National Arts Council (NAC), have
together made a good start. The NAC’s Singapore Writers Festival and our own
Asian Festival of Children's Content (AFCC) have together established Singapore
as an Asian centre for writers producing content for both adults and children.
Our awards
for children's content, such as The Scholastic Asian Book Award, a joint
initiative with the children’s publisher, and Asian Picture Book awards for
both authors and illustrators, have been particularly successful. Through our involvement with children's books we
have directed the attention of illustrators to Singapore, thus helping to
promote the City as an Asian centre for the visual arts.
What we have
not yet become is a fully-fledged publishing centre. We still need trained
editors and marketing personnel specialising in regional and international
marketing. We need to develop literary agents and expertise in the selling of
rights. We are addressing these needs and have established the Academy of Literary Arts and Publishing for training personnel in editing, book design, managing
intellectual property, and the various other aspects of publishing.
Which other Asian cities do you see as
rival hubs for publishing? What are they doing better, or not so well, as
Singapore?
Actually we
have no rivals. We are unique in publishing and promoting all four languages: English,
Chinese, Malay and Tamil. Our diversity in language and culture makes us
attractive to the literary arts community throughout Asia. Having an
English-speaking population means we can publish in English for the world
market.
Talking of which, Singapore itself has a
small market for books, but it is excellently placed to be a bridge between
east and west. What are you doing to grow international connections in the
publishing industry?
Local
publishers do not publish for Singapore alone. They publish for the region and
hence what needs to be done is to connect them with distributors who will
distribute the books for the rest of Asia. We need to emerge as a country which
has good translators. Once we have a core group of translators, we can
translate Asian books from one Asian language to the other. When that happens
we will have a market of 700 million in ASEAN alone to reach out to.
Perhaps the even bigger challenge is reaching out to the West. The West wants to sell to the East but does not readily buy from the East. Such purchases, if any, are very limited. What must be done is that we must reach out to the West not through establishing contacts with the Western distributors but by developing our own network to handle distribution. Only then, through a coordinated effort, can publicity, marketing and sales be effective.
Perhaps the even bigger challenge is reaching out to the West. The West wants to sell to the East but does not readily buy from the East. Such purchases, if any, are very limited. What must be done is that we must reach out to the West not through establishing contacts with the Western distributors but by developing our own network to handle distribution. Only then, through a coordinated effort, can publicity, marketing and sales be effective.
Already we are attracting writers and key industry
players from the West to our festivals, enabling them to become familiar with our
literary works. We want them to recognise our content is good, but not
necessarily to take on the responsibility of distributing books published in
Asia.
South East Asia lacks an international
marketplace for rights. Do you have plans for an Asian books fair, as an Eastern
equivalent of Frankfurt or London?
The AFCC is already
acting as a marketplace for Children's content, and this is bound to grow. We
intend to suggest to the National Arts Council that we should organise an
Asian Book Fair for all content, in conjunction with the Singapore Writers
Festival.
How do you promote writing and publishing
in languages other than English?
The Singapore
Literature Prize managed by us gives recognition to works published in all four
official languages. All our festivals have a strong track record in presenting
workshops and seminars in Chinese, Malay and Tamil. This we think is unique as
most literary festivals are monolingual.
What do you do to promote translation
between languages, especially of Chinese, Malay and Tamil into English?
In 2012, we
held the first Asian Expressions, a conference conceived to focus on and
promote literary translation, to celebrate writings and writers in Asian languages,
especially Chinese, Malay and Tamil. The conference brought together translators,
and authors from various language groups to enable cross-cultural exchange.
Asian Expressions was a great success and we intend to hold it again, either
bi-annually or once in three years.
In the
meantime, we continue to encourage translation, and to run programmes to train translators,
and this year alone Singapore will be host to two major events throwing a focus
on translation: the Singapore International Translation Symposium 2014; the
Singapore International Storytelling Festival, 2014.
At the
Storytelling Festival storytellers from Singapore, India, Korea and Italy will
be telling stories translated from other languages into English.
