By Frances Allan

A new website will be launched today in a bid to get more people thinking about the poetry in their lives.

www.carryapoem.com will support a campaign which will be launched in February by the UNESCO City of Literature Trust.

The new campaign will encourage people to think about the poetry in their lives, and will feature a new poetry anthology published.

A Robert Burns poem will feature in the anthology. Credit: Enned

As well as the work of 25 poets, the anthology will contain stories from Scots about their love for these poems and how they carry these poems with them – whether it be in their purse, on a bookmark or knowing it off by heart.

As well as the new website, the City of Literature Trust will host a series of school events which will encourage children to engage with poetry.

The schools will also receive free poetry books and will be taught a number of new and unusual ways to have poetry in their everyday lives.

In February there will be a series of yet-to-be-announced high-profile events as well as poetry readings, talks and discussions with poets and also craft workshops to demonstrate the ways in which poetry can be used in arts and crafts.

This will all tie-in with World Book Day on 4 March 2010.

By Frances Allan

Written 13th March 2008

In the last two weeks, 10,000 free copies of R.L Stevenson’s classic, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde have been handed out to people all across Edinburgh, to celebrate Edinburgh as the UNESCO World City of Literature.

This is  part of the One Book – One Edinburgh campaign and in conjunction with World Book Day.

But what does all this mean for the City of Edinburgh? World Book Day on 6^th March saw thousands of school children being given book tokens to encourage reading for both pleasure and learning and has been celebrated in over 100 countries worldwide.

The title of City of Literature is well deserved for Edinburgh, with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), handing out this title for the first time to a city which, like the Jekyll and Hyde story, is a city of many characters.

credit: cityofliterature.com

Edinburgh has long been a city which has been a cultural capital for its architecture and history, but its literary scene is less well-known, yet dates backs for many years.

Dr Linda Dryden is heavily involved with the One Book – One Edinburgh campaign and an expert on gothic literature. She said: “This means that Edinburgh is being recognised at an international level, although there’s not as much money behind it as being pronounced City of Culture”

She continued: “It recognises Scottish literature in general, not just previous literature but up and coming writers too.”

The title was awarded to Edinburgh in 2006 and since then a host of campaigns and activities have been happening across the city, last year for the One Book – One Edinburgh campaign R.L.Stevenson’s book Kidnapped was used, to great success.

So what has Edinburgh got as a literary city? Well writers have been living here for hundreds of years, Sit Walter Scott’s Waverley novels were based in and around Edinburgh. The city also has many independent and national publishers based here, and many Literary Pub Tours run around the city, which are extremely successful.

The city is also home to many other famous writers, some of today’s best selling authors live in or have come from Edinburgh, Ian Rankin, Irvine Welsh, Alexander McCall-Smith and J.K.Rowling, who has adopted Edinburgh as her home and has inspired millions of children and adults to take on thick books with complex story lines, and famously finished the last book in the Harry Potter series in Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel.

Dr Dryden said: “Edinburgh has been a centre for publishing and literary activity for centuries, and it was felt we weren’t capitalising on that heritage. We had these big international authors living here and yet nothing was being done to celebrate that rich culture.”

The One Book – One Edinburgh campaign has seen many events across the city, poetry readings, plays of Jekyll and Hyde, Hyde & Seek, R.L.Stevenson Literary tours, discussions about the book and of course, the 10,000 free copies which were given out all across the city. Special graphic novels have also been written and drawn by Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, which have also been printed in large print and Gaelic.

The city of Edinburgh, credit: Alex Morrice

The City of Literature title has brought many people to the city and is bringing the attention of the worlds literary types to Edinburgh.

Dr Dryden said: “What Edinburgh has done with being the first bid, is show the way, we are the pioneers and it has opened the doors to other cities that have a literary culture.”

Other cities, such as Calcutta, are now bidding to get their own World City of Literature title after seeing how successful Edinburgh has been in winning its title and what it has done for the city. When more cities are given the title, they will be encouraged to take part in book-exchanges and other cross cultural literary initiatives.

Will the One Book – One Edinburgh campaigns actually encourage more people to read? It is debatable, when most of the free copies of Jekyll and Hyde are being given out in libraries, bookshops, and to reading groups, to people who are already reading, although maybe they would not have picked up Jekyll and Hyde.

Anna Burkey, from the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust said: “Much of our feedback suggests that people who have never read Stevenson, or rarely read, have enjoyed our campaign,”

Currently, there are 800,000 adults in Scotland with low levels of literacy, with 300,000 of these unemployed and 30% of Scottish adults believe their literacy and numeric skills to be inadequate.

“It is an extremely high accolade for Edinburgh to have received such a prestigious designation, given in recognition of all the literary activity that goes on throughout the city – at local and international levels,” Ms Burkey said.

She continued: “There is strong and growing interest from many other cities in the world to move to try and obtain this title themselves”

Following our success last year with having two illustrations in the World Book Day Book we have the chance to do even better this year. So, pens and pencils out and start writing and drawing.
The opening line for the story is…
“From a distance, Melton Chipsbury looked like any other quiet country village”
This year there is also a poetry competition and the opening lines for it are

The Garbage Monster

I’m a monster on a mission
To gobble up your waste…

There are no word limits this year but we can only send 10 entries and the closing date is Friday 13th November – unlucky for some but hopefully not for us!!

We can send 10 illustrations in black and white – it’s best to use the fineliners like we did last year.

So come on Class 4 and start putting all those creative skills together.

April experimental tWittering continued …

Some while ago I joined the Bloggers’ Big Read. Thanks to Dimitar and Val (bloggers) and all non-bloggers for sharing their favourite reads. It took one of my invitees Velqn a lot of time to share his favourite books, so in the meantime I though maybe he only reads blogs But on World Book Day (23 April) he intrigued me to read Jonathan Littell’s ‘The Kindly Ones’. Wonder how webdings  renders ‘read’, so he does read books in addition to web things:-) 

…in one book there could be more an entire world…

]]> http://soapboxdiaries.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/book-review/ Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:40:31 +0000 soapboxdiaries http://soapboxdiaries.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/book-review/

At this point in time I guess that it is apt that I do a book review, I do like reading and I see this time as better as any to do so. So here it goes:

My review today is on May on Motors, I’m about halfway through this book but have gotten enough of the gist of it to now what I’m talking about. Basically this book is all about cars as I hope that most of you would have gathered. The reason that I chose this book was not for the title, but for the author, James May. Out of all of the Top Gear presenters he is my favourite. The book features a good mix of humour and also gets down to some serious motoring, I would recommend it to anyone who would enjoy his style of humour (which you can easily pick up from Top Gear) and with a medium sized knowledge of motor cars, motor cycles and other forms of transit. Always with a good story to tell May gives in depth analysis on a wide range of vehicles and can always relate to a story of his own. I like this in a person, the type of person who has life experience and his opion should count greatly.  James writes weakly coloums for The Daily Telegraph and I highly recommend those too. His book is published at Virgin Books and can be purchased at: http://www.virginbooks.co.uk/title.php?rnd=qAOMpCcY8U/e7jz2sSTEC9LAcPXbNpv9cIawSeyyC20%3D The selling price is £7.99 which is very reasonable

Of to read some more cheers!

Today’s World Book and Copyright Day. When I was pondering what to write for this occasion I ran through a few book titles, starting with my own novel, Hitler and Mars Bars. And that got me thinking – about ‘and’. Ever noticed how many book titles use the word ‘and’ to pair two words or phrases? There’s quite a few. Places, people, objects, emotions – lots of things can be linked.

