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The UK edition of the bestseller The Red Wrath released

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 21:13

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Asif was a young boy growing up in Afghanistan during a period of political turmoil, where women do not have the freedom to speak out and are forced into arranged marriages.

Lost Rudyard Kipling poems published

Wednesday, 27 February 2013 16:54

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More than 50 unpublished poems by Rudyard Kipling have been discovered by a US scholar.

Thomas Pinney found the manuscripts in a number of places including a Manhattan House that was being renovated and among the papers of a former head of the Cunard Line.

Pinney described it as a "tremendously exciting time for scholars and fans".

The poems will be published alongside 1,300 others in the first ever complete edition of Kipling's verse on 7 March.

Kipling, who lived from 1865 to 1936, was best known for his fictional short stories including The Jungle Book and poems Mandalay and If.

The newly discovered poems include several from World War I, including one titled Never Again In Any Port, as well as notes from a journal the writer kept on a tour of the war graves of Belgium and France in 1924.

Pinney, a professor of English at the University of California, said: "Kipling has long been neglected by scholars probably for political reasons. His texts have never properly been studied but things are starting to change.

"There is a treasure trove of uncollected, unpublished and unidentified work out there. I discovered another unrecorded item only recently and that sort of thing will keep happening."

One poem from 1899 comprises a diatribe against media intrusion titled The Press, which was one of Kipling's pet hates, echoing present day worries.

He wrote: "Had you friend a secret / Sorrow, shame or vice - / Have you promised not to tell / What's your lowest price? / All the housemaid fancied / All the butler guessed / Tell it to the public press / And we will do the rest."

There was also Kipling's comic verse, including an example written on a ship sailing from Adelaide to Ceylon, Sri Lanka, which is thought to have been read aloud by Kipling to those around him.

"It was a ship of the P&O / Put forth to sail the sea," he wrote, going on to show his frustration with the pace of the liner. "The children played on the rotten deck / A monthly growing band / Of sea-bred sin born innocents / That never knew the land."

Linda Bree, arts and literature editorial director at Cambridge University Press, said: "Kipling's If is one of the most popular poems in the English language, but this edition shows that he wrote much else to entertain, engage and challenge readers."

Kipling was born in Mumbai, India, and moved to England with his family when he was five years old.

For much of the 20th Century, his reputation was damaged by his jingoistic imperialist views, with George Orwell describing him as "a prophet of British imperialism".

Inspirational French writer Stephane Hessel dies at 95

Wednesday, 27 February 2013 15:12

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Stephane Hessel, the former French Resistance fighter whose 2010 manifesto Time for Outrage inspired social protesters, has died aged 95.

Hessel died overnight, his wife Christiane Hessel-Chabry told France's AFP news agency in Paris.

A German by birth, he was imprisoned in Nazi camps during World War II for his activities in France.

In Time for Outrage, he called for a new form of "resistance" to the injustices of the modern world.

To create is to resist, to resist is to create”

Stephane Hessel

He expressed outrage at the growing gap between haves and have-nots, France's treatment of illegal immigrants and damage to the environment.

The Indignados protest movement in Spain was inspired by Hessel's manifesto, according to Spanish media.

The 95-year-old's name was the top trending term on Twitter in Spain and France on Wednesday morning, as admirers paid tribute with quotes such as: "To create is to resist, to resist is to create."

French President Francois Hollande said he had learnt "with great sadness" about Hessel's death.

"His capacity for indignation knew no bounds other than those of his own life," he said in a statement. "As that comes to an end, he leaves us a lesson: to refuse to accept any injustice."

Camp survivor

Born of Jewish origin on 20 October 1917 in Berlin, Hessel arrived in France at the age of eight.

His parents Franz and Helen Hessel (born Grund) inspired two of the characters in Francois Truffaut's classic romantic film Jules And Jim.

A naturalised French citizen from 1939, Hessel became a prominent Resistance figure, says French news agency AFP. He was arrested by the Gestapo and later sent to the Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps.

After the war, Hessel worked as a French diplomat at the UN, where he was involved in compiling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

However some, like the French Jewish activist Gilles-William Goldnadel, have accused him of exaggerating his role in the work.

According to Mr Goldnadel, France's leftist press idealised the former Resistance fighter, a strong critic of Israeli policy, as a "secular saint".

Hessel's diplomatic postings also included Vietnam in the 1950s and Algeria in the 1960s.

In France, he took up the cause of illegal immigrants and championed the rights of the oppressed.

Time for Outrage, which has sold more than 4.5m copies in 35 countries, argues that the French need to again become outraged like those who participated in the wartime Resistance.

Whether Hessel inspired the global Occupy movement, as some have argued, is more open to debate.

‘THE SPANISH HOLOCAUST’

Monday, 25 February 2013 00:24

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The brutal, murderous persecution of Spaniards between 1936 and 1945 is a truth that should have been told long ago.

Paul Preston here offers the first comprehensive picture of what he terms “the Spanish Holocaust”: the mass extra-judicial murders of some 200,000 victims, cursory military trials, torture, the systematic abuse of women and children, sweeping imprisonment and the horrors of exile.

By Paul Preston

Published by

Harper Press

Myanmar's first literary festival kicks off in Yangon

Monday, 04 February 2013 19:25

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Another big first for Myanmar this weekend -- from February 1-3, Yangon is hosting the inaugural Irrawaddy Literary Festival, which will feature sessions by local and international writers.

As recently as 2010, this event never would have been possible due to tight visa restrictions and the fact the festival's patron, Aung San Suu Kyi, was still under house arrest.

“I am delighted to lend my support and personal participation to this first Irrawaddy Literary Festival," the Myanmar democracy icon said in a statement.

"Literature has always been a big part of my life and I hope this festival, which brings together some of the finest talent from Burma (Myanmar), the United Kingdom and elsewhere will encourage more people to explore the world of literature and further their understanding of the English language.”

Among notable names taking part: Jung Chang, author of the best-selling books "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China" and "Mao: The Unknown Story;" Scottish best-selling historian William Dalrymple; and Fergal Keane, Orwell Prize winning author of "Season of Blood."

For the full list of participating authors and sessions, which will be held in both English and Burmese, visit Irrawaddylitfest.com.