Pride in one’s art is usually encouraged, but what if one’s art supported a cause or a thought process that’s no longer in favor or that has even become denigrated?
Two months back when I reviewed Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase, I mentioned that the 1970 seppuku of the internationally-acclaimed Yukio Mishima overshadowed the Japanese literary world for some years afterward.
The wild west has caught the imagination of many, American and non-American alike, for years.
This past February, one of the most brilliant contemporaries in the literary world passed away. His name was Umberto Eco, who was an Italian professor in semiotics. In 1980, he won surprising acclaim in the Italian publishing world for The Name of the Rose<span
Not only was the novel a hit with the majority of book reviewers, its popularity spread throughout the public, and film rights were quickly optioned with famous young actors seeking to the play the protagonist’s role.
As both a reader and a writer, I enjoy diverse genres of literature. I however would have to choose mid-20th century British comic fiction as one of my favorites.
Cyberspace; the World Wide Web; the internet. Whatever you would like to call the now ubiquitous technology, it’s hard for many to remember a time when humanity wasn’t plugged in and online.
What are some of the things that come to your mind when you think of the 1980s? Manhattan. Cocaine. Partying. Fashion. Yuppie culture.
When the publishing world released Empire of the Sun in 1984, it won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
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