The Quotation of the Week (May 3 - 9, 2020)

Amazon Launches Its Audiobook Website 'Audible' in Canada

L-R: Don Katz, the CEO of the Audible, novelist Margaret Attwood, and Elizabeth Moss, an actor of The Handmaid' Tale, at the Audible-launching ceremony in Toronto

Photo © Jerome D'Costa

Amazon's audiobook website, Audible, was launched yesterday with the partial reading of novelist Margaret Atwood's book The Handmaid's Tale in a morning ceremony at the Union Station of Toronto.

In Canada, audiobooks will be available from: audible.ca/                              

For more, please read: Margaret Atwood and Elizabeth Moss reunite, have words in Toronto (Sept. 3, 2017)

'Roktim Polash': A Book of Poems by Moon Rozario

Roktim Polash, a book of poems, by Moon Rozario

 Moon Rozario’s Roktim Polash (meaning 'red Polash flower', having the scientific name of butea monosperma) is a book of Bangla (Bengali) language poems, published by Jolark of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

This book is a collection of 71 poems, ranging from agony, hope, love and God to poet’s surroundings, seasons and persons around her. 

Her reflections  and feelings are expressed in her poems. 

Besides poems, Moon Rozario also writes short stories and novels. She is a Christian poet hailing from Noakhali region of Bangladesh.

Canadian Short Story Writer Alice Munro Wins 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature

Alice Munro, Canadian short story writer and winner of 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature
Photo courtesy: www.news.nom.co

Alice Munro at her younger age

Photo courtesy: evelazarus.com/house-stories/alicemunro

 

Alice Munro by David Levine

 Image courtesy: The New York Review of Books

On October 10, Alice Munro, an 82-year old Canadian short story writer, has won this year’s Nobel prize in literature for her total work in short story writing. The Nobel committee mentioned her as the “master of the contemporary short story.” 

Known in Canada as the “Canadian Chekhov,” after the Russian master story writer Anton Chekhov, Alice Munro has made a name in both Canada and USA.  Her Nobel prize win was welcomed everywhere in Canada. 

She is the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is the thirteenth woman in the world to win this particular prize. When the Canadian Press contacted her, her reaction was: “I knew I was in the running, yes, but I never thought I would win.”

Alice Munro was a regular writer of the magazines of The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Grand Street, Mademoiselle, and The Paris Review. 

Born at Wingham in southwestern Ontario, Alice Munro, in her long writing career, has received more than a dozen prizes and recognitions from different countries, including Canada.

A hand-written letter of Alice Munro

 Image courtesy: The Vancouver Sun

  
 Reactions on Munro's Win

Many people reacted enthusiastically at the Nobel Prize win of Alice Munro. They can be read at: Canadian authors cheer Alice Munro's Nobel Prize win.    

 Alice Munro's Books

• Dance of the Happy Shades (1968)

• Lives of Girls and Women (1971)

• Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You (1974)

• Who Do You Think You Are? (1978) [Published as The Beggar Maid in the USA]

• The Moons of Jupiter (1982)

• The Progress of Love (1986)

• Friend of My Youth (1990)

• Open Secrets (1994)

• Selected Stories (1996)

• The Love of a Good Woman (1998)

• Queenie (Storycuts) (1999)

• Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001)

• No Love Lost (2003)

• Vintage Munro (2004)

• Runaway (2004)

• The View from the Castle Rock (2006)

• Carried Away: A Selection of Stories (2006)

• Away from Her (2007)

• Tricks (2008)

• Alice Munro’s Best (2008)

• Too Much Happiness (2009)

• My Best Stories (2009)

• New Selected Stories (2011)

 Appraisal of Alice Munro's Works

The New York Times in piece gave an appraisal of the Nobel laureate's works. It can be accessed at: An Appraisal: Master of the Intricacies of the Human Heart and Writers on Munro.


Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize Win a Slap on David Gilmour’s Bias

A National Post cartoon (Toronto: Oct. 11, 2013)

David Gilmour, a visiting University of Toronto professor of English Literature and an award-winning author, created a firestorm after an interview with the Hazlitt literary magazine where he said that he doesn’t teach books by women or Chinese authors because he is interested in “serious heterosexual guys.”

In the interview of September 25, 2013, he said: “I teach modern short fiction to third and first year students. So I teach mostly Russian and American authors. Not much on the Canadian front. But I can only teach stuff I love. I can’t teach stuff that I don’t, and I haven’t encountered any Canadian writers yet that I love enough to teach.”     

He further said: “I’m not interested in teaching books by women. Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories…Unfortunately none of those happen to be Chinese, or women…I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth.”