Do local writers writing in Chinese,
Tamil, or Malay have international connections?
Writers in
each language group have strong associations and links with their own
diasporas, as well as with writers in the country or countries where the
language is a, or the, national language.
Do different genres (romance / sci-fi) or
types of writing (prose / poetry) dominate in the different language groups?
All genres
are popular but across all four languages poetry is most popular.
What currently are the major concerns of Singaporean
writers?
Lack of
sufficient support. Our writers need staff to manage their publicity and
marketing activities as most are also fully employed. Writers need more
exposure. They need to travel and take part in festivals throughout Asia and
the West.
Leading commercial publishers in Singapore, by language
English
|
Chinese
|
Tamil
|
Malay
|
Epigram
Books
Pagesetters
Flame of
the Forest
Marshall
Cavendish International (Asia)
Monsoon
Books
|
Candid Creation
Publishing
Shing Lee
Publishers
World
Scientific Publishing Co
Zenru
Culture Communication
|
Thangameen
Publications (Goldfish Publications)
Kumaresh
Enterprises
|
Casco
Publications
Pustaka
Nasional
Vision
Publishing Enterprise
|
Singaporean writers you might like to try, by language.
English
|
Chinese
|
Tamil
|
Malay
|
Meira Chand
Amanda Lee
Koe
Jolene Tan
Ng Yi-Sheng
Cyril Wong
Marc Nair
|
Yeng Pway
Ngon
Lee Seng
Chan
Tham Yew
Chin
|
J.M. Sali
Masilamani Anbalagan
M.
Balakrishnan
|
Yazid
Hussein
Ahmad
Jaaffar Bin Munasip
Isa Kamari
|
Tuesday 15 April 2014
500 Words From Ezra Kyrill Erker
500 Words From...is a series of guest posts from authors, in
which they talk about their newly-published books. Here Ezra Kyrill Erker explains the
background behind Salaryman Unbound, published by Crime Wave Press.
Ezra Kyrill Erker was
born in Germany and grew up in Europe, California and the South Pacific,
before settling in East and Southeast Asia. The longest and most formative
stint of his adult life so far was spent in central Japan. He now lives in
Bangkok, working as a freelance journalist.
Salaryman
Unbound is set in a Japan of corporate
intrigue, suburban loneliness and homicidal urges. Against this backdrop Shiro is having a
midlife crisis. Unexceptional in his job, he works in the shadow of his charismatic
boss. Unappreciated by his family, he has nothing to show for decades of doing
the right thing - so he decides to try doing the wrong thing, and begins to plot the murders of strangers. His researches into methods of killing bring
a dark structure to his life, and a black self-belief. Eventually, he targets
Sayuri, a neglected housewife, and soon the would be killer falls victim to love. When a body
is found, Shiro’s and Sayuri’s lives are thrown into
upheaval, and the divisions between guilt and innocence are lost.
So: 500 Words From Ezra Kyrill Erker:
Salaryman
Unbound began as a
diversion while sitting in a café in Vientiane, a few months after leaving
Japan. In an afternoon, an experimental paragraph had turned into a chapter. In
three days, without plotting ahead, my longhand filled a small notebook. In
three leisurely weeks I had a 20,000 word novella on my hands.
I
wasn’t sure where it had come from, what dark recess of the subconscious could
conjure such a disturbing tale. I’d just finished writing a collection of
stories (which became A Bridge of
Dreams: Asian Tales, published by Orchid Press) and a long, heavy
coming-of-age novel (Embers,
which should be out next year). Salaryman Unbound was a crime tale as far removed from those efforts as a book could get,
and it had pretty much written itself. The question was: what to do with it?
Like
many hastily written first drafts, it was a bit rubbish. Set in San
Francisco, it had some flat dialogue and prose, and characters that didn’t leave
much of an impression - but the main idea, of murder becoming an outlet for a
mediocre man’s midlife crisis, seemed immediate and frightening. With the right
set of circumstances it could be the story of my neighbour, a colleague or a
friend. The difficult part was creating those circumstances.