How many books can you name that use this structure for their title?

Here’s some familiar ones, classic and contemporary:

Crime and Punishment

Pride and Prejudice

The Sound and the Fury

The Old Man and the Sea

Heart and Soul

How about some less familiar ones?

The Root and the Flower

The Well and the Mine

Mules and Men

Shaken and Stirred

Protect and Defend

Pond Lake and Paris

How many others can you add to my list?

I love finding interesting book titles. If a title grabs me, I’m more likely to pick up the book and read it. What do you think makes a memorable book title?

Happy St George's Weekend by xerones

image credit: xerones on Flickr

April the twenty third

All told, 23rd of April is quite a busy date. It’s World Book Day and the anniversary of the deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare. If you agree with Isaac Newton it is the date upon which Jesus Christ was probably crucified and, of course, it’s St George’s Day.

As saints go, George ranks in the very highest bracket. He’s venerated in England, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Aragon and Catalonia as the resident saint. He is also the patron saint of soldiers, chivalry, farmers and fieldworkers. Boy scouts are instructed to direct their thoughts towards him as are butchers and saddlers, and those that suffer from leprosy, plague or syphilis. Some have gone as far to claim that the Caucasian state Georgia actually derives its name from St. George, although, at closer inspection, the name probably stems from their word for farmer.

The man himself remains something of an enigma. Popular legend has him as a thorn in the side of Roman Emperor Diocletian, a favourite villain of the later Christian scribes. A pious man of noble birth he rose to the lofty position of a Roman cavalry officer before being captured and thrown into prison for his refusal to follow Diocletian’s orders and thereby persecuting his fellow Christians.

As the centuries rolled by, the cult of St George grew. Various anecdotes and colourful details were woven into his life story: tales that he had been tortured by the Romans before being executed and resurrected as many as three times swam through Dark Age folklore. One particularly imaginative fifth century scribe named Theodotus, claimed that St George was the stoic recipient of seven long years of torture, a worst moments of which he details here:

‘And they pounded him on a stone slab until the whole of his body and his bones were crushed to pulp … they beat his head with a hammer and with a rod of iron until his brains protruded through his nose … then the wicked king commanded them to bring a great iron saw and to saw him down the middle of his head and his belly and his feet .’

All stirring stuff, I’m sure you’d agree, and throughout the Dark Ages George saw his reputation explode into a hailstorm of myth and legend. Indeed, the clamour for a scrap of his legacy was well in evidence by the 8th Century when, it was claimed, that there were at least five of his heads in existence – one of which was the prized trophy of Pope Zacharias who had ‘amazed and delighted the credulous denizens of Rome by ‘finding’ a head of St George in the decaying Lateran palace.’

Later on one particularly vivid legend gained great and lasting popularity. It told of how St George, astride an ivory white horse, had slain a fire-spitting dragon to protect his people. The legend fitted perfectly with the image that Christians sought – and when an account of the escapade was published in written form in Legenda Santorum, an early book that chronicled the lives of saints, Saint George achieved lasting fame.

In England St George remained a national celebrity well into the Middle Ages. And it’s telling that in his moment of most dreadful peril on the fields of Agincourt, Shakespeare reached for the legacy of Saint George to inspire an English victory, giving King Henry V the immortal lines:

‘I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot: Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge Cry God for Harry, England and St George.’

*

An interesting antidote to all of this excitement comes from Edward Gibbon in his clean cut classic, The Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire. He claimed that if there ever was such a character as St George, then he was probably a 4th century bishop named George of Cappadocia. Far from being a valiant Christian tearaway, this George lived the most base of existences. He began his life as a self-motivated cloth worker from southern Turkey who rose to prominence by stealth and due, in the main, to his luck to have landed a lucrative contract supplying the Roman Army with bacon. He ended his life not brave and martyred, but cruel and avaricious, Gibbon wrote:

‘His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice.’

Whatever the truth, whether he was a bone fide dragon slayer or corrupt pork salesman, Saint George became one of the most celebrated figures in Christian history. Today he retains a formidable presence across Iberia where St. George’s Day is celebrated with national holidays in Portugal, Aragon and Catalonia. In Barcelona you can find a particularly vibrant tradition.

On the morning of the 23rd April, street hucksters appear at the entrances to metro stations and makeshift stalls are swiftly assembled, lining the long stretch of La Rambla. Couples stroll along the streets in the spring sunshine, searching for a gift for one another. Tradition dictates that the men should buy their girlfriend or wife a red rose, whilst she would present him with a book in return. In a country fond of overt and spectacular cultural displays, there is something subtle and appealing about the Catalan celebration of La Diada de Sant Jordi.

A strange curiosity is that the English barely celebrate St. George’s Day at all. Most people treat the day with cool reserve and, for the most part, it passes without so much as the shy squeak of a spinster’s fart. When the Daily Mail, a newspaper so right wing that it makes Hitler look like a liberal, attempted to whip up national sentiment in 2006 by claiming that St George’s Day was on the verge of being scrapped it failed to make an impression at all. It appears that the English seem to have lost their passion for their patron saint.

If it’s a problem, then it can only be solved by herding up all the people back home and getting Ryan Air to fly them over to Barcelona for the day. An odd move perhaps, but it’s probably the best way of getting us all to rediscover our cultural heritage.

Hari ini merupakan hari yang telah diisytiharkan sebagai Hari Buku Sedunia (HBS). Pada 23 April setiap tahun semua masyarakat menyambutnya. Sememangnya, masyarakat di negara-negara Barat tidak asing berkenaan dengan tarikh ini.

Walau bagaimanapun, di Malaysia kemungkinan pada tarikh ini kurang diberi perhatian oleh generasi muda mahupun yang ‘veteran’ kerana budaya membaca di kalangan rakyat kita yang masih di tahap semaian berbanding dengan negara yang maju seperti Perancis, Jerman dan negara Eropah yang lain. Ramai yang tidak peka dengan peristiwa ini jika dibandingkan dengan 14 Februari yang dimeriahkan oleh pasangan sedang hangat bercinta iaitu Valentine Day.

Namun begitu, menurut kajian Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia (PNM) bahawa rakyat Malaysia hanya membaca 2 helai muka surat setahun harus diberi perhatian. Adakah benar kajian ini? Jika dilihat dari segi masa sekarang dapat dilihat bagaimana masyarakat Malaysia sudah mula membudayakan pembacaan dalam kehidupan seharian. Buktinya, setiap bulan April sambutan Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur diadakan, sambutan begitu menggalakkan daripada rakyat Malaysia sehingga mencecah lebih sejuta pengunjung sepanjang pesta ini berlangsung. Di sini, terhimpunnya segala jenis ilmu dan maklumat melalui buku. Kesempatan itu juga, pengunjung dapat berkenalan dengan penulis kesayangan mereka. Sememangnya, penulis di Malaysia sudah mempunyai peminat mereka tersendiri. Ini membuktikan bahawa kajian yang dilakukan oleh PNM sudah tidak boleh digunapakai lagi. Seiring dengan peredaran masa dan perkembangan teknologi, masyarakat kita sudah mula semakin celik mengenai dunia pembacaan dan perbukuan dalam kehidupan.

