Here are the latest cultural headlines in the media.

National libraries of Iran and S. Korea sign agreement

Tehran Times: Iran National Library and Archives (INLA) Director Ali-Akbar Ash’ari visited the National Library of South Korea in Seoul on Friday.

Ash’ari met with the National Library of Korea director Chul-min Mo and they both signed an agreement to boost bilateral cooperation.

They both agreed to exchange their experience in library science, training staffs and holding book fairs.

Both parties also agreed to establish the departments of Iran and South Korea at the national libraries of the two countries.

Ash’ari, accompanied by an Iranian delegation, next visited different sections of the library and its huge digital section.

The delegation is due to visit other cities and the national archive of the country in the coming days.

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Rahmati plans Turkish translation of Langerudi’s poetry

Tehran Times: Iranian translator Hamed Rahmati plans to render a poetry anthology by contemporary Iranian poet Shams Langerudi into Turkish.

Forty poems will be selected for the collection, Rahmati told the Persian service of the Mehr News Agency on Saturday.

Last year, he published Turkish translations of 10 poems by Langerudi on the internet, which were warmly received by native Turkish speakers.

“Taking on such an endeavor is a must, on account of the Turkish people’s interest in Iranian culture and literature and their lack of knowledge about Iranian authors and poets,” Rahmati said.

Rahmati also plans to prepare a Persian translation of an anthology of Turkish poetesses. He is currently studying to select the best for the omnibus.

He has recently completed his collection of poems “The Itinerant Photographer”, which will be printed by the Ahang publishing company if it is authorized by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

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Rana Dasgupta, Daniyal Mueenuddin Win Commonwealth Writer Awards

Iran News: Indian novelist Rana Dasgupta's 'Solo' and Pakistan-based author Daniyal Mueenuddin's 'In Other Rooms, Other Wonders' were Thursday declared regional winners of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for 2010 in the European and South Asian categories.

While "Solo" was declared the best book, "In Other Rooms..." was selected as the best first book by an author.

Presented by the Commonwealth Foundation with support from the Macquarie Group Foundation, the global winners of the award will be announced in the capital April 12.

A five-day literary event in the run-up to the awards ceremony April 12 will begin April 7 with a series of interactive literary sessions. This is the first time that the event is being held in the Indian capital, which will also stage the Commonwealth Games in October.
The two books from the South Asian and European regions will have to compete with winners from Africa, Caribbean and Canada next month for the global prizes in the best book and the best first book categories, director of the Commonwealth Foundation, Mark Collins, said Thursday.

Other regional winners declared Thursday include "The Double Crown" (Best Book) by Marie Heese and "I Do Not Come to You By Chance" (Best First Book) by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani from Africa; "Galore" by Michael Crummey (Best Book); "Under this Unbroken Sky (Best First Book)" by Shandi Mitchell from the Canada and Caribbean region; and "The Adventures of Vela" by Albert Wendt and "Siddon Rock" by Glenda Guest in the Southeast Asia and Pacific region.

Collins said the entries this year had been "absolutely outstanding and competition was fierce".

"The prize identifies the best of Commonwealth fiction in English and is a way to spot talent and create new literary heroes from the Commonwealth. Taken as a whole, the eight winning books from Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Pakistan, Samoa, South Africa and United Kingdom reach out to readers across all cultures," Collins said.

"In its 24th year, the Writers' Prize has a strong track record of discovering new international stars. The winners of best first book and best book from South Asia and Europe will join some of the biggest names in fiction to have been recognized by the prize, including Indra Sinha and Vikram Chandra from the region," officials said.

Pakistan-based writer Muneeza Shamsie, the regional chair for the prize, said that the judges were impressed by the quality of the submissions.

"The shortlists revealed their range and diversity - but the two winning entries were outstanding. In the best book category, 'Solo' by Rana Dasgupta, which revolves around Ulrich, a blind 100 year-old Bulgarian in Sofia, was remarkable for its innovation, ambition and courage as well as its elegant prose. The novel interrogates the past through Ulrich's memories and his thwarted hopes, and blends the present and future through his daydreams," Shamsie said.

In the best first book category, "In Other Rooms..." by Mueenuddin was considered remarkable by the judges "for its clear, exact prose and its wide scope, ranging from rural Pakistan to Paris", Shamsie said.

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A New “Math Art” Activity Book Written By A Teacher

Iran News: If non-lawyers never write about law, and non-doctors never write about medicine, why are so many books about teaching written by authors with little or no classroom teaching experience?