The
best fit was Japan, where a man’s company can become his purpose, his social
life, his crutch, where it is harder to change careers or start over with a
blank slate. Failure seems more permanent and more pervasive, and it makes
sense that crime might become an outlet, a grasp at self-affirmation. I didn’t
have to invent much - I knew provincial Japan very well from experience - and
once I’d made the necessary cultural adjustments the story fit right in, like
puzzle pieces fitting into place. I did some research into physiology and crime
psychology, and the novel, now three times longer, with twists in the tail, was
complete.
The novel is about how an everyman’s attempt at plotting the murder of a lonely housewife transforms his personality, so that suddenly everything seems possible. The new possibilities, however, include being more susceptible to suggestion, and the character becoming prone to a
growing certainty that he is the ruler of his own destiny when in fact there
are more variables at play than his awareness can take in.
We’ve
all watched a heist film, or a television series about a rebel, a meth cooker,
a gangster, a warrior, and caught ourselves cheering for the criminal, the
outsider. There are elements of their situation we can relate to, and getting
one over the system is something most of us at one point or another have
secretly wished we could get away with.
In
Shiro we have such an anti-hero. Told mostly through his eyes and mind, this is
not a conventional crime novel but a literary and very personal drama, at the
core of which just happens to be murder. I hope readers can find in its pages a
story they both relate to and are frightened by. I was aiming to write a
compelling and unpredictable page-turner. I hope Salaryman Unbound exposes some of the flaws and hopelessness
of the human condition.
Sunday 13 April 2014
Seen Elsewhere: London Book Fair / Korean Market Focus and Cultural Programme
The London Book Fair 2014 is now over. As noted in earlier posts, Korea was selected as the county for this year's Market Focus, and the accompanying Cultural Programme. Here is a quick round-up of how both initiatives have been reported around the web.
The London Book Fair - click around the site for updates on the Korean Market Focus.
The British Council - click around the site for updates on the Korean Cultural Programme.
The Korean Blog - a Korean perspective on the London Book Fair.
English PEN - an account of Shirley Lee challenging assumptions about North Korea through an examination of its love poetry, as part of the Korean Cultural Programme.
The Guardian (UK) - the ten Korean writers chosen to visit the London Book Fair discuss the problems of living in a divided country.
Publishing Perspectives (US) - New York agent Barbara Zwiter on bringing Korean literature to world markets.
Publishing Perspectives (US) - an account of discussion between Korean author Yi Mun-Yol, writer Marina Warner, and publisher Christopher Maclehose as part of the Cultural Programme.
Moving away from the Korean focus:
See here for CCTV (China) reporting from London on the digital future of publishing, seen from a Chinese perspective.
See here for Xinhua (China) reporting from London on why China's economic development is leading worldwide to growing interest in literature from China.
See here for The Straits Times (Singapore) reporting on Singapore's delegation to the London Book Fair.
Mexico has been chosen as the Market Focus country for the London Book Fair in 2015.
The London Book Fair - click around the site for updates on the Korean Market Focus.
The British Council - click around the site for updates on the Korean Cultural Programme.
The Korean Blog - a Korean perspective on the London Book Fair.
English PEN - an account of Shirley Lee challenging assumptions about North Korea through an examination of its love poetry, as part of the Korean Cultural Programme.
The Guardian (UK) - the ten Korean writers chosen to visit the London Book Fair discuss the problems of living in a divided country.
Publishing Perspectives (US) - New York agent Barbara Zwiter on bringing Korean literature to world markets.
Publishing Perspectives (US) - an account of discussion between Korean author Yi Mun-Yol, writer Marina Warner, and publisher Christopher Maclehose as part of the Cultural Programme.
Moving away from the Korean focus:
See here for CCTV (China) reporting from London on the digital future of publishing, seen from a Chinese perspective.
See here for Xinhua (China) reporting from London on why China's economic development is leading worldwide to growing interest in literature from China.