Kemajuan teknologi melalui blog misalnya, telah memberi satu lembaran baru kepada peminat buku dengan menjadikan ruangan ini sebagai satu medan dan pusat perhimpunan untuk berkongsi maklumat dengan golongan yang mempunyai kegemaran yang sama. Melaluinya, perkenalan secara maya ini mencambahkan perkongsian pengalaman dan pengetahuan antara satu sama lain sehingga mewujudkan satu komuniti mereka tersendiri sebagaimana Malaysia@Goodreads. Setiap isi buku didedahkan melalui resensi di blog masing-masing. Ini memberi peluang kepada pengunjung untuk mengetahui daya tarikan sesebuah buku itu seolah-olah ruangan ini dijadikan sebagai gelanggang mempromosi atau pencetus minat kepada individu yang belum membedahi isi buku tersebut agar turut sama-sama menghayatinya.

Maka, media adalah wahana yang terbaik untuk menyebarkan dan memeriahkan sambutan 23 April di negara kita. Mungkin ada yang masih tidak tahu dengan sambutan ini kerana kurangnya pendedahan oleh media berbanding sambutan lain. Sehubungan itu, seiring dengan kemeriahan PBAKL09 yang sedang berlangsung kini,  SELAMAT HARI BUKU SEDUNIA untuk semua warga Malaysia dan semoga indeks pembacaan rakyat semakin meningkat setiap tahun seiring dengan rakan-rakan kita di negara maju.

Today “World Book & Copyright Day”: 23rd Apil

World Book and Copyright Day (also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days) is a yearly event on 23 April, The Day was first celebrated in 1995 by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing and copyright. UNESCO hoped that by introducing a day like this, they would help young people discover the pleasure of reading and pay tribute to some amazing authors in history. More than 100 countries will take part on 23 April in the 14th celebration of World Book and Copyright Day. Publishers, book shops, libraries, schools, cultural institutions and authors’ societies from all over the world have undertaken to celebrate the Day and promote the enduring importance of books. The day is a symbolic date in world literature marking the birth of noted writers William Shakespeare. It is hoped that this will lead to the renewed respect for those who have made irreplaceable contributions to social and cultural progress. The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia where on 23 April, Saint George’s Day, a rose is traditionally given as a gift for each book sold.

Many Book shops celebrate the day by offering   special discounts or plan for felicitations of authors over the week.    

More About Copyright

Copyright provides legal rights exclusively given for a definite period to the creators of an intellectual work, e.g. literary works (anything in writing), artistic works (drawings, maps, plans etc.), musical works, films, sound recordings, computer programs (source and object code) for sale or any other use. It is, in principle, not concerned with things that are not perceivable, such as abstract ideas, concepts and the like. Copyright protection begins when works are actually created and fixed in a tangible form. The emerging digital technology, increasing use of computers, communication technology and their convergence into an integrated information technology, have given rise to challenging legal issues for copyright and many more are expected in the future. The ease of distribution, altering digital information and the proliferation of computer networking, raise concerns about copyright. Copyright was designed for three basic reasons: to reward creators for their original works; to encourage availability of the works to the public; and to facilitate access and use of copyrighted works by the public in certain circumstances.

What is copyright?

According to India Copyright Office “Copyright is a right given by the law to creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and producers of cinematograph films and sound recordings. In fact, it is a bundle of rights including, inter alia, rights of reproduction, communication to the public, adaptation and translation of the work. There could be slight variations in the composition of the rights depending on the work.”

Copyright can be defined as a person’s exclusive right to authorize certain acts (such as reproduction, publication, public performance, adaptation etc.) in relation to his or her original work of authorship. The creator of the work typically owns the copyright, at least initially. However, copyright is often sold or assigned, in whole or in part, to a commercial publisher, a filmmaker, a recording studio or to someone else who will exploit the work commercially. As a consequence, copyright often benefits commercial interests more than individual authors.

Copyright law has long emphasised that copyright protection does not exist for its own sake but rather to serve the public interest. To take one prominent example, the Constitution of the United States declares that the purpose of copyright in that country is: ‘To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.’ Similarly, the world’s first copyright law, the English Statute of Anne (1710) stated that its purpose was to ‘encourage learning.’

Copyright registration is invaluable to a copyright holder who wishes to take a civil or criminal action against the infringer. Registration formalities are simple and the paperwork is least. In case, the work has been created by a person other than employee, it would be necessary to file with the application, a copy of the assignment deed.

One of the supreme advantages of copyright protection is that protection is available in several countries across the world, although the work is first published in India by reason of India being a member of Berne Convention. Protection is given to works first published in India, in respect of all countries that are member states to treaties and conventions to which India is a member. Thus, without formally applying for protection, copyright protection is available to works first published in India, across several countries. Also, the government of India has by virtue of the International Copyright Order, 1999, extended copyright protection to works first published outside India.

Indian perspective on copyright protection:

The Copyright Act, 1957 provides copyright protection in India. It confers copyright protection in the following two forms:

(A) Economic rights of the author, and
(B) Moral Rights of the author.

The copyright means exclusive right to do or authorise to do the following acts:

In the case of literary, dramatic or musical work:

• To reproduce the work in any material form, this includes storing it by electronic means;
• To perform the work in public or communicate it to the public;
• To make any cinematograph film or sound recording in respect of that work;
• To make any translation or adaption of the work or to do any of the above acts in respect to any translation or adaption of the work.

In the case of computer programmes:

• any of the acts specified above;
• to sell or rent commercially any copy of the computer programme.

In the case of artistic work:

• to reproduce the work in any material form, including depiction in 3-D (D: Dimension) of a 2-D work or in 2-D to 3-D work;
• to communicate the work to the public;
• to include the work in any cinematograph film;
• to make an adaption of the work and/or to do any of the work mentioned above in respect of adaption.

In the case of cinematograph film:

• to make a copy of the film, including a photograph of any images forming part of the film;
• to sell or hire any copy of the film;
• to communicate the film to the public.

In the case of sound recording:

• to make any sound recording embodying it;
• to sell or give on hire or offer for sale any copy of the sound recordings;
• to communicate the sound recording to the public.

Thus, Copyright in a work is not a single right, but it bundles several rights together, including a negative right. Broadly, these rights can be grouped as follows:

• the right of publication;
• the neighboring (related) rights;
• the right to prevent anybody from altering the content of the work that may damage the author’s reputation; and
• the right of authorship or the right of paternity.

For More Information on World Book and CopyRight Day Click Here

a couple of weeks ago i read about global voices book challenge on bint battuta’s blog. global voices along with unesco asked people to read their way around the world for unesco world book day which is today:

April 23 is UNESCO World Book Day – and just because the Global Voices team loves blogs, doesn’t mean we have forgotten other forms of the written word! In fact, because we think reading literature is such an enjoyable way to learn about another culture, we have a fun challenge for all Global Voices contributors and readers, and bloggers everywhere.

The Global Voices Book Challenge is as follows:

1) Read a book during the next month from a country whose literature you have never read anything of before.