Scholastic Professional Books, for instance, is one of the largest publishers of teacher resources. According to their mission statement, the company supports teachers as they “make the dozens of daily instructional decisions that may forever shape the lives of students.” But strangely, many of their books—including those offering lessons intended to be used in actual classrooms—are written by staff or freelance writers with no experience teaching a classroom of rambunctious children.

Two popular Scholastic titles—Mathart Projects and Activities (by Carolyn Ford Brunetto) and Easy Mathart Projects and Activities (by Cecilia Dinio-Durkin)—aim to help teachers enhance their math instruction through the incorporation of art. But neither of these books are written by current or former schoolteachers. Not surprisingly, their lessons possess vague learning objectives, offer no assessment materials, and frequently rely on project materials not readily available in even the most well-stocked classroom.

In contrast, a new book written by Zachary J. Brewer demonstrates what is possible when a former teacher attempts to creatively integrate art into math instruction. MATH ART: HANDS-ON MATH ACTIVITIES FOR GRADES 2, 3, AND 4 presents twenty-seven projects, all of which state precise learning objectives, include reproducible assessment sheets, and require only convenient classroom materials (markers, crayons, rulers, construction paper, etc.).

Mr. Brewer’s book is a byproduct of necessity. “After a first year characterized by classroom discipline problems, unmotivated students, concerned supervisors, and my own ineffective math lessons," says Brewer, "I decided that incorporating art—a subject I knew elementary students loved—into my math instruction had a good chance of solving many of my problems.” And since Mr. Brewer understands that good teaching always ensures student awareness of learning objectives from a lesson’s outset, he created his lessons using “backwards design”—the theory that lesson plans should be written with an end goal firmly in mind.

Considering how uniquely difficult teaching can be, one should generally be doubtful of writers seeking to influence or profit from the profession without actually experiencing its challenges. And with so much new research attesting to the benefits of incorporating art into traditional subject matter, it is important that we carefully determine which books are best suited for the purpose.

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Vargas Llosa's Real "Aunt Julia" Dies in Bolivia

Iran News: The Bolivian woman who inspired Mario Vargas Llosa's 1977 novel "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," and married Peru's best-known writer when he was 19, has died at age 84.

Julia Urquidi died of respiratory problems in the Bolivian city Santa Cruz Wednesday, her relatives said.

Urquidi was 10 years older than the novelist, who is renowned for works including "The Feast of the Goat." They were married from 1955 to 1964.

Dissatisfied with her ex-husband's account of their relationship, she published her own account of the marriage in a book titled "What Little Vargas Didn't Say."

Urquidi said the couple split when Vargas Llosa admitted he was in love with her niece, Patricia, to whom he is still married.

Vargas Llosa, 73, who ran for Peru's presidency but was defeated by jailed former President Alberto Fujimori in 1990, is one of Latin America's most famous novelists and also writes regular newspaper columns.

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Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal, By Lydie Salvayre

Iran News: Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal, as in the French writer Lydie Salvayre's other novels, treats us to a meditative work of fiction narrated by someone trying to find their foothold in the void. This time, Salvayre's void is high finance and the "free market". An unnamed female narrator has agreed to write the authorized biography of the richest man in the world, a fast-food magnate called Tobold the Hamburger King.

Reviewed by Lee Rourke

It is soon made clear he is a despicable man and, wherever he goes, there is bound to be conflict. Yet the narrator is quickly seduced by Tobold's world. She mixes with call girls and celebrities, falling under the spell of Robert De Niro, witnessing untold cruelty and distorted religious doctrines. Pen in hand, she follows Tobold's every move.

Tobold refers to his future biography as "the gospel". Such is the level of his megalomania that, bizarrely, he uses the life of Christ as his model. His worldview is devoid of altruism and filled with self-aggrandizing philosophies, where the poor "never go out of style". For Tobold, the economic structure of the world must never change.

Such "economic messianism" is something his new-found biographer finds sickening, but still she is lured. It is this knowing slide into Tobold's sordid abyss that makes Salvayre's novel (translated by William Pedersen) so interesting. She has placed the writer in a world governed by the crass accumulation of profit. The narrator can only fall back on her own ideologies for intellectual succour, but reveals her own vanities. Likewise, all empires have to collapse. After an unannounced visit from Tobold's mother we, with the narrator, follow his descent into a crazed, remorseful wreck of a man seeking some kind of redemption.

Salvayre has created a satirical plunge into the abyss infused with absurdities and truisms alike. At once hilarious and damning, the novel can both repel and soothe. Perhaps most telling of all, like all great writers, Salvayre understands that all biography is fiction.

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Aarya Babbar Turns Comic Book Writer

Iran News: Bollywood actor Aarya Babbar, who got noticed for his roles in films like 'Guru' and 'Jail', is trying out an interesting alternative career, that of a comic book writer.

The young son of actor Raj Babbar is donning this new role for a mythological comic book series, tentatively titled 'Pushpak Vimaan' and has begun writing it.

"I have been shooting for 'Tees Maar Khan' and have also completed a Punjabi film, 'Virsa'. I used my free time on the sets and at home to develop and research this subject. I have read many books related to the various characters in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata," Aarya told reporters.

"The story will be a mythology, set in today's world.

I had e-mailed my idea to Shekhar Kapur, who loved it and initiated the process with Liquid Comics," he said.

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Book of a Lifetime: A Writer's Diary, By Virginia Woolf

Iran News: I first read Virginia Woolf when I was an undergraduate longing to write novels; she was not yet part of the canon or the course.

Book review by Maggie Gee

I bought her early novel, Jacob's Room, and fell in love with its vivid, vanished past. Now, many decades later, after writing my first non-fiction book, a memoir called My Animal Life, I admire the very different Woolf of the Diaries, which face in the opposite direction to Jacob's Room – towards the future she would never see and the briefer, faster idiom of our own time, the era of texts and emails. I love the intimacy and clarity of this voice, and tried for a similar directness myself in My Animal Life, taking the reader into the secrets of my heart.

When a selection from her diaries first appeared as A Writer's Diary in 1953, a dozen years after Woolf's death, they had been edited by her husband, Leonard, into a much more formal kind of prose than she actually wrote. In reality, as her pen flashed oblique blue-black or purple script across large blank sheets of paper, Woolf characteristically abbreviated names, used the '&' symbol, and preferred dashes to semi-colons or full-stops, as we discovered from Anne Olivier Bell's fuller and more faithful 1977 text. Leonard aimed to choose passages which illuminate Woolf's literary practice, yet daily life and humor constantly break in. His selection ends with Woolf grappling with depression and household duties after finishing Between the Acts (a novel subsequently hailed as her best but which she feared was a failure): "one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down."

She is said to be a snob: she isn't, in the deepest sense, because she is interested in everyone and everything. When she is hurt or unhappy she strikes a glancing blow at someone, but these are just surges of the uncensored mind; retrospective moral policing is pointless. She also spills over with pleasure and fascination at the doings of her fellow human beings. She is sometimes child-like and touching, as when she reflects on Leonard saying that he would like to die before her because, in effect, he loves her more. "To be needed" makes her happy. Sometimes a foreglimpse of her suicide by drowning ripples across these pages, light as willow leaves over water – as early as January 1915, she describes how, on a walk, she was "cut off by the river, which rose visibly, with a little ebb & flow, like the pulse of a heart". But her writing also blazes with the sunlight that brands its image on her retina. Three months before she died, in 1941, she wrote "Still frost. Burning white. Burning blue. The elms red...

The downs in snow. Asheham Down, red, purple, dove blue grey...What is the phrase I always remember – or forget. Look your last on all things lovely."

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Turkish Interactions in Focus

Iran Daily: Cihan Aktaş, a columnist for Taraf newspaper, who has lived in Iran for years, recently talked about her personal experience in Iran’s culture-art world and social life with Aynur Erdogan of World Bulletin News.
Aktaş presents a different Iranian perspective than the one reflected in the western media channels.

Aynur Erdogan: You have lived in Iran for a long time. Do you feel like an Iranian or do you feel like you are in a foreign country?

Cihan Aktas: I came to Iran for the second time in 1998 to live here for a long time. I got to know the Iranian society and culture very well over a long period of time. However, I do not feel Iranian. The reason for this is that my personality was already formed when I came to Iran.
Actually I have not totally separated from Turkey in the past years. In Istanbul I have a desk, a library and a house where I work during long trips. In his novel A Caverna, Saramago says that a person with two houses has no home. Maybe I chose living like this to adopt a homeland in language, although I do not feel like a foreigner in Iran.

The two peoples have influenced one another greatly throughout history. The influence of Persian culture in Turkey cannot be denied. Isn’t there a familiarity brought by this situation?
I think that the first country in the Middle East or perhaps even the world where a person from Turkey would not feel like a foreigner would be Iran. There is a dynamic population that is full of surprises and creative. I have become accustomed to living in this country over time.

But growing accustomed is not a good thing. I had begun to make plans for returning to Turkey for my youngest daughter who wants to continue her university education in Turkey when I received an offer to teach short-story writing and creative writing courses in the Turkish Literature and Language Department at Allameh Tabatabaei University (Tehran). I began to teach at a time when my peers retired. At the end of the semester, I read the first exam papers. I am pleased to find the teaching profession again after many years.

Isn’t it difficult to live there and write about Turkey? Would you mention the difficulties and advantages of this situation?
As I said, I do not remain far from Turkey for a long period of time. At most two or three months pass; I come there by one means or another or with an invitation. I thought that I could work in the area of cinema. I wanted to answer the question of how women lived beyond the images of Iranian women in the media. I lived in Baku for a few years and then went to Tehran. Actually this is a lifestyle I had once wished for. I am trying to get to know a part of Islamic geography that I find interesting.

It seems as though while probing Persian culture you have hung on tightly to language.

We can say that. I believe in acquiring a homeland through language. Turkish has always been the determining language in my daily life.

Do you also write in Persian?
My reading and writing in Persian is limited to reading newspapers and magazines. Sometimes I read a book of stories recommended by a friend.

Is your work followed in Iran?

None of my works has been translated into Persian and published yet. My daughter Meryem translated my book of short stories entitled Because I Resemble My Aunt two or three years ago, but the file has just waited in a drawer. A friend of mine recently took the file to publish it.

I know that a few of my stories have been translated by different translators to be published in magazines, but I could not follow up on them. Later on, a publishing house wanted to publish my novel Someone Listening to You. They asked me to take out some sections because it might be misunderstood in Iran.

How much are you into the Iranian world of art and literature?
I closely follow important cultural-artistic activities, especially painting exhibitions. I occasionally speak at meetings I am invited to. Sometimes I go to the theater. I follow developments in the cinema. I try and watch films of directors I deem important. There is a book I prepared related to Iranian directors, and I have had meetings regarding the book.

If we compare the sensitivities, agendas and reactions of the two countries’ intelligentsia, can we talk about common images?

Of course, the most important matter on the agendas of the two countries’ intelligentsia is shaped around the question and problems of the most suitable representative existence of a Muslim society in the modern world. Liberals and Islamists recommend different solutions.

The experiments with modernization are similar in the two countries.
Because the two countries are two great representatives in Islamic geography, they are constantly being interfered with.
People around me now are applauding Turkey’s struggle to become civilian and democratic. Prime Minister Erdoğan is seen as a hero. The peaceful initiatives made in the field of foreign relations are met with amazement.

Is there a vital relationship with Turkey’s art-culture circles?
Unfortunately, from an intellectual perspective, the curiosity of Iranian intellectuals toward Turkey is limited. Due to the activities of the socialist lobby in the past, Nazım Hikmet and Aziz Nesin were among the poets and writers read with interest in Iran.

It is disappointing that institutions have not been formed that could make a vital link between the intellectual worlds of the two countries.

I need to mention some interest towards writers and poets from Turkey among Iranian intellectuals as a result of the great efforts of Gürcan Türkoğlu, former consular to Tehran in Turkey’s previous period. For example, poet Sherare Kamrani acquired Mustafa Kutlu’s books and translated a few of them. We see that an important Muslim poet and thinker like Sezai Karakoç has only been translated recently.

What is the level of interest in respect to popular culture?
It is not surprising to hear a Turkish song when you get into a taxi. People you meet on the streets insist on speaking Turkish. Actually you can travel all over Iran without knowing Persian.

That’s very interesting!

Azari Turks are dispersed throughout the country. Formerly I heard questions from shopkeepers or taxi drivers mostly about Ibrahim Tatlıses or Tarkan. Lately the person the people on the street are most curious about and ask the most questions about is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Do you see similarities between the two peoples, for example, in wedding ceremonies, funeral ceremonies and Eid celebrations? For example, is there a difference between civil and religious marriages?

Their marriage ceremonies are not very similar. Of course, there are different wedding traditions particular to different regions in Turkey and I do not know all of them. Although local customs are increasingly limited in practice in big cities, the Iranians appear to me as sensitive in regard to practicing customs related to wedding ceremonies.

Different customs are added to marriage ceremonies according to the region.
I am more familiar with Azari ceremonies because my husband has Azari roots. Usually the marriage is made first and there is no difference between a civil and religious ceremony. Witnesses and official documents make the marriage valid. Consequently, either a cleric serving as a marriage official or his assistant come to the house or the couple goes to one of the marriage offices with a limited wedding party, which can frequently be seen on the streets.
For the marriage contract, the couple has to mutually approve the conditions written in their marriage certificate or if they are going to add or change some conditions, they have to say so.
The couples usually wait for the wedding celebration before passing to their common home. Meanwhile, gifts are taken to the bride and mutual gift-giving continues.
Regardless of whether the wedding is modern or traditional, held at home or in a wedding hall, a symbolic wedding banquet is held at all weddings.

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Benefits of Reading

Iran Daily: Reading is one of the best hobbies a person can have. But it’s saddening to know that majority of us aren’t introduced to the fabulous world of books.

If you are one of the non-book readers, here are some reasons to start the habit…before you are left behind!

Reading is an active mental process: Unlike sitting in front of TV, reading makes you use your brain. While reading, you would be forced to reason out many things that are unfamiliar to you. In this process, you would use the grey cells of your brain to think and become smarter.

Reading improves your vocabulary: Remember in elementary school when you learned how to infer the meaning of one word by reading the context of the other words in the sentence? You get the same benefit from book reading. While reading books, especially challenging ones, you will find yourself exposed to many new words you wouldn’t be otherwise, Inewsindia.com wrote.

Gives you a glimpse into other cultures and places: How would you know about the life of people in Mexico if you don’t read about it? Reading gives you an insight into the diversity of ethnicity of people, their customs and lifestyles. You become more aware about the different places and the code of conduct in those places.

Improves concentration and focus: It requires you to focus on what you are reading for long periods. Unlike magazines, Internet posts or emails that might contain small chunks of information, books tell the whole story. Since you must concentrate in order to read, like a muscle, you will get better at concentration.
Builds self-esteem: The more you read, the more knowledgeable you become. With more knowledge comes more confidence. More confidence builds self-esteem. So it’s a chain reaction. Since you are so well read, people look to you for answers. Your feelings about yourself can only get better.

Improves memory: Many studies show if you don’t use your memory, you lose it. Crossword puzzles are an example of a word game that staves off Alzheimer’s. Reading, although not a game, helps you stretch your memory muscles in a similar way. Reading requires remembering details, facts and figures and in literature, plot lines, themes and characters.

Improves your discipline: Making time to read is something we all know we should do, but who schedules book reading time every day? Very few. That’s why adding book reading to your daily schedule and sticking to it improves discipline.

Improves creativity: Reading about diversity of life and exposing yourself to new ideas and more information helps to develop the creative side of the brain, as it imbibes innovation into your thinking process.

You always have something to talk about: Have you ever found yourself in an embarrassing situation where you didn’t have anything to talk about? Did you hate yourself for making a fool of yourself? Do you want a remedy for this? It’s simple. Start reading. Reading widens your horizon of information. You’ll always have something to talk about. You can discuss various plots in the novels you read, you can discuss the stuff you are learning in the business books you are reading as well. The possibilities of sharing become endless.

Reduces boredom: When you’re feeling bored, pick up a book and start reading. As you become interested in the book’s subject, boredom will end. So, if you’re bored, you might as well read a good book?
If you want to break the monotony of a lazy, uncreative and boring life, go and grab an interesting book. Turn the pages to explore a new world filled with information and ingenuity.

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Scholar Laments Ignorance of Shahnameh Millennium

Iran Daily: Iranologist and scholar Fereidoun Joneidi, the director of Neyshabour Foundation, lamented the ignorance of cultural officials of the millennial anniversary of the creation of Shahnameh, a magnum opus by the renowned Persian poet Abolqasem Ferdowsi.

“There have been efforts by those interested in Persian art and culture to mark the anniversary, but cultural officials who possess many facilities have not taken any serious steps in this regard,” Joneidi said.

The scholar is scheduled to address a session arranged by Iran’s Ferdowsi Foundation on the occasion of the registration of the Shahnameh millennium on UNESCO’s 2010 calendar of events, Mehr News Agency reported.

The session will be held on Saturday March 13 at Neyshabour Foundation where Joneidi has been in charge for 30 years.

“I have served Persian culture for many years and have managed to oversee the completion of a new version of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Here at the foundation, we hold weekly sessions on Shahnameh, and the final session will be next week.”

Joneidi has published over 30 books on Iran’s history and culture, including ‘The Iranian History’, ‘A letter on the Iranian Culture’ and ‘The Avestan Dictionary’.

Shahnameh is an enormous poetic opus by the Persian poet Ferdowsi around 1,000 AD and is the national epic of the Persian-speaking world. It tells the mythical and historical past of Iran from the creation of the world up to the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century.

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