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Stieg Larsson’s View of Scandinavia’s Far Right
Swedish author Stieg Larsson depicted the world of far right extremists in his fiction.
Finally, Proof that Fiction is Good for You
In this week’s World in Words podcast, researchers test the supposed link between reading fiction and empathy.
Larsson’s last city
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We get literary for today’s Geo Quiz. We are looking for the city the 50-year-old Steig Larsson was living and working in, in 2004 when he died of a heart attack. Download MP3
World Books Review: From Iran and Japan, Two Modern Visions of Horror
Thankfully, these fascinating short novels, while they provide plenty of genuine scares, transcend the grisly genre of “ghost stories” or “tales of madness,” partly because their authors self-consciously manipulate staid spine-tingling formulas.
World Books Review: Tom McCarthy’s C
Catastrophic, consummate, and above all, cryptic
For all of the faults of this novel, which is on the shortlist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, one can’t help but keep turning the pages. Author Tom McCarthy explores a darkness that is unpleasant, tedious, and disturbing, but also timely and fascinating. >>Read Tommy Wallach’s review
World Books Review: A Norwegian Ghost Story
Winner of this year’s prestigious International Ibsen Award, Norwegian writer Jon Fosse is considered one of Europe’s finest living playwrights. Yet he is virtually unknown in America. Judging from this compelling novella, the neglect is not deserved.
World Books Review: A Masterpiece From Israel
Israeli novelist David Grossman’s new book is rooted in a reality so vivid, is so radiant with life, and is so precise in its delineation of its characters that it would be an important addition to the world’s literature at any time. But its publication now, when leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Territories are trying to broker a lasting peace, makes it required reading in a way few novels ever are.
Global Political Cartoons: September 4 – 10, 2010
How an obscure Florida pastor managed to get the world’s attention by his plan to burn the Koran on the anniversary of September 11th. President Obama tries to kick-start the economy; and Google knows what you’re thinking.
World Books Review: A Welcome ‘Return’ to Form
What’s impressive about the thirteen stories in this volume is the coherence of Roberto Bolaño’s vision. Though the tales take place in different countries and different time periods, though some are straight fiction, some are vaguely autobiographical, and some even drift towards magical realism, each new yarn feels like a chapter in a continuous narrative.
World Books Review: The Mad Bad Moralist
The collection’s choice of writings by the late 18th century Teutonic bad boy Heinrich von Kleist is streamlined, yet carefully balanced, giving readers a neatly packed sampling of his necessary lunacy, narrative brilliance, and the far-reaching vision that influenced Freud, Thomas Mann, and Franz Kafka.
World Books Review: Mao and the Chess Master
In one of the novellas in this fine, powerful collection, acclaimed Chinese writer Ah Cheng probes chess much as the best of Western writers have. What’s more, these stories, which first appeared in the mid-1980s, changed the course of his country’s literature by challenging Maoist conformity.
World Books Review: An uneven ‘Storm’
Writers and readers are drawn to natural disasters because they create an urgency that usually makes for compelling reading. But this novel about one of the worst natural disasters in the history of The Netherlands, while it contains wonderful set pieces, is a brilliant idea that never becomes more than that — a brilliant idea.
World Books Review: Cruel Intentions
In fiction, cruelty can be exploited for its shock valve or used to make a point. These two novels, “Beside the Sea” from France, “Rien Ne Va Plus” from Greece, illustrate both choices.
World Books Review: A Turkish Delight
The latest novel (now in paperback) from Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk centers on a wealthy Istanbul man who goes against convention and chooses a life governed by passion. The book also proffers a profound depiction of Istanbul, a city whose identity is symbolized by the Bosphorus—a bridge between the Middle East and Europe, Muslim and Christian, traditional and secular. What results is an urban portrait recalling the grimness of Dostoyevsky’s St. Petersburg and the romanticism of Proust’s Paris.
World Books Review: An Australian Masterpiece
Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley’s celebrated Vera Wright trilogy, available here in its entirety for the first time, memorably explores the infinite intricacies of the human heart.
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