Mois : octobre 2008

Index October 2008

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio – France

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, or J.M.G. Le Clézio (born 13 April 1940) is a French / Mauritian novelist. The author of over thirty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot and the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature … (full text).

Biography; Works and writing; Awards.

More bios: on PEGASOS; on Svenska Akademien; and on letterature.

He says: … « I consider myself an exile because my family is entirely Mauritian. For generations we were fed on Mauritian folklore, food, legends and culture. It is a very mixed culture, a fusion of India, Africa and Europe. I was born in France and raised in France with this country’s culture. I grew up telling myself that there was a somewhere else which embodied my true homeland. One day I would go there, and I would know what it was. So in France I always thought of myself a little bit of an « outsider ». On the other hand, I love the French language which is perhaps my true country! But thinking of France as a nation, I must say I have rarely identified with its priorities » … (full long interview text).

PARIS — The Swedish Academy on Thursday awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, a cosmopolitan and prolific French novelist, children’s author and essayist regarded by many French readers and critics as one of the country’s greatest living writers … (full text). More on Nobel Prize: on Times online; and on Google News-search by keyword Jean-Marie LeClezio, oct. 09, 2008. A writing life in 7 pictures.

(He is an) « author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization » (Nobelprize.org).

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Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio – France

Telephone interview with Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio immediately following the announcement of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, 9 October 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org. Listen to the Interview (Oct. 2008, 7 min).

French Video on France-Inter, 11.58 min, oct. 9, 2008.

He says also: … « I am very happy, and I am also very moved because I wasn’t expecting this at all. Many other names were mentioned, names of people for whom I have a lot of esteem. I was in good company. Luck, or destiny, or maybe other reasons, other motives, had it so that I got it. But it could have been someone else » … (full text).

The Google download book: Onitsha, by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Alison Anderson, 1997, 206 pages.

… Le Clézio received much attention with his first novel, Le procès-verbal (1963; The Interrogation, 1964). As a young writer in the aftermath of existentialism and the nouveau roman, he was a conjurer who tried to lift words above the degenerate state of everyday speech and to restore to them the power to invoke an essential reality. His debut novel was the first in a series of descriptions of crisis, which includes the short story collection La fièvre (1965; Fever, 1966) and Le déluge (1966; The Flood, 1967), in which he points out the trouble and fear reigning in the major Western cities … (full text).

For the fifth time in a row, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been received by a European.

And he says: … « Well, let me think about that! It’s a … in a way it’s a very intimidating situation, because I’m not familiar … it’s not my habit to give messages, and to express thoughts. I would say, rather, I would prefer to be read, and to, that my writings might inspire some people. I, anyway, there is of course the speech I have to deliver to the Nobel Academy, so maybe I will find some, some messages to express at that time » … (full interview text).

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Krishnammal Jagannaathan – India

Linked with Land to the tillers, and with Land for Tillers Freedom LAFTI.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

… Early lives (1930-1950): Krishnammal Jagannathan was born to a landless Dalit family in 1926. Despite her family’s poverty, she obtained university level education and was soon committed to the Gandhian Sarvodaya Movement, through which she met her husband, Sankaralingam Jagannathan (born in 1912), also a noted Gandhian. Sankaralingam Jagannathan came from a rich family but gave up his college studies in 1930 in response to Gandhi’s call for non-cooperation and disobedience. He joined the Quit India Movement in 1942 and spent three and a half years in jail before India gained its independence in 1947. During this time he already had considerable impact as campaigner on behalf of the poor. Sankaralingam and Krishnammal married in 1950, having decided only to marry in independent India … // … Further achievements and honours: In their lives, Sankaralingam Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan, either independently or together, have established a total of seven non-governmental institutions for the poor. Besides this, Krishnammal Jagannathan has also played an active role in wider public life: she has been a Senate member of the Gandhigram Trust and University and of Madurai University; a member of a number of local and state social welfare committees; and a member of the National Committee on Education, the Land Reform Committee and the Planning Committee. These activities have gained for the Jagannathans a high profile in India and they have won many prestigious Awards: the Swami Pranavananda Peace Award (1987); the Jamnalal Bajaj Award (1988) and Padma Shri in 1989. In 1996 the couple received the Bhagavan Mahaveer Award « for propagating non-violence. » In 1999 Krishnammal was awarded a Summit Foundation Award (Switzerland), and in 2008 an ‘Opus Prize’ given by the University of Seattle … (full text right livelihood).

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Krishnammal Jagannaathan – India

She works for Land for Tillers Freedom LAFTI.

Listen her video: Krishnammal Jagannaathan, Founder of LAFTI, 9.21 min.

She says: « I realized then that being a peasant woman was hard enough, but to be a Harijan woman was harder still » … and: « Father disciplined us with corporal punishment, » she remembers. « We simply weren’t allowed to mingle with village children. Mostly, we were taken outside the village during the day and brought back home only at night » … and: « Those were three memorable days, » says Krishnammal. « Gandhi and many of us went around collecting money for the cause of the Untouchables » … and: Of her mother, she recalls, « Mother had no knowledge of the outside world. During the day, she used to work very hard under the hot sun in the paddy fields, and at night she used to pound and husk the paddy with her own hands to sell in the market » … (1000peacewomen).

… As a young student, Jagannathan worked with Mohandas Gahndhi and later with Vinobha Bhave to help untouchable bonded laborers. Krishnammal will receive an Opus Prize Award in a ceremony at Seattle University on November 18. She will travel to Sweden in December to receive the Right Livelihood Award at a ceremony in the Swedish Parliament … (full text).

Sankaralingam Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan believed that one of the key requirements for achieving a Gandhian society is by empowering the rural poor through redistribution of land to the landless. For two years between 1950 and 1952 Sankaralingam Jagannathan was with Vinoba Bhave in Northern India on his Bhoodan (land-gift) Padayatra (pilgrimage on foot), the march appealing to landlords to give one sixth of their land to the landless. Mean while Krishnammal completed her teacher-training course in Madras (now renamed Chennai). When Sankaralingam returned to Tamil Nadu to start the Bhoodhan movement the couple, until 1968, worked for land redistribution through Vinoba Bhave’s Gramdan movement (Village Gift, the next phase of the land-gift movement), and through Satyagraha (non-violent resistance). Sankaralingam Jagannathan was imprisoned many times for this work. Between 1953 and 1967, the couple played an active role in the Bhoodhan movement spearheaded by Vinoba Bhave, through which about 4 million acres of land were distributed to thousands of landless poor across several Indian states … (full long text).

Find her and her publications on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search.

(1000peacewomen): Freedom-fighter and Dalit activist Krishnammal Jagannaathan (born on 16 June 1926) is often referred to as India’s Joan of Arc. Krishnammal believes in a participatory approach, motivating people to change their own lives. In 1981, she cofounded Land for Tillers Freedom (LAFTI) to facilitate the distribution of land to landless peasants. LAFTI takes bank loans to buy land; the peasants pay the organization back over time. She has also mobilized women on many issues, including wages, land, housing, and sexual harassment, and encouraged many of them to better their own lives.

Born into a Dalit family in a village near Batlagundu, Tamil Nadu, her earliest memories are of segregation.

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Roberto Saviano – Italy

Linked with Roberto Saviano: an Italian dissident, and with Sign for Roberto Saviano – Firma per Roberto Saviano.

Roberto Saviano (born 1979) is an Italian writer and journalist. In his writings, articles and books he employs prose and news-reporting style to narrate the story of the Camorra (a powerful Neapolitan mafia-like organization), exposing its territory and business connections. In 2006, following the publication of his bestselling book Gomorrah (Gomorra in Italian), where he describes the clandestine particulars of the Camorra business, Saviano has been threatened by several Neapolitan “godfathers”. The Italian Minister of the Interior has granted him a permanent police escort. Because of his courageous stance, he is considered a « national hero » by important author-philosophers such as Umberto Eco … (full text).

Biography.

He says: … «  »…l’errore più grave che si fa quando si osserva il fenomeno camorra e quello di considerarlo un fenomeno criminale quando invece è un fenomeno di potere dove l’aspetto criminale e solo uno degli aspetti ». (full text).

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Roberto Saviano – Italy

Listen the video in italian, Roberto Saviano – parte 1,  7.11 min.

La nueva Camorra, SA: El grupo criminal, el más poderoso de Italia, se vuelve más flexible y extiende sus tentáculos más allá de Nápoles.

His 2 websites: in italian, and in french and some english.

Man who took on the Mafia: The truth about Italy’s gangsters.

… The trouble for Saviano is that « Gomorra » takes a detailed look at the Camorra, as the Naples mafia is known. In fact it’s a play on words, comparing Naples to the sinful Old Testament city. But Saviano — who has also written about the mob for the Neapolitan paper L’Espresso — doesn’t merely describe the mafia’s influence in Naples. He also provides detailed descriptions of the inner workings of the criminal organization. And he names names … (full text).

Why Is the Pope So Silent About the Mob?

Find him and his publications on Google News-search; on IMDb; on nazione indiana (in italian); on Google Video-search (for the moment all in italian); on inauthor Google-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search.

Aftonbladet.

FRANKFURT — Amidst the raucous parties and frantic deal making of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the international publishing industry’s largest gathering of the year, there was a salient reminder that writing can be a dangerous business … (full text).

Salman Rushdie: Gomorrah author in greater danger than I was under fatwah.

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