2) Write a blog post about it during the week of April 23.

bint battuta seems to already have her book review up on her blog. she read mohamed makhzangi’s memories of a meltdown. she fudged the rules a bit and i am going to a lot. the rules say you must read a book from a country whose literature you have never read anything of before. but given the paucity of international literature in bookshops or in libraries in palestine i read a novel by palestinian novelist liana badr entitled the eye of the mirror or عين الوراة. i had started reading it a few months ago but got side-tracked with work so this was a great excuse to get back to it. the novel is set in tel al-za’atar refugee camp in lebanon from 1975-76 when it was besieged by lebanese kata’eb militias. liana badr, who is a journalist as well as a novelist, was in lebanon at the time and later spent seven years documenting the massacre in the camp. the novel was first published in arabic in morocco in 1991, although badr told me a few months ago that she wanted to publish it with al adab in lebanon and they told her that the censors would not approve its publication. i have read badr’s other translated novel, Balcony Over the Fakahani or شرفه على الفكهاني which is also quite moving and also set in lebanon during the civil war.

© Benno Karkabé, 1975

but this novel is different and really important for literary and historical reasons. while there is much written about the israeli-kata’eb massacre of shatila refugee camp and the surrounding sabra neighborhood, there is little to nothing written about the massacre of over 4,000 palestinians in tel al-za’atar refugee camp. unlike shatila, which still exists today, tel al-za’atar was destroyed and the 12,000 palestinian survivors fled to other refugee camps, many of them to nahr el bared refugee camp in northern lebanon until the lebanese army destroyed that camp in 2007. for those interested in the subject from an historical perspective i highly recommend anything by rosemary sayigh. and those who want to see some rare images from the camp you can check out benno karkabé’s photographs of which the image above is one. but the novel does an amazing job of chronicling the events in a lyrical way. jordanian novelist fadia faqir, one of my favorite writers, authored the introduction to the novel, and samira kawar translated it.

the novel focuses on a variety of characters, but most of the central characters are women. and she grounds the story from the first page in an oral tradition from scheherazade’s tales told to her husband in a thousand and one nights which she used to save her community from his wrath. thus the narrator opens the novel with a direct address to the readers telling us:

You are insistent, calling again. You want me to tell you the story of Scheherazade, who rocks the sad king on her knees as she sings him tales from wonderland. Yet you know that I am not Scheherazade, and that one of the world’s greatest wonders is that I am unable to enter my country or pass through the regions around it. Do not be surprised. Let us count them country by country. (1)

rendering strange the reality of palestinians inability to travel to–let alone return to!–their land gives the opening narration a bit of a fantastical feel, until she grounds the narrative in historical reality:

I begin with the tale of a girl or a woman. I tell perhaps of you and I, or of women and men whom I have never met. I tell of an alley, a street, a neighborhood or a city. Or perhaps of a camp, of a camp, of a Tal! Tal Ezza’tar for example…Now you shake your head reproachfully again, fearful that the story will turn into political rhetoric like the slogans we’ve become weary of. Your eyelids bat mockingly inmy face, hinting it is necessary to reassure you that what you fear will not happen. But I am compelled to begin with Ezza’tar, Tal Ezza’tar in particular, not only because of its poetic name, but for many reasons which I am under no obligation to reveal now. (2)

like scheherazade badr’s narrator makes it clear that she will tease us with the plot as a way to keep us as her interlocutors. she delays our understanding of characters, setting, and events letting them unravel as scheherazade famously did in a thousand and one nights. in the arabic version of the novel badr used palestinian dialect so the spellings of transliterated words in her novel reflect this accent (hence her spelling of the camp’s name). the novel opens with the protagonist, aisha, who is actually my least favorite character in the novel, who at the time is working as a maid at a lebanese christian boarding school outside the camp. she is called home from work by her parents because of the april 1975 massacre of palestinians on a bus in ain al roumaneh, but the we hear about the incident on the bus several times before we learn the context of it. the narrator tells us:

The bus. Perhaps if that massacre hadn’t happened, they would not have taken her out of school. Her mother used to say, “The bus,” wincing as though she were being struck on the forehead by a ray of very strong sunlight. She would lick her oval-shaped lips with her cracked tongue, panting as she moved the fingers of her right hand over her chest as though she were shaking imaginary dust from her wide dress.

“The bus. Woe is me. What a catastrophe! What a shame! What had the young men and the boys done to get killed in this way? Twenty of them, my dear. Twenty. That’s what your father said. They attacked them, bang, bang.” (8).

we don’t learn who was on the bus or what it means for aisha until later in the novel. the novel delays our understanding as readers, but also aisha’s as her character is a rather naive young woman who is relatively sheltered as compared to hana, a character i like much more. badr also delays our knowledge of the family’s flight from yaffa, their village of origin in palestine, through fairy tale narrative techniques such as the repetition of “once upon a time” as well as aisha’s fantasies about her prince charming, george haddad a nom de guerre for ahmed al-ashi, a member of the resistance with the democratic front for the liberation of palestine (dflp). george is originally from tulkarem, but he left to fight with the resistance in jordan and was expelled to lebanon in 1970 after black september with the rest of the freedom fighters. his friendship with aisha’s parents and the conversation he has with her family is often as a kind of teacher about life in palestine in ways that disrupt stereotypes about religious differences or the divide between rural and urban palestinians as a way to assert unity among palestinians as when he tutors aisha’s younger sister ibtisam:

Speaking to him again, she said: “Why d’you pronounce the ‘ka’ as a ‘cha’ when you speak? Aren’t you worried that your fiance’s family will think you’re a peasant?”

“I am a peasant.”

She jumped with joy at the strange news, which aroused her interest: “A real live peasant? does that mean that you plant and harvest the land?”

“I’m a peasant and the son of peasants. But I’ve no longer got any land to plant and harvest.”

“So how d’you make a living?”

“We’re just like everybody else. My brothers and sisters and I, each of us is homeless in a different country.” (58)

conversations such as this one, various characters remembering life in palestine, plot details about aisha’s deisre to marry george, and later her marriage to feda’ee hassan, and depictions of daily life in the camp cover the first half of the novel. the gap between the ain al roumaneh bus massacre and the eruption of a full-scale attack on tel al-za’atar camp, mimicking the lull in the characters’ daily lives as they try to carry on in between clashes. after aisha’s marriage to hassan his mother, um hassan, shares her family’s story one morning with her new daughter-in-law that encapsulates many of the family’s stories in the novel:

With an automatic strength, she held back her words, which had turned into something resembling the stone that one rubs before prayer, hoping to pierce it and squeeze out whatever water might be inside it when none is available for ablutions. But her overwhelming sadness broke through her silence, and she spoke once more: “Eh…We came out of Palestine. We were in the orchards picking olives when Assafsaaf, which was the nearest village to us, fell. The Haganah gangs slaughtered a lot of people, and also raped many women. My neighbor’s niece was slaughtered in front of her father. We had no arms. We thought it would be a good idea to leave for a short time so that what happened to the people of Assafsaaf and Ain Ezzeitoun, which King Abdullah had surrendered, and Deir Yassin would not happen to us. We went north. We didn’t see anything, and never looked back, because we were so sure that we would return a few days later. In Bint Jbeil, we found that the UN were putting people into cars and taking them to Burj Esh-Shemali. People were surviving on almost nothing. When it snowed on us in Burj Esh-Shmeali, they moved us to Nahr El-Barid in Tripoli.” (109)

um hassan’s story here serves both as historical memory–of slaughter and flight–and also as premonition for what will come to tel al-za’atar camp in the coming weeks and months. just as the narration shifts from one character to another so as to give a variety of perspectives from palestinian refugees’ experiences, so too does the narrator shift at times to a voice that inserts the author herself entering the narrative:

