- Manash Bhattacharjee looks at the moving work of Meena Kandasamy in LARB, and most particularly at her poem Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You. Kandasamy was at Blue Met years ago (2011?) and I spent a few days with her and two other Indian writers in Regina and Ottawa, in addition to her time in Montreal. Her collection Ms Militancy is funny, irreverant and moving and I've returned to some of those poems in the intervening years, also keeping up with her on her very political and always engaging Twitter feed @meenakandasamy. In April, she has a new collection coming out, The Gypsy Goddess.
- This video essay explores the work of Japanese master Ozu and why his films continue to be so important, influential and beautiful. Ozu's been in the news lately given the recent death of Setsuko Hara (aged 95) in Japan. Hara was one of Ozu's main actresses and muses and her death really marked the end of a cinematic era.
- Very sad news: Indian artist Hema Upadhyay was murdered in mysterious circumstances. Upadhyay was noted for being one of contemporary India's best known artists commenting on the social ills of poverty and mysogyny and her death has shocked the art world.
- On the occasion of Pointe-a-Calliere's exhibit on the work of Agatha Christie (running now through mid-April, 2016), I found this article on how archaeology affected her work quite an interesting read.
- Not exactly a newsflash: was Lewis Carroll a pedophile? Haven't there been several books on this already? It gets at the heart of the eternal writerly question: should a writer's life radically alter the way we look at his or her work?
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| RIP Hara, Ozu Muse |