Some readers became furious at this news. Some accused him of being arrogant, sexist, racist and homophobic. In reply to the National Post daily, he said: “There isn’t a racist or a sexist bone in my body,’ and his quote was taken out of context. Then the Hazlitt magazine published the complete unedited transcript of the interview showing the real Gilmour in his own words.

After Alice Munro, a woman Canadian writer, won the Nobel Prize for Literature, her Canadian fans have been coming after David Gilmour with their claws on.

The Quotation of the Week (December 30, 2012 - January 5, 2013)

A quotation of Leo Tolstoy on 'writer,' compiled by Jerome D'Costa

Photo of a dance of light (Toronto: April 5, 2012) © Jerome D'Costa

The Quotation of the Week (September 23-29, 2012)

A quotation of Benjamin Franklin on "writing,' compiled by Jerome D'Costa

Photo (An outdoor light in Toronto: Oct. 15, 2011) © Jerome D'Costa

Dr. Humayun Ahmed (1948-2012): The First Pop-writer of Bangladesh

Dr. Humayun Ahmed -- the most popular writer in Bangladesh

Photo courtesy: Reflections (blog)

Dr. Humayun Ahmed, who died on July 19 in a New York hospital, was the first pop-writer (popular writer) of Bangladesh. Before his books started to appear in the Bangladesh book market, writers of Bengali books from West Bengal of India dominated the field. It can be said with certainty that Dr. Humayun Ahmed, not only broke the monopoly of Indian books but also unilaterally created a new breed of readers, especially among the teens and youths. This readership also expanded to the elder ones with his creation of teleplays and films.

Dr. Ahmed was a writer, novelist, script writer for TV and film, and film director. He excelled in all these fields and gathered millions of admirers and fans.

Some of my sons were also his book readers and admirers. In early 1990s, we went to the Ekushey February book fair at the Bangla Academy compound in Dhaka and bought one his books from a stall where he was sitting and requested for his autograph on it. Dr. Humayun Ahmed, who looked serious and who had a smoker’s lips – darkened and unattractive – signed the books without any expression or smile!  In appearance, he looked completely the opposite of what one pictures him mentally from reading his books and watching his teleplays and films -- a congenial and humorous person.

Dr. Ahmed, a prolific writer, unprecedented in the history of Bangladesh, wrote more than 200 novels, over 100 teleplays -- including some drama serials, and more than a half-a-dozen film scripts. He also directed eight films. Unbeknown to many, he was an amateur painter, who, in the last 10 years, painted more than 500 paintings – mostly in watercolour – which were never exhibited or sold. 

Once he was a professor of and an expert in chemistry, yet he made a foul in mental chemistry of his married life. In one of his books for children, he had profusely praised his wife, Gultekin, for her dedication and love and his three daughters and a son for their lovableness. After 30 years of marriage, he left his wife and looked for a greener pasture. He went after his TV drama serial actress Meher Afroz Shaon -- a teen friend of his teenage daughter -- and married her in 2005 and sired two more sons. 

Although he had a fair share of his critics, Dr. Humayun Ahmed, has definitely earned a place in the Bengali literature of Bangladesh and he will continue to live among his readers through his innumerable books. The presence of thousands of mourners at his funeral proves his popularity in Bangladesh.

A Short Life-Sketch

 Born on November 13, 1948, at the village of Kutubpur of Netrakona District, Bangladesh, Dr. Humayun Ahmed passed the Secondary School Certificate exams from Bogra Zilla School (1965), Higher Secondary Certificate from Dhaka College (1967), and B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of Dhaka, and Ph.D. in polymer chemistry from the North Dakota State University in Fargo of North Dakota, USA (1982).

He received many awards and prizes for his work in literature, TV and film.

The Quotation of the Week (January 29 - February 4, 2012)

Design (Toronto: Jan. 28, 2012) © Jerome D'Costa

The Poem of the Month (March, 2010): WRITING

_

'Writer's block' is a jargon used by writers. It is the situation of a writer, who, for some reasons, lose his or her ability to write -- that is, no writing is produced. There may be physical (health condition, busy schedule and so on) or psychological reasons for it. Writer's block can range from temporary to long-time. Accomplished writers may also suffer from this condition. Many writers can get over this situation and start writing again. There are few writers who can't get over their writer's block; they completely stop producing any more writing.

In the late '80s, I was facing a kind of 'writer's block' for a time due to busy schedules. At the time, after much coaxing from the editor, I produced the above poem in Bangla (Bengali) and it was published in Doel, a collection of mini-poems, in Dhaka. I provide below the English translation of it.

Writing

By Jerome D'Costa

I want to write.

I will write.

I will definitely write.

But I can't write.

I just cannot write.

I cannot write at all.