That was a sight I shall never forget. The day I managed to enter the camp of Tal Ezza’tar, being one of the few people who managed to reach it between two sieges, I saw the apples scattered around on the streets, their skins shrunken and wrinkled. But they had kept their pretty red colour. I had said to myself: “Ezza’tar? Why don’t they call it Attuffah?” At that moment my grandfather’s home in Wadi Attufah, the valley of apples, in Hebron flashed into my mind’s eye. And I remembered my mother, Hayat, in the mid-fifties. She had lived at my grandfather’s house temporarily before moving into the attic above the school, which was afflicted with measles and frost-bite. How innocent I had been. I went to my grandfather simply to tell him how I had heard my mother complaining to Hajjeh Salimah about the hassle and pain of living with my grandfather’s fourth wife. I had told him. I was three years old. My mother and Hajjeh Salimah had later accused me of blowing the whistle on her and reporting her grievances to the tribe elder, who wore a red tarboush with a silk tassle. But, what I want to say is this. Every place I saw later would always remind me of my birth place in Palestine. And in Tal Ezza’tar, I recalled Wadi Attuffah in the West Bank of Palestine. My amazement increased at the dry fruit littering the place like freckles on a face that has seen too much sun. Everybody was sitting in the sun, both old and young. They had all come out of the shelters, corridors and passages to get a touch of the amber rays. Old women with patterned tattoos on their faces, which had been acquired long before their arrival in this place. They sat with their grandchildren in their laps, while the women were busy airing the sheets and blankets in which the young ones had slept during the confinement. No one looked at the scattered fruits which covered the ground like stones forgotten since the beginning of creation. The car turned and went up into the Tal. At the clinic, I was able to meet Um Jalal and the doctor who worked there. When I told them that I had come to do a newspaper report on the steadfastness of the camp on the anniversary of the emergence of the resistance, people called one another from here and there and they spoke to me. (125-126)

insertions of passages like the one above in which we imagine badr as a character in the novel taking eyewitness accounts of the people of the camp adds historical weight to the narrative. and it is through her presence that we finally learn more about characters like hana who is one of the resistance fighters badr-as-character interviews:

Like a passing arrow, Hana, entered the clinic. They introduced her to me: “Hana, the bravest wireless operator in the entire camp. No one is quite like her. She does the night shift in the wireless room, and goes with the girls to her military positions.”

I looked at her. Her eyes were green, her hair was tied back in a pony tail. She had a feminine air despite the seriousness which her difficult assignments imparted to her. I asked her: “It’s unusual for a girl to be on duty at night all by herself!”

“I’m not afraid of the night. Sometimes I used to be on duty at night, and I was not scared. The young men would be tied up along the combat lines and I would keep operating the wireless. At first, my parents wouldn’t agree to my work because they were worried about me. But I’ve done a three-month militia training course. I did it when the revolution entered the camp, and training began. They offered a course for girls. I was fourteen years old. It was a very strenuous course and I was in the third preparatory class at school.” (131)

once the intensity of the war increases, so too does the pace of the novel and the plot begins to mirror that intensity. the daily life of the women in the novel shifts to fighting to survive under siege, to collectivity:

The basement house! Voices echoing in a deep lair. The wailing of confined children and their running noses. The kerosene cookers emitting soot as they burned, and the smell of kerosene with the orange-blue flame. The arms of women moving the stone mill to crush lentils for use as a flour substitute. Discovering this new camp! It did not occur to anyone outside this besieged patch how thousands of people were living without basic necessities. No rice. No sugar. No wheat or flour. But there were lentils that were crushed and ground, and mixed with water, then fried on kerosene cookers or tin baking plates under which scraps of wood and paper were set alight. When there was no milk, they used lentil water as a substitute to feed their babies, and they used lentil yeast to make bread. Lentils became a mercy from God, quieting cries of hunger. Those who were unable to replace torn sandbags near their fortifications took cover behind lentil sacks. They hid behind them waiting for God to ease their plight. Had it not been for the blessed presence of the lentil packaging factory inside Tal Ezza’tar, hundreds would have starved long ago. (155-156)

we also begin to get more detailed narration about the freedom fighters defending the camp at this point, such as farid, whose presence in the novel is far too minimal. just as the story of the women above making do with their ingenuity and rations can be imagined in the context of so many other situations in which palestinians have been besieged–most recently, of course, in gaza–so too with farid’s story can we understand the plight of palestinians without a homeland, without an identity card, though, coincidentally he hails from gaza. when aisha’s mother, um jalal, complains about the fact that he smokes so much her son-in-law hassan tells her:

His family are all in Gaza. He’s not married and hasn’t got children, and you feel that a couple of cigarettes are wasted on him. Let him smoke as much as he likes. Why not?”

Um Jalal walked away, large masses of fat protruding from her back beneath her shapeless dress. Hassan recalled Farid with special sympathy. The homeless one! Unable to enter any country because he had no passport. Living in airports and traveling in planes. He had once tried to travel to an Arab capital to see his mother, who had come across the bridge, but he was unable to. The old lady had waited as airports took delivery of the young man, then threw him off to airports father away. His Palestinian travel document got him to Scandinavian countries after passing through African and Asian ones. Farid would enter a country and immediately became an inmate in an airport lounge until the authorities rejected him, putting him on the first departing flight. Farid had told them a lot about other Palestinian families living in transit lounges. He would guffaw as he told of how they would hang their underwear in the public bathroom. Sometimes, he would become tearful as he recalled the humiliation he had faced with security men and policemen. In the end, his case had turned into something akin to a play from the theatre of the absurd which no one would take seriously because it was merely entertainment. Finally one of the PLO offices was able to solve his problem through intensive lobbying of important people in the host country, and it was decided that he would be deported to Lebanon. Thereafter, Farid completely turned back on his plans to see his mother, and on his good intentions, which had only brought him harm. He never, ever thought of trying again, and his brothers had informed him of this mother’s death a year ago.

Although Farid had been accused of belonging to a terrorist organization, the name of which struck fear in the hearts of officials in European airports, Hassan believed that he had never even harmed an ant in his life. Duty was duty. And it was duty in any situation. it was enough that Farid had almost become the victim of his own organization when clashes had broken out in the early seventies over the concept of a Palestinian state on part of the homeland. The organization had not accepted the idea, and considered it a transgression of the sacred charter which called for the liberation of all Palestine. We cannot give up our land to the enemy, they had said. The whole of the levant will revolt one day, and we wil liberate Palestine to the last inch. The result was all too clear now. The Arab governments wanted to liberate their countries first, had been the comment of Farid. His incessant smoking provoked the anger and coughing of the middle-aged women dying for a Marlboro cigarette or any real tobacco wrapped in white paper.

