AUGUST BIRTHDAYS

8.25, Alvaro Mutis. 8.26, Julio Cortazar. 8.27, Jeanette Winterson. 8.28, Janet Frame.

JUST FOR FUN

Editor's note: I just love opening up the Boing-Boing blog everyday. You never know what you'll find there. Today, it's giant praying mantises. [Or is that mantii?] How very Kafkaesque!

INDUSTRY NEWS

[08.25.06]?Lipton Tea is celebrating its 100th anniversary in an artful way: they've commissioned Japanese design firm Nendo to create a cafe inspired by the Mad Hatter's Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland. You can visit the installation at the Ozone Living Design Center in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

[08.24.06]?It's widely understood how literary magical realism was likely birthed from a European fine arts movement led by Franz Roh. Lois Parkinson Zamora has written three new essays which address the relationship between the visual and the literary. [Source: Endicott Studio]

WRITING NEWS

[08.24.06]?The Burning Epiphanies blog offers a couple of great writing prompts which we think are of special interest to magical realist writers who aim to uncover Truth in their work.

CELEBRITY NEWS

[08.24.06]?Did you know that Jorge Luis Borges has some poetry and nonfiction?two editions of Bibliotheque de la Pleiade?yet unavailable to the reading public? His widow and estate-controller, Maria Kodama, won't allow reproductions of the two vast tomes. Learn about the scandal here

BOOKS

[08.27.06]?The Women in Cages: Collected Stories by Vilas Sarang.?Writes Prasenjit Chowdhury for Deccan Herald? "The art of the willing suspension of disbelief gave way to magic realism mainly in the hands of the Latin American writers and beyond, the tribe of Borges and Marquez. But if you had always wanted an Indian writer to take up the literary cudgel for the best of what is largely a continental literary tradition, read Vilas Sarang?s The Women in Cages, a collection of 26 short stories that represent 30 of his 40 years? work in English and Marathi." Penguin Books, 2006

[08.24.06]?Before I Wake by Robert J. Wiersema (Random House Canada: August 2006)?Writes Jacqueline Turner for Straight.com: "An accident puts a three-year-old girl in a coma, and her parents struggle to cope. Discovering subsequently that she is a source of miracles is only one part of the novel?s many twists. The driver who caused the accident tries to commit suicide but is left in a kind of magic-realist limbo seeking, you guessed it, redemption."

MIXED MEDIA

[08.24.06]?Komome Diner?Dylan Young for Hour writes that this film, showing at the World Film Festival is "a magic realist gem made by Japanese in Finland." Playing through Sept 4.

[08.23.06]?Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, will be adapted into a film starring Brendan Fraser by New Line Cinema.

A LITTLE LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING?

YOU MAY NOTICE: We'll be experimenting with the format and frequency of this newsblog over the next few weeks. Let us know if something works well or doesn't work at all. We're here to serve you.

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GENTLE REMINDER: Margin's staff is on hiatus through mid-October 2006. Any e-mail we receive during this time will receive replies as necessary, but there may be delays due to pool parties, novel revision, rib festivals or stargazing.

MR NEWS: DOUBLE ISSUE/NO COMMENT: Magical realist birthdays, Kafkesque Mantii?, Tea Party Installation, Lois Parkinson Zamora, exercise: writing the Truth, Borges's Widow, Vilas Sarang, Before I Wake, Komome Diner, Branden Fraser in Inkheart