A world of icons, not alphabets
Reviving a dead language is not normally a recommended practice in communications: road signs in Latin (say, NON DEXTER VICISSIM instead of “No Right Turn”) are certain to cause more accidents than not, and billboards written in runic Old Norse…
The factual refracted
Over the past century a important minority of writers have turned their minds to the philosophy of literature itself, or even simply of books — Jorge Luis Borges’ 1941 short story “The Library of Babel” (La biblioteca de Babel), a…
Where Milton slept
Travellers of a bookish bent will find a new website from Standford English professor Martin Evans to be of great use in guiding them to all of the spots in London where any of fifty great authors once resided or…
Interesting and ambitious
Worth checking out: ZAM, a high-energy magazine about Africa with a cheeky sense of style, some great art direction, and a focus on the continent’s most interesting and ambitious designers, artists, musicians, and writers. Published in the Netherlands, with editorial…
Recent best: Aminatta Forna
London-based novelist Aminatta Forna is the award-winning author of The Memory of Love, Ancestor Stones and The Devil that Danced on the Water. The Memory of Love recently won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa). Aminatta recommends: If you want…
Memories and four-letter words
The regional winners of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize were announced a few hours ago, and while the two African books honoured (and still in the race for the overall prize, to be announced on May 21) seem at first to…