The hateful church was nothing more than a wall to the fighters of the camp. They would remove it and excuse the enemy position which was crushing the people with their sniper bullets and shells. Hassan failed to understand why religion had turned into a sword against human beings. Until that moment, he could not understand how they would be able to blow up the church despite the teachings of the Quran chanted by his father, which instructed him to respect other religions. Hassan had never in his life tried to pick up a Quran and read its verses. He had become used to respecting it from afar. He had treated religion as though it were meant for old people and sheikhs who went on pilgrimage to Mecca. It was not for him, or those who were his age. The continued problems of day-to-day living had prompted families to give top priority to the education of their sons. His family had always said that the Palestinians could not win the struggle to survive without education. No home, no country and no friends. How could Palestinians struggle to survive without that weapon? It would gain them the protection they needed, and they would rebuild their shattered lives until they could return to their countries. Religion. He could not remember that anyone in his family had ever prayed, except for his elderly father. His mother had considered that working to solve the problems of being homeless refugees was a form of worship. Preserving the life that God has created is the most noble form of worship, she had always told them. So Hassan asked himself why the enemies were waging their war in the name of religion. was it because they had a lot of money, houses and factories that spared them from being overwhelmed by the problems of daily survival? but they were not all that way. Their poor were at the front, and those waging the war appeared on the social pages of the newspapers at their boisterous parties. (161-162)

i quote this long passage above because it says so much about the continuing struggle of palestinians. it speaks to so much historically and currently. farid is a resistance fighter who comes to rescue people of the camp by trying to bomb the church where most of the heavy shelling besieging the camp originates from. there are other moments like this where the context of the palestinian resistance struggle is contextualized such as hassan’s thoughts about why he fights in the resistance:

When he had grown up and gone to university, he had discovered that therw ere two civilizations living alongside one another in modern times. One was the civilization of repression, which used the most developed tools of technology to repress people and evict them from their homes, as in South Africa and Palestine. The other was the civilization of the oppressed, who could possibly win, but only possible…but if one was in one’s home and country. But here? Among strangers. How could one go on amongst those who only cared about importing cars and arcade games and the latest brands of washing powder appearing on television screens? (172-173)

while hana is the only female resistance fighter in the novel, all of the women resist in various ways. hassan’s sister amneh works in the hospital caring for patients without any medications, power, or water to treat them properly, much like gaza. she was responsible for holding patients down while their wounds were stitched without anesthesia. most of the mothers and elderly found a basement where they hid out together trying to escape the shelling, however, including her family. the narrator describes, in detail, what happens when she discovers the building had been shelled to the ground:

As she walked through a corridor of brown cloudy smoke Amneh saw herself as a sleeper sees her soul. She saw her body passing through fields of stones, crushed rocks, and pieces of debris flying about in the air. Amneh saw herself as if in a dream, as though she were crossing a desert too hot for any human to bear. Sweat flows profusely from her, dripping down her forehead, her shoulders, and beneath her arms. Powdered gypsum, or something like the white plaster used to decorate the walls of houses, stick to her hair. The clouds grew thicker, then lifted to reveal what Amneh finally realized–the shelter. Collapsed. Crumbled. Shelled. It was definitely no longer in its place. no longer remained standing. Something the mind could not grasp. But the crowds of traumatized people. They came in shocked waves. The sound of their wailing mingling with the hoarse moans coming out of the shelter convinced her, forced her to see what was happening. She went over to a man carrying a spade. He tossed it away, and threw himself on the debris to dig wit his hands. All she could get out of him was that the shells which had set the plastics on fire at the Boutajy factory had cracked the walls of the adjacent building, whose basement had housed the shelter. The enemy had shelled the five-story building continually for several days, concentrating their fire ot he exposed columns which supported it, until they had cracked and collapsed. the roof had fallen in on everyone beneath it, blocking the exit. No. everything had collapsed over them, and there was no longer any door or exit. The man was crying, shouting, screaming. His howling was lost amidst the successive waves of wailing voices coming from beneath the battered ground and from above it. People ran around here and there carrying hoes, but the were not of much use in removing the rubble of five floors, which had collapsed over the shelter, whose door had completely disappeared. At that moment, many different emotions surged through Amneh’s bosom.[...] She continued digging with the families of those who had been buried, from two o’clock in the afternoon until three o’clock the next morning. During that interval, and until it became possible to enter the shelter, Amneh did not try to look at the bodies which other rescuers pulled out. She did not want dead people. Simply, she only wanted those able to live, because she had come to hate the kind of life that was saturated with death day and night.[...] A terror that she would never experience in her life paralysed her. A terror that would crush her and would reshape and polish the hardness of her heart, making it even tougher than before. Inside the shelter, Amneh saw about four hundred bodies so disfigured that it was impossible to recognize them. They were all unimaginably mangled. A very small number of people had survived, but they too had sustained severe injuries to their limbs. Most of the mutilation had affected the heads. One woman’s intestines had spilt out, and she had died only a short time before. (191-192)

as the fighting over the course of months dies down slightly, hana learns from her work covering the wireless machine that an evacuation of the camp has been arranged. palestinian survivors of the massacre thus far, who are injured, who have been lacking food, water, and medicine for months begin the trek out of the camp on foot. many are barefoot. many, like aisha’s father assayed, find a trauma repeated as he imagines he is fleeing palestine in 1948 not tel al-za’atar in 1976. like many of the scenes in the second half of the novel, it is detailed and horrifying:

The terror. And the bodies. And Amneh, whom Um Hassan had sent ahead to find out what was happening at the to pof the road. Some of the neighbours had already left. But Um Hassan and Um Mazen were delaying their departure, hoping for a miracle that would avert the horror of falling into the hands of the besiegers. As the decision to surrender had spread through the shelters, crowds ahd surged wither towards the mountains surrounding the camp, or towards Dekwaneh that terrible compulsory route. The amputated hands and feet scattered along the Dekwaneh road, their veins being sucked by blue flies, were the true testament of the fate awaiting those who chose to head in that direction. The fighters prepard to leave by the rough mountain paths up to a small village called Mansourieh, hoping to break through enemy lines there, and then to continue on to the Nationalist-controlled area. Most of the young men and women joined those going up into the mountains, protected by an instinctive certainty that risking the unknown was better than following the voices offering people safe conduct which had suddenly blared out through several megaphones from the direction of Dekwaneh.

Amneh, with the newly-acquired military experience she had gained from her water-gathering trips, noticed that the faces of the bodies lying along the road were turned towards the camp, and she concluded that they had been shot in the back. The sounds of clashes on the road to the mountains made her aware of the new battle around the camp. (219-220)

amneh’s depiction of what she sees on the road out of the camp is a harbinger of what is to come once families choose to flee. the narrator describes the escalated horror that awaits the palestinian refugees, being made refugees yet again, upon their exit:

From then on, Khazneh saw nothing but blood. She passed the towering church which all the battles had not succeeded in destroying. She marvelled at the changed appearance of the building. It was neither destroyed, nor completely intact. Fallen, pile dup stones, and high thick walls and people standing outside them in lines. Was her eyesight playing tricks on her when she saw the building moving towards her, crawling like a giant ship that had suddenly set sail from a mythical port. Medieval flags fly over it, and knights parade on its roof upon pure-blooded saddled horses, wearing cloths flowing down their flanks. They carry quivers filled with poison-tipped arrows, and helmets and shields and pommels and whips and shining iron swords. As for the church, it continues to crawl and stretch forward with a slow deliberate movement, while they take no notice. Khazneh rubbed her eyes so that she could verify the movement towards her of the building-ship that she was seeing. She looked more carefully and saw rows of young men lined up in front of the wall of the church. Now they were hitting them on their backs with hammers, the stone pestles used in stone mortars to grind wheat and mix it with raw meat for kubbeh dough. But the hammers! They were hitting them with those hammers which had been specially made to pound red meat for that traditional dish. They ordered the prisoners to kneel and poured petrol over them. It caught fire in a split second, and some of the prisoners fainted. They sprayed bullets on those who were kneeling, after placing iron bars in the fire and using them to burn crosses onto the bellies of those who remained standing. the smell of charred flesh filled the air. Burning flesh. They began tying up the prisoners with ropes to parade them on thee astern side of the city in trucks specially brought over for that purpose. (231-212)

there are so many other scenes of horror that each one of the characters experiences and/or witnesses. indeed, each character in the novel is an eyewitness to massacre or a victim of it, in which case we, the readers, become the witness to the crime. palestinians get rounded up and put in detention centers and families are separated from each other as various members of families are murdered. aisha, the protagonist through much of the novel, and who we begin the novel with, finds herself pregnant mid-way through the narrative. she discovers this just before her husband, hassan, is murdered by kata’eb militia men. aisha manages to survive, though we do not learn the fate of all the characters by the novel’s conclusion. but her survival, like everyone’s survival in the camp, is one that just barely manages to escape fate. that she managed to live through this siege without proper food and water and under an extreme amount of trauma provides some hope in the novel’s conclusion. that there will be a new generation of palestinian babies and that this battle for palestinians to return is not over is wrapped up in aisha’s “emaciated abdomen” (264).

there is so much more to say, to share, but i hope that people will read badr’s novel on their own. and for those who want some further information on the context of tel al-za’atar refugee camp below are two articles on the larger issue of the origin of the lebanese civil war, the attacks on palestinians in lebanon, and the zionist role in collaborating with the kata’eb against the palestinians.

reilly-israel-in-lebanon-1975-82

farsoun-lebanon-explodes-toward-maronite-zion

For more resources click here

Source: The News International

World Book and Copyright Day will be observed on April 23 to pay a worldwide tribute to books and authors, encouraging people to discover the pleasure of reading.

Different literary organisations will arrange activities to promote book reading culture and remember those who have made irreplaceable contributions to social and cultural progress.

April 23 marks the anniversary of the birth or death of a range of well-known writers, including Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Maurice Druon, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Haldor Kiljan Laxness, Manuel Mej!a Vallejo, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and William Shakespeare.

The day is remembered to pay tribute to books, the authors who wrote them and the copyright laws that protect them.

The World Book and Copyright Day increase people’s understanding of and adherence to copyright laws and other measures to protect intellectual copyright.

“The book reading habit should be developed at the early age which will not only enhance the creative skills of children but also help in character building,” said Khalil-ur-Rehman, a professor of a local college.

Each year the World celebrates World Book and Copyright Day on April 23. This day, formalized by a resolution adopted in 1995 by the 28th session on the General Conference of Unesco, seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright. IPA is one of the main partners in this international celebration of books, authors, and copyright.

Bombadil Publishing was founded in the autumn of 2007 as a youth to youth publishing house. This new concept invites youngsters to write for their own peer group, expressing their ideas, stories and visions in a clear, professional manner. There are no editors, but mentors and life coaches who guide the authors through the world of publishing; authors and mentors work in symbiosis and are involved in the entire process together. At Bombadil Publishing a book is only a true representation of the author’s inner thoughts, ideas and passions if the authors are able to express themselves without shackles or censorship.
During the past year, Bombadil Publishing, named after the adventurous and independent Lord of the Ring character, Tom Bombadil, has started a revolution in publishing, and given a voice to so many young people around the world. In fact Bombadil now has authors on all continents, and new countries and areas are added at a very fast rate. The reason behind this expansion seems to be the wish of the young Bombadilians to unite across borders, sharing their love and passion for books and the written word; since they are dynamic youngsters who really want to involve and share what they believe in, Bombadil has evolved from being just a publisher to becoming a lifestyle.
Lifestyle is important as it reflects a philosophy, which penetrates deep into the inner fabrics of the person. A lifestyle is subscribed to, not bought. All authors get paid royalties and all authors retain copyright to their work, as fairness is part of the lifestyle to which Bombadil subscribes ‐ fairness and equality regardless of colour, creed or social standing. Issues, thoughts and ideas are discussed and spread, not to belittle but to empower. Confident youngsters should stand tall side by side their confident peers giving a more equal and peaceful world. Such confidence is spread because young people are heard through their written words.
All manuscript and book ideas are welcome at Bombadil, and the traditional division into genres and groups has been taken away. Saying that, a book is still assigned a genre once it is published, though sometimes such genres are not the traditional ones, and new ones evolve. There is for example Fairasy, a mix between fantasy and fairy tales, aimed particularly at readers between 12 and 15. Fairasy is a bit softer and a bit kinder, doing away with some of the blood gushing of traditional Fantasy and the naivety of frog kissing princesses of fairy tales.
Another new genre is Challenge Poetry, which opens up a new straightforward poetic pathos in a refreshing and honest disposition. Both of these genres are the inventions of Bombadilian authors. They wanted to express themselves, and focused more on the idea than the potential boxes into which these ideas could fit. So they broke the boundaries and were heard – their way. They wanted to be free and became free with Bombadil.
Freedom is expressed in many ways, and an important cornerstone of Bombadil Publishing is the idiosyncratic need for freedom of speech without which there cannot be democracy. True democracy is based on the ability to make informed choices, but if freedom of speech is not exercised because knowledge and information is censored, there cannot be true democracy. Many young people are today not able or even allowed to form an educated opinion about the world into which they are about to enter as freeliving, influential members of society, and their voices are not heard. Many young people write with a zest for life and a passion for the world they live in, and it is Bombadil’s mission to allow this passion to echo throughout the world. Perhaps when all young people are united through their passion, a new and open world will emerge where there is democracy, individual integrity and respect for the world and its people at large. One voice will be heard, and many voices will make each of those louder!
Bombadil Publishing is incorporated in both the United Kingdom and in Sweden and publishes books mainly English and Swedish, though many more languages are being added. The management is in Nora, a small town in central southern Sweden, amongst great lakes, birch forests and majestic elks. All books maintain a high quality and are printed in Sweden. To compensate on the effect publishing has on forests, a tree is planted for each title published. Read more on www.bombadilpublishing.com send an email with stories, ideas or manuscripts to Marianne@bombadilpublishing.com.

The mission of World Book Day is to inspire worldwide students to explore the immense pleasure of reading, enrich the intellectual property and boost up the creativity in literary world. It is an opportunity to contribute a fraction in the cultural as well as social development of humanity in respect of greatest artists all over the world. “The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you the knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.” (Elizabeth Hardwick) is sufficient to make us realize that silent and noiseless power of book has revolutionized building creative thoughts established on fundamental knowledge and practical experience.

Unfortunately, students are consistently distracting themselves from the real purpose of study; they are very much focused on rote learning- recalling, memorizing and imitating the facts, and have conditioned themselves for memorising and applying in the exact way. Students, who are acknowledged to be meritorious by grades and certificate, might end up perseverance and experience of digesting facts and figures into frustration. Their intelligence is strongly discouraged and betrayed by it. The purpose of rote learning, since time immemorial, has been to achieve mastery of foundational knowledge on which individual creative skills could be developed. Only creative mind helps cultivate progressive thoughts, fertilises the understanding to extract innovative ideas from it. Simply they can’t give assurance of being worth of taking responsibility, to stand still in front of difficulties and compete with potential competitors in global market.

According to NASSCOM (National Association of Software Companies) more than 30% engineers are unemployable. They may be academically sound but their knowledge is substandard. Moreover, they lack technical knowledge besides critical thinking and appreciable command on communication skill.

In this global competitive era, the competition is with ourselves to be the best and creative in our respective field to triumph against the rote memorising way of learning. Otherwise, years of practice and time spent will go in vain.
Comparing practical knowledge with rote learning would not only be hilarious but also painful. It, a repetition technique, locks one in what he has learnt at the initial stage to be permanent followers. Rote learning helps one become an imitator but never a creator.

