Gabriel García Márquez, Weird and wonderful words

Weird and wonderful words - Think you know your princocks from your jobbernowls? Test your knowledge of English exoticisms


Gabriel García Márquez masterpiece tops poll of world literature By Alison Flood on Books
One Hundred Years of Solitude has most shaped world literature over the past 25 years, says survey. Gabriel García Márquez's seminal novel One Hundred Years of Solitude is the piece of writing that has most shaped world literature over the past 25 years, according to a survey of international writers. Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father, also makes an appearance on the list of favourite works chosen by fellow writers. Indra Sinha, Blake Morrison, Amit Chaudhuri and 22 other authors were asked to pick the title that they felt had most influenced world writing over the past quarter-century. The survey was conducted by the international literary magazine Wasafiri – meaning "cultural traveller" in Swahili – which celebrates its 25th anniversary today.

Remembering David Hawkes - The Oxford academic carried a Chinese masterpiece across cultural boundaries and presented it to British eyes and minds in its original flavour
Returning to London after summer break, I was shocked to learn of the passing of David Hawkes. An Oxford scholar of classical Chinese literature, he was renowned for his translation of a much-loved Chinese literary classic, A Dream of Red Mansions - or The Story of the Stone, as he translated it.

Daniyal Mueenddin reads A Spoiled Man - An old man arrives at the gates of the Harouni's holiday home in A Spoiled Man. Daniyal Mueenuddin reads the final story from his collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

MIDEAST: Jerusalem Palestinians Defining Their Own Future By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler - EAST JERUSALEM, Sep 25 (IPS) - Almost a year ago a barely noticed event took place in Sawarha, a Palestinian neighbourhood in the Israeli-occupied part of the city.

Brodner's Cartoon du Jour: Migraine Liberals - By By Steve Brodner on Steve Brodner
The recently departed Irving Kristol claimed that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. The implication of this is that liberals, so concerned with the problems of others, enter a whole new world when they suddenly experience fear and pain themselves. And there is an ugly racial tinge to this which we can talk about another time. Anyway, this comes up now because of a recent Talk piece in The New Yorker on Cindy McCain. She, apparently, has been suffering from migraines for many years. As described in the article, this is a very debilitating condition. It gets so bad that she finds it at times completely immobilizing. This is an awful thing to come to anyone. Anybody who reads this piece has to admire her courage to go public and reveal the truth about this condition, long kept too quiet. Toward the end of the piece it mentions her crusading for congressional action for research. She says, "For the first time in my life, I'm going to go to Congress, and I'm going to be tenacious and be forceful and be honest and tell them that it's time. If you can give five million dollars to study flatulence in cows and its effects on the ozone layer, you can give me some money for migraine research." This is a good thing. But it got me wondering: "You want help from the GOVERNMENT now?" I started thinking about Nancy Reagan and her battle for funding for Alzheimer's, Bob Dole and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The minute a personal problem becomes too big for the folks on top, they become like the rest of us: looking for collective action. It seems that a variation of the Kristol statement can be true. A liberal is a conservative with a migraine.