Month: July 2014

Gaza’s writers keep writing under the bombs

via The Electronic Intifada: Submitted by Sarah Irving on Sun, 07/20/2014 – 15:01 Smoke rises after an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City on 19 July. (Mohammad Othman / APA images) Despite Israel’s relentless aerial bombardments, shelling and ground attacks for nearly two weeks, Palestinian writers in Gaza have responded to the latest onslaught by doing what they know – writing. According to an email from Ra Page, director of Manchester-based Comma Press, which … Read more Gaza’s writers keep writing under the bombs

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Israeli shelling destroys poet Othman Hussein’s Gaza home

Burned books from the collection of Gaza poet Othman Hussein. (Maysoon Hussein) via The Electronic Intifada Submitted by Sarah Irving on Sat, 07/19/2014 – 17:15 The ongoing Israeli onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza has already hit its cultural life with the demolition of the home of artist Raed Issa by an air strike on Tuesday. This has been followed by the destruction of the house of poet Othman Hussein and his family in Rafah … Read more Israeli shelling destroys poet Othman Hussein’s Gaza home

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Gaza

The horror of what’s happening in Gaza is there for all to see. Here are the opening lines of Mahmood Darwish’s poem on Gaza: Gaza is far from its relatives and close to its enemies, because whenever Gaza explodes, it becomes an island and it never stops exploding. It scratched the enemy’s face, broke his dreams and stopped his satisfaction with time. Because in Gaza time is something different. … Read more Gaza

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Jörg Fauser

On this day, back in 1987, my old friend the German writer Jörg Fauser died, hit by a car. There isn’t much available in English, but check here & here. Way back when — very early 70s — I translated bits & pieces of his prose for underground magazines, but have no copies or docs of all that left. Like Jörg all his life, I was a beat-inspired Burroughs-devotee wanderer … Read more Jörg Fauser

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And now, for something completely different…

Video showing Lingodroids playing a location language game. Schulz, R., Glover, A., Milford, M., Wyeth, G., & Wiles, J. (2011) Lingodroids: Studies in Spatial Cognition and Language, ICRA 2011, The International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Shanghai, China, May 2011 For more information on Lingodroids go to: http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~ruth School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering University of Queensland, Australia Australian Research Council Category Science & Technology License Standard YouTube … Read more And now, for something completely different…

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Khaled Mattawa on Mahmood Darwish

Via Electronic Intifada: An accessible look at Darwish’s life and work, at long last Sarah Irving The Electronic Intifada 1 July 2014 Mahmoud Darwish(APA images) It is hard to talk about modern Palestinian culture without mentioning Mahmoud Darwish. The late Palestinian “poet laureate,” one of the greatest poets writing in Arabic in the twentieth century, Darwish’s brilliance looms large, six years after his death. It is surprising, then, that until … Read more Khaled Mattawa on Mahmood Darwish

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