cafebabel.com

Montreal international poetry prize 'for poets by poets'

('Kris Anderson',) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:32:49 -0000

Poetry is enduring, if not a deep freeze, at least a hard frost. Austerity measures across Europe and Canada have led to severe cuts in arts funding. Amidst the scrabble to fund prizes whose state subsidies have been slashed, a brand new award has emerged on a different funding model, with the winner to scoop 50, 000 Canadian dollars on 15 December

Liu Xiaobo: Chinese prisoner and Nobel peace prize winner

('eurotopics',) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:45:00 -0000

The detained Chinese civil rights activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the nobel peace prize in absentia in Oslo on 10 November; the Serb, Russian and Ukrainian governments were three of 19 world countries absent too. The Chinese government fears social change and is only harming its own interests with Liu's detention, write the Danish, Austrian, Belgian and Lativa press

Esma Redzepova: 'Roma are cosmopolitan'

('Annie Rutherford',) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:30:00 -0000

A mother of 47, a career spanning 20 albums and 40 years and songs in Serbian, Macedonian and Romany. At the Sin Fronteras festival in France, the Macedonian 'gypsy music queen' brings a bit of Roma culture to a country which is planning to export large numbers of its gypsy population 'back' to Romania and Bulgaria by the end of the month

Nobel prize for literature: Horace Engdahl on 'ignorant' American writing

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:55:47 -0000

The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy criticises US writing days before the winner is announced, on 9 October