Pondering over various aspects relating to ‘learning’ and the inevitable role of books, Bombadil publishing has taken the initiatives for youth in order to discover intellectual treasures and creative potential to enrich the literary world through their significant contribution. Youth are highly instrumental to bring change in society, and they need to be brought close to books, quality books though.
Mousumi Saha
http://www.bombadilpublishing.com

UNESCO’s world book day is on 23 April. To mark the event, Bombadil wants, nay, needs submissions from all authors between the ages of 12 and 26 – short stories, poetry, letters, essays – and anything else you can think of, to be published within twenty-four hours! Short or long, fact of fiction, poetry or prose, it’s all welcome!

This is a not-for-profit book. We will cover our expenses and then donate the profit to charity. So, we will not be paying royalties, sorry, you will just have to make do with the glory of challenging the idea that publishing is slow and unwieldy and that books take years to produce. That and the satisfaction of seeing your name in print and reaching Bombadil’s audience with your writing! People, pick up your pens, tap on your typewriters and compose on your computers and become part of the Bombadil revolution! The deadline is 21st April. Email submissions to worldbookday@bombadilpublishing.com

Bombadil Publishing, Sweden

There was once a monster that lived in a moat. This is very impractical since the Lakebed Heating Co. charges so much money that Grump’s treasure trove didn’t last for long. Grump lives at the bottom or a moat because he doesn’t want… urgh Humans walking in on his life. Grump, as you may have guessed is the monster that lives at the bottom of the moat. He is about the size of a house with green fur all over his vaguely human shaped body. He has blood-stained spines all down his back (it’s actually red food colouring, but your not supposed to know that) and red eyes. Everybody hates him, much to his pleasure. We join him just entering the office of Mr Cold, head of Lakebed Heating Co.

             “Oh no, not him again” muttered Mr Cold, under his breath, then loudly he said “How may I err… oh” Mr cold had forgotten just how big Grump was. “Err… oh yes err…n-n-no tell me he hasn’t remembered that change we were meant to give him.”

 “NO, I HAVE COME TO SAY THAT I CAN’T PAY THE HEATING BILL” Grump boomed.

 A strange glint came to Mr Cold’s eyes and he sneered “too bad, I’ll take your house instead.”

            “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” Yelled Grump.

             “You have a week to pay us £20988745982778569287592875892759792, plus interest.” Said Mr Cold. Grump feinted.

            Once the SAS had dragged Grump back next to his moat, he awoke in the middle of a frenzy of activity. “It’s the credit crunch! (screeeeeam)” and “the banks are disappearing, with our money too!” Grump slowly realised that he could find this money and pay off his debts! But life is never as simple as that, and this is no exception.

            Back in his house Grump was researching, which is difficult when you are underwater. He had found that his brother’s nickname was cruncher, which had a remote connection to The Credit Crunch, if there was any possibility that there was any connection at all. He had also found people called: crump, chill, bill (I suppose this rhymes with chill) and billiard (begins with bill, that rhymes with chill). After days and days of research he had learnt one thing. That he was wasting his time, precious time that was about to be used to find what was destroying the banks. Time to do something. Time was short, 40cm tall to be precise, and rapidly shrinking.

            So 4 hours later, at 10:34, Grump was hiding, watching the bank. He had until 7:30 when it started to get light again. Just then he heard an unearthly sound, like fingers scraping down a blackboard, only far worse. “murgh muggh murgh mu  mu murgh mu murgh mu ma ma mu murgh    murgh muggh murgh mu  mu murgh mu   murgh mu ma ma mu murgh.”  Then Grump heard it far more clearly and heard, in a very, very bad singing voice, “ I AM THE CREDIT CRUNCHER, I AM A MEAN MACHEAN, I AM THE ULTIMATE LUNCHER, EATING ALL THE BANKS CLEAN, CRUNCH, LUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH.” This was followed by a series of thuds, obviously this things footsteps. And then Grump saw him. He was at least 2 times the size of Grump, with vicious fighting claws, but he was very fat. To make up for this he was coated in coins, like armour. Grump realized that he could not beat him in fighting, he would have to be sneaky. Then Grump looked at the monster’s feet. They were not covered, instead they were shoes with weird wheels on the bottom. The thuds had been the brakes, the Credit Cruncher couldn’t move on his own… and the brakes were only screwed on… and they were on a slope leading to a cliff into the sea… Bingo. It only took a few seconds to undo the brakes, but no book  could describe the chaos that followed, so I can barely scratch the surface when I sat that the bank was flattened anyway, and the Credit Cruncher never resurfaced from the sea. But Grump took the money from the bank, and then lived a happy and rich life… until Mr Recession came… From America…

Post Script –

This story was one of the winners of the World Book Day Short Story competition selected for inclusion in The Monster In the Moat and Other Short Stories, which you can buy on Amazon. 

The Monster in the Moat

In Britain, both of Barack Obama’s books have been nominated for two Galaxy Book Awards — “The Oscars of the Book World” — for best biography and author of the year.  BBC News reports that Dreams From My Father “faces strong competition for biography of the year from bestselling memoirs by JG Ballard, Dawn French, Paul O’Grady, Julie Walters and Marcus Trescothick.” (Bloggers are also having fun with the fact that one of Obama’s competitors for Author of the Year is Stephanie Meyer of the best-selling vampire romance series, Twilight.) The winners will be announced on April 3.

Ironically the news of Obama’s book award nominations comes shortly after a World Book Day survey announced that Dreams From My Father ranked ninth in a list of books that Britons have lied about reading (#1 was Orwell’s 1984, while the Bible came in at #4).

In Banjul, Gambia, the U.S. Embassy honored Black History Month this past February with a digital video conference on Dreams From My Father. A Gambian newspaper reports:

Considering the staggering magnitude of injustices blacks in America experienced in the past, the significance of the ascension of Barack H Obama to the presidency of the United States cannot be overstated. The video conference held in Banjul brought together politicians, university professors, the media, students, among other dignitaries. The conference stimulated discussions on ‘Dreams from my Father’, highlighting the significance of the black history month.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace are among the books people are most likely to have lied about reading, according to a poll. Two out of three people admitted lying about reading a particular book to impress someone, the survey released to mark World Book Day found. Charlie Brooker, like me, has read Nineteen Eighty Four.

I can’t say I’ve ever lied about reading a book, but I do wonder how many who criticize Charles Darwin have actually read his books.

What is it about War and Peace? I first read it when I was sixteen: my father (who I realized later had never read a book since he left school) accused me of just carrying the book around for show; when I protested that that was not the case (as it wasn’t), I was accused of not understanding it. Years later talking to a former USSR resident, we touched on the subject: she told me that in the Soviet schools it is read by the thirteen year olds – but confessed that she skipped the war passages to get to the romantic bits. A friend of mine bought a copy of War and Peace from a second hand shop in Oxford years ago, with its own bookmark listing all the characters and their relationships. He says he may not have got through it otherwise.

To be honest, I find it rather suspicious that Nineteen Eighty-Four comes top of the list. Why would people lie about that in particular? I’m also surprised by how many people lie about having read the whole of the Bible. I may be wrong but I can’t imagine very many people have read all of it or would expect to. I started a few years ago but eventually got stuck at Ezekiel because the cumulative effect of the whole thing was too depressing.