The spirit of an age is best captured in the artistic visions inspired by the times. This rings true in both the visual and literary arts. The Middle East has been the center of the world situation for so long that in the West we cannot think of the region without evoking words such as “crisis” and “war.” Since 2001 the region has experienced the crucible of foreign occupation, the eruption of revolutions and civil wars. But from the fire is emerging a new generation of authors grappling with the collapse and reshaping of their region via some of the most impressive literature being produced in the world today. A renaissance in Middle East fiction is upon us, and like the Latin Boom of the 1960s, it is literature magical in its creativity and haunting in its statements. Just published for the first time in English is one of this movement’s great achievements, Frankenstein in Baghdad, by Ahmed Saadawi. [Read more…]
The Incendiary Corpse: Lenin & The Shadow Of The October Revolution
Great and terrible has been the year of 2017, midnight in the century approaches and war clouds faintly gather on the horizon. From the dim light of a mausoleum in Moscow, the corpse of Vladimir Lenin remains still, silent and hollow amid polished stone. What power can a corpse wield long after the state founded by the man himself has ceased to exist? Yet the new Russian Tsar fears this corpse. The Putin government has hesitated, in fact refused, to officially commemorate the event the once living Lenin took part in 100 years ago — the October Revolution of 1917. [Read more…]