English-language retellings of Jewish folktales come from many different source languages, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Ladino (the language of the Sephardic Jews) chief among them. This post will present a round-up of some of my favorite storytelling collections, whether translated or otherwise reworked from the oral tradition. Since I work in a Sephardic congregation library, I … Continue reading Jewish Storytelling Sources
In Summer 2015 and 2017 I spent time in Jordan, Israel, and Palestine doing a number of things related to my work as Middle East Studies Librarian at the Michigan State University Libraries. One of my goals was collecting comics, to add to our international comic art collection, a vast and beautifully cataloged and cared-for … Continue reading Collecting Israeli Comics
An interview about poetry, memory, and revolution with Argentinian independent publisher, returned exile and political activist Miguel Martínez Naón. (Arturo Desimone’s series on Latin American Poetry for Anomaly and formerly The Drunken Boat. Republished with permission from Anomaly.) Miguel Martínez Naón is an Argentinian editor who forms part of the independent publisher Lamás Médula, … Continue reading Notes on a Return to the Ever-Dying Lands: The Return of Naón
In this latest addition to his popular Who Built That? series, Didier Cornille presents ten of the most important bridges in the world, from the Brooklyn to the Golden Gate; from the first in cast iron to the longest in concrete; from small footbridges to the tallest in the world. Cornille introduces each engineer or … Continue reading USBBY Outstanding International Book Pick: Who Built That? Bridges by Didier Cornille
Congratulations to the citizens of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where women have achieved the freedom to drive this week! Change happens very slowly and then all of a sudden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sowNSH_W2r0 Manal Al-Sharif driving on the streets of Saudi Arabia Manal Al-Sharif was the very public face of the #Women2Drive campaign in the Kingdom of … Continue reading ‘Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening’ by Manal Al-Sharif
**WINNER OF THE 2017 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE**The award-winning and internationally acclaimed author of the To the End of the Land now gives us a searing short novel about the life of a stand-up comic, as revealed in the course of one evening’s performance. In the dance between comic and audience, with barbs flying back and forth, a … Continue reading Title Pick: A Horse Walks Into A Bar by David Grossman
Bruce Rutledge and Yuko Enomoto founded Chin Music Press in 2002 while living in Tokyo. At the time, media conglomerates were swallowing up publishing companies, greatly reducing the opportunities for risky books to get into print. The time was ripe for small presses to fill the gap, especially with contemporary and edgy literature from Japan. … Continue reading Publisher Spotlight: Chin Music Press
At Night I Weep With Longing