NEWSFLASHES
Topic: February 2005
MUSIC AND MAGICAL
REALISM
American musician and composer Conor Oberst, of the
popular independent band, Bright Eyes, talks about being
really into "that magical realism stuff" in a recent interview
with the
Belfast Telegraph
In a recent Time magazine retrospective on reggae
master Bob Marley, the Caribbean's infamous musician
was described as "a musical magic realist" by senior editor
Christopher Farley. Go to the article
SEEING DOUBLE
from Mark Sanderson's "Literary Life" column at the Telegraph?
"Twins, by their very nature, come in pairs. Now,
it seems, so do novels about them. ? Helen Oyeyemi's
The Icarus Girl, published this month by
Bloomsbury, is a work of magical realism featuring
mystical twins with a Nigerian mother. Diana Evans's
26A, to be published by Chatto & Windus in
March, is a work of magical realism featuring mystical
twins with a Nigerian mother."
Writers of flash fiction and prose poetry who have written
work on the theme of twins, mirrors or
doubles/doppelgangers might consider submitting to
Periphery's current contest, following the theme of "Reasonable
Facsimiles." Hurry, the deadline is Feb 15, 2005!
NEW WORK
Dean Bakopoulos earned four stars from book columnist
Marta Salij for the Detroit Free Press for his subtly magical
realist novel, Please Don't Come Back From the
Moon, recently released by Harcourt.
Other recent releases:
Kafka on the Shore ~ Haruki Murakami
The Shadow of the Wind ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon
(audiobook version, narrative by James Wilby)
Out on a Limb ~ Judith Budnitz
Tokyo Cancelled ~ Rana Dasgupta
The Last Song of Dusk ~ Siddharth Dhanvant
Shanghvi
Bab Al-Shams (The Gate of the Sun) ~ a film by
Yousry Nasrallah
FILM
In the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette, writer Philip Martin raves
about Danny Boyle?s "delightful" Millions, a film
slated for limited release in the US in March. Says Martin,
"The March release date is a shame, for Millions is
a funny bit of magical realism that just might be the best
Christmas movie I?ve ever seen."
Some Sundance Film Festival selections to look for:
Thumbsucker by Mike Mills and
Chumscrubber by Arie Posen
LITTLE GREEN MEN,
RUSSIAN-STYLE
Recently reviewed in the St. Petersburg Times:
Irina Denezhkina's "Vasya and the Green Men," a short
story described as "a darkly humored, grim, and violent
exercise in magical realism" from her new collection,
Give Me.
ON THE OSCAR TRAIL
Notable screenwriter and playwright Jose Rivera studied
with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and was the co-creator of the
short-lived, but memorable, '80s television series, Eerie,
Indiana. His work on both the screen and stage pushes
the limits of reality in ways that are uniquely American.
His latest script effort, The Motorcycle Diaries, a
film about Che Guevera, was recently nominated for an
Oscar. Read more