17 de Setembro de 2019.
An underestimated and too little appreciated German author. Wolfgang Koeppen was born in 1906, in a small city called Greifswald. Having a restless childhood in terms of many relocations, he quit school before graduating because of financial reasons. This, however, didn’t keep him from secretly visiting lectures at the university, especially concerning German philology. Although wanting to be a director, he ended up being a prompter, usher, and actor. Just as dramatic as his life has been proceeding, so was the situation in Germany. Having lived through two World Wars, Koeppen must have seen a lot of brutality and inhumanity. He manages, like nobody else, to process his emotions about these happenings in a trilogy of novels. The first of […]
15 de Setembro de 2019.
Robert Burns his country’s most influential and celebrated writer. Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, in 1759, he was the eldest of seven children. He was raised in poverty and the difficult farming lifestyle took a toll on his physical health. Despite his poverty, he still gained an education through his father, a local minister and eventually, he was sent to a school for three days a week. After farming for years he began writing and wrote some of the most famous poems in Scot’s language. He died in 1796. A poem of his I read in school at the age of 11, it is possibly his most famous, Tam O’Shanter. First published in 1791 it tells a story of man’s return […]
13 de Setembro de 2019.
A Polish writer of science fiction, philosopher and futurologist. Lem was born in Lviv to a family of a laryngologist. Between 1940 and 1941, after the occupation of Lviv by Soviet troops, he was not allowed to study at Lviv Polytechnic, as he wished, and due to his father’s connections was accepted to study medicine at the Lviv Medical Institute. In 1946 Lviv was no longer on Polish soil and Lem, like many other Poles, was resettled to Krakow where he took up medical studies at the Jagiellonian University. He received a certificate of completion of studies, nonetheless refused to take the final exams in order to avoid obligatory military service. Lem made his literary debut in 1946 with a […]
11 de Setembro de 2019.
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos was a French writer from the 18th century. His masterwork is the epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, published in 1782. Today, there are several cinematographic adaptations of the book. For a long time considered as scandalous and immoral, the novel was until recently read behind closed doors. It deals with the libertine sexuality of two nobles, la Marquise de Merteuil et le Marquis Valmont, in the time of the coming Revolution. Scholars often highlight how common and ‘normal’ was the life of Laclos. He was a good husband, a good father, and a successful officer. So, a lot of questions abound about how he could have written such an audacious and blazing novel and how paradoxical […]
9 de Setembro de 2019.
A prolific observationalist of the changing nature of the early 20th Century. George Orwell, whose real name is Eric Arthur Blair was born in India in 1903. He was the son of a lower civil servant who was serving in India. As a boy, he was very academic and was able to get into prestigious schools back in England. He joined the Imperial Police in Burma, but soon became disparaged as he realized how much the Burmese detested living under British rule. This experience would lead to him releasing one of his great novels, Burmese Days. After resigning from the police, Orwell went to immerse himself with the lower classes in Paris and London working as a dishwasher and picking […]
7 de Setembro de 2019.
Massimo Gramellini is an Italian journalist of the contemporary era whose talent is to turn real stories and event unforgettable forever. He was born in 1960 and he started his career as a sports journalist for an important Italian newspaper. However, he became famous when his professional focus moved into politics. Gramellini documented and investigated the “Mani Pulite” (Clean Hands) season, a period when lots of scandals about the corruption between politics and entrepreneurship were discovered and which changed the development of the Italian politics. In 1993 he was sent to Sarajevo as a reporter during the civil war. From 2005 to 2017 he has been the Assistant Director of “La Stampa” newspaper and since that moment is a collaborator […]
6 de Setembro de 2019.
Físico português Gaspar Barreira, que morreu em Junho, foi homenageado durante visita ao Laboratório Europeu de Física de Partículas, em Genebra. Uma delegação de mais de 50 pessoas, incluindo empresários, engenheiros e cientistas, terminou uma visita de dois dias ao Laboratório Europeu de Física de Partículas (CERN), na Suíça, para reforçar a participação de Portugal em novos projectos. Até porque continuam as obras para melhor o desempenho do grande acelerador de partículas deste laboratório, o LHC, e fala-se da construção do seu sucessor. A visita, que incluiu reuniões de trabalho, terminou esta quarta-feira com a participação do ministro da Ciência, Tecnologia e do Ensino Superior, Manuel Heitor, e do secretário de Estado da Internacionalização, Eurico Brilhante Dias. Em declarações à […]
5 de Setembro de 2019.
Marguerite Duras and her book “ Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein” Marguerite Duras was born in 1914 in Gia Dinh next to Saigon in the French Indochina. She is a writer, novelist, playwright, and essayist. She became famous in 1950 with the book “The Sea Wall” (Un barrage contre le Pacifique). This book is largely inspired by the life and adolescence of Marguerite Duras in the French Indochina. After this first success, she will publish many new novels. Her style is close to the New Roman, with strange sentences construction, deconstructed characters, storyline, and timeline. The main topics are the wait, love, sensuality, and alcohol. In 1984 she published another great success “The lover” (L’Amant) an auto-fiction about her […]
3 de Setembro de 2019.
An Austrian author of the 21st century: Marc Elsberg If you are interested in scientific thrillers, Marc Elsberg’s books are always a brilliant choice. It doesn’t matter if you choose Blackout, Zero or Helix – they’re all interesting, exciting and teach you a lot. This is why I like his work and why I always enjoy reading any book he wrote. He was born in 1967 in Vienna, grew up in the surroundings of Baden in Lower Austria and studied Industrial Design at the University for Art in Vienna. Later on, he worked in the marketing business as a creative director while he was starting to write his first book, a satirical novel called “Saubermann”. After three more books, he […]
1 de Setembro de 2019.
A very well known writer in Finland. Kari Hotakainen started his career as a reporter and became a full-time author in 1996. He has written many novels, poetry books, children’s books, radio dramas, newspaper columns, plays, and one TV-series. He has received some literature prizes for his work, for example, the Finlandia Prize for the novel Juoksuhaudantie (Battle Trench Avenue). The same book was later made into a movie. For me, the most meaningful book written by Kari Hotakainen is Satukirja (Storybook). The book is considered for children and young adults, but I think that it suits all ages. All the stories are very imaginative and different. It is a huge possibility, that after reading one story you become addicted […]
31 de Agosto de 2019.
A Polish-British writer, most famous for Heart of Darkness (1899). Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski is known rather as Joseph Conrad which is a combination of his two names. He went to Marseilles as a seventeen-year-old boy to work as a sailor. When he returned from his voyages to the Caribbean and South America, he had troubles with his citizenship, as a resident of the Russian Empire, he was obligated to do military service. Without permission from the Russian authorities to serve on French ships, Joseph fell into debts and consequently he attempted to commit suicide. Later on, he went to Great Britain and began serving in the British merchant navy. After a few years, he received the rank of captain […]
29 de Agosto de 2019.
I’ll talk about the Belgian writer Herman Brusselmans. Why him? To reply in his own style: because this dickpick is probably the most f*cking interesting choice of them all. That’s right. I didn’t choose him because his oeuvre is close to my heart. Neither his high pitched literary style. Still, he is one of the greatest writers of Belgium. How did this come to be? Well, to start with, he is (unlike many colleagues) in front of the media. He keeps himself in the picture through talk shows and columns, where he likes to mock other celebrities and comments on certain situations. This provocative talk is also very typical for his books. The overall style elements are a Highly autobiographical […]
27 de Agosto de 2019.
The Writing Teacher Gerwin van der Werf is not a name that many non-Dutch people know nor are able to pronounce properly. Not a lot of Dutch people know him or his work either. He is not a famous writer of literature that creates complex novels with hidden themes and multiple meanings but he is one of the greatest Dutch writers. He has written four novels, Gewapende Man (2010), Wild (2011), Luchtvissers (2013) en Een Onbarmhartig Pad (2018). Apart from being a writer, he is also a music teacher at the high school I went to in the Netherlands. He is a teacher full of energy, full of empathy for his students and with a great sense of humor. He […]
25 de Agosto de 2019.
An Austro-Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop and also a writer. Erwin Kräutler was born 1939 in Koblach Austria where he grew up as the eldest of six children. In 1980 he was appointed coadjutor prelate of Xingu, the largest diocese in Brazil in terms of area. Upon the resignation of Erich Kräutler, who was his uncle, he became Prelate of Xingu in September 1981. Between 1983 and 1991 and since 2006 he served as President of the Indigenous Missionary Council of the Brazilian Catholic church. Since the 1980s he has helped secure the inclusion of indigenous peoples’ rights into the Brazilian constitution. Especially in the resistance to the Belo Monte dam project, he played an important role. In his book “Mein […]
23 de Agosto de 2019.
The man who created The Witcher. Andrzej Sapkowski was born on 20th March 1948 in Łódź and has lived there until now. He is the second most popular Polish author of fantasy books, which books have been translated into other languages. His literary career started in 1986 with publishing his fantasy story “The Witcher” in Polish monthly magazine “Fantastic”. It was his debut, and then the short story was developed for 5 books saga about The Witcher. Besides this, he published many other fantasy books, however, “The Witcher” is the one, which brought him big fame, not only because of the book. If you don’t know the book, there is a high possibility that you know the game with the […]
21 de Agosto de 2019.
Giorgio de Chirico and his metaphysical painting as a breath of fresh air in a grey set. Beyond the empirical sensorial experience there is something else, a thin layer that is not above reality, neither below, behind or inside, but lives “within” it. These two layers influence themselves, and sometimes our limits break, so that we can taste a slice of this alternative world. Giorgio de Chirico, father of Italian metaphysical painting, didn’t try to express anything really new. Since humanity became capable of being aware of itself, it had to face the supernatural, it had to deal with those elements that fly away from our sight, which can sometimes be essential for our being, if not life changing. Is […]