LITERATURA

La cultura en el sentido que tradicionalmente se ha dado a este vocablo esta en nuestros dias a punto de desaparecer. La banalizacion de las artes y la literatura el triunfo del periodismo amarillista y la frivolidad de la politica son sintomas de un mal mayor que aqueja a la sociedad contemporanea: la idea temeraria de convertir en bien supremo nuestra natural propension a divertirnos. En el pasado la cultura fue una especie de conciencia que impedia dar la espalda a la realidad. Ahora actua como mecanismo de distraccion y entretenimiento. La figura del intelectual que estructuro todo el siglo XX hoy ha desaparecido del debate publico. Aunque algunos firmen manifiestos o participen en polemicas lo cierto es que su repercusion en la sociedad es minima. Conscientes de esta situacion muchos han optado por el discreto silencio. Como buen espiritu incomodo Vargas Llosa nos entrega una durisima radiografia de nuestro tiempo y nuestra cultura. Este pequeno ensayo no aspira a abultar el elevado numero de interpretaciones sobre la cultura contemporanea solo a dejar constancia de la metamorfosis que ha experimentado lo que se entendia aun por cultura cuando mi generacion entro a la escuela o a la universidad y la abigarrada materia que la ha sustituido una impostura que parece haberse realizado con facilidad en la aquiescencia general. Mario Vargas Llosa El nuevo libro de Mario Vargas Llosa tras la concesion del Premio Nobel de Literatura.

In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck's ingenious collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about the previous, paired story. Mysteries and murders are revealed, history is refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven through characters and families.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet was viewed over 10 million times. One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse.

Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a onetime strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he’s found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering. Before he knows it, he’s been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner, ending up eventually in Hungary where there’s no shoreline, a language from some other planet, and enough pastry to see any cop well into retirement—and of course no sign of the runaway heiress he’s supposed to be chasing. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them, none of which Hicks is qualified, forget about being paid, to deal with. Surrounded by history he has no grasp on and can’t see his way around in or out of, the only bright side for Hicks is it’s the dawn of the Big Band Era and as it happens he’s a pretty good dancer. Whether this will be enough to allow him somehow to Lindy-hop his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world, which may no longer exist, is another question.

While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, not to mention the trials that followed, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines. For sure no one expected the dead to rise, but they did. No one expected the mountain to fall either, but it did. No one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif, to say nothing of Pillars Meadow. As one Orvop high school teacher described that extraordinary feat just days before she died, Fer sure no one expected Kalin March to look Old Porch in the eye and tell him: You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.

When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.

Meddy has spent her whole life as a footnote in someone else's story. Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters, she dreams of leaving her family's island for a life of adventure. So when she catches the eye of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as a priestess in her temple, Meddy leaps at the chance to see the world beyond her home. Flourishing in her role as Athena's favoured acolyte, all it takes is one fateful night to irrevocably alter the course of Meddy's promising future forever. With her locs transformed into snakes as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Meddy must embrace a new identity - not as a victim, but as a vigilante - and with it, the chance to write her own story as mortal, martyr and myth.

In the garden of a large Georgian villa in Southwest London, socialites and politicos swap gossip and sip Pimm's while making snide remarks at each other. Not far from this frivolity, though, a body has been discovered in the River Thames. At first, it appears to be an unfortunate accident, but the death is connected to this gathering of who's who in a way that may spell scandal. Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp, attempting to enjoy an evening at the theatre, is shocked to discover another dead body, just a few seats away. The death is linked to the decades-old disappearance of a fourteen-year-old girl at a boarding school in Cornwall. Now Caius has two cases on his plate, but if he wants the resources to solve the tragic mystery of the girl's disappearance, he will have to take new orders from a shadowy government minister who contends that the accidental drowning in the Thames was anything but.

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible. Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.