A forthcoming anthology of poems endorsed by the Taliban, Poetry of the Taliban, is marked as controversial in an interesting Guardian dispatch by Julian Borger. The book, which is being published in the UK by Hurst and Co. on May 17, and in the U.S. this…
The status of books and the people that write them as arbiters of dissent appears to be holding strong. As MobyLives wrote yesterday, the London Book Fair has attracted controversy this year by inviting China as the guest of honor. This move meant that all…
The Seattle Times ran a front page profile on Monday about a prolific writer whose stories are studied in college programs across the country. Junot Diaz has praised these stories in front of packed houses in New York and, despite dropping out of school after…
For a week now debate has raged over a poem by Günter Grass (“What Must Be Said,” first published in Süddeutsche Zeitung) that harshly criticizes Israel’s nuclear program and its aggression toward Iran. But the story has now moved beyond debate: as the Guardian reports, On Sunday,…
A self-published author who tried to sue a man over negative reviews posted on Amazon lost the case, and will be forced to pay legal bills of around £100,000. We reported here on Moby last year about Chris McGrath, author of the insanely titled The Attempted…
In Argentina, a new and bizarre piece of red tape means that imported books and magazines are being held at customs at Ezeiza airport, some 25 miles outside of Buenos Aires. Rather than receive their reading material through the letterbox as intended, readers of foreign…
A marriage advice book, entitled A Gift for Muslim Couple by Maulavi Ashraf Ali Thanvi, is creating an uproar in Canada. For sale at Islamic Books and Souvenirs in Toronto, the book includes advice on the ways that a Muslim husband can beat and intimidate his…
According to a human rights group that advises the UN, Dante’s Divine Comedy should be banned from Italian schools because it is ‘offensive and discriminatory’. Speaking for the group Gherush92, its president Valentina Sereni said this week: We do not advocate censorship or the burning of…
Oh, Jonathan Franzen. Does your foot just really like being in your mouth? Fresh from making weird and irrelevant comments about Edith Wharton‘s ugliness, he’s chanced for a sly jab at Georges Perec. We’ve all seen the characteristically imaginative and progressive observations he made about…
“I grew up in South Tucson. So when I go down to Tucson Unified School District, I’m going home.” — John Huppenthal Like many of us, John Huppenthal would seem to have complicated feelings about “home.” In June of last year the newly elected Arizona…