See here for The Straits Times (Singapore) reporting on Singapore's delegation to the London Book Fair.
Mexico has been chosen as the Market Focus country for the London Book Fair in 2015.
Friday 11 April 2014
Incheon in London
World Book Capital is a title bestowed by UNESCO annually to a city
in recognition of the quality of its programmes to promote books and reading.
Incheon will be the UNESCO
World Book Capital next year, so the city is exhibiting in the Korea Market
Focus Pavilion at the London Book Fair to spread the word that it is preparing
a variety of events to entertain the many visitors it expects from all over the
world.
Mayor of Incheon, Young-Gil Song says: "Our city will spare no efforts to turn itself
into an educational and cultural city by sharing culture through books and
narrowing cultural gaps through latest technologies, which echoes UNESCO's
ideology."
Amongst other reasons, UNESCO runs the World Book Capital
initiative to promote exchanges across borders and ideologies. Incheon is geographically well positioned to facilitate cultural exchange with North Korea.
A spokesperson for the Korean Publishers Association says that having Incheon as the World Book Capital in 2015 will: “promote
Korean citizens' cultural development and awareness, and connect with North
Korea providing a foundation for the re-unification of the South with the
North. Also, it will be a central city of international cultural exchange via
books, and will continuously contribute to the global community even after this
event.”
Incheon hopes to use its status as World
Book Capital to demonstrate how a city's industrial and technological
infrastructure can contribute to society.
Mayor Young-Gil
Song says: “Incheon has some people who are isolated from cultural
access and information as some people live on islands far away from the mainland,
or due to other environmental reasons. Hence, the city has been managing a
various number of cultural businesses such as the mobile library, which visits
each island, and the Reading Incheon
mobile application, which enables the 2.9 million citizens of Incheon to get
access to an online library via their mobile telephone.”
Thursday 10 April 2014
Published Today: The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World by T.V. Paul
The Warrior State:
Pakistan in the Contemporary World by T.V. Paul, James McGill Professor of International Relations, McGill University, is published today.
In 2013 Pakistan ranked 133rd out of 148 countries in global competitiveness. Currently, Taliban forces occupy nearly 30% of the country, and it is perpetually in danger of becoming a failed state - with over a hundred nuclear weapons that could easily fall into terrorists’ hands. In recent years, many countries across the developing world have experienced impressive economic growth and have evolved into at least partially democratic states with militaries under civilian control. Yet Pakistan, a heavily militarized nation, has been a conspicuous failure. Its economy is in shambles, propped up by international aid, and its political system is notoriously corrupt and unresponsive, although a civilian government has come to power. Despite the regime's emphasis on security, the country is beset by widespread violence and terrorism. What explains Pakistan's unique inability to progress? Paul argues that the geostrategic curse - akin to the resource curse that plagues oil rich autocracies - is the main cause. Since its founding in 1947, Pakistan has been at the centre of major geopolitical struggles - the US-Soviet rivalry, the conflict with India, and most recently the post 9/11 wars. No matter how ineffective the regime, massive foreign aid keeps pouring in from major powers and their allies with a stake in the region. The reliability of such aid defuses any pressure on political elites to launch far-reaching domestic reforms that would promote sustained growth, higher standards of living, and more stable democratic institutions. Paul shows that excessive war-making efforts have drained Pakistan’s limited economic resources without making the country safer or more stable. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of Pakistan’s insecurity predicament. It also compares Pakistan with other national security states, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Taiwan and Korea.
T.V. Paul is a leading scholar of international security, regional security, and South Asia. His books include: Globalization and the National Security State (co-authored, Oxford University Press, 2010); India in the World Order: Searching for Major Power Status (co-authored, Cambridge University Press 2002); The India-Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry (Cambridge University Press, 2005); and South Asia’s Weak States: Understanding the Regional Insecurity Predicament (Stanford University Press 2010).
The Warrior State is published by OUP
in hardback, priced in local currencies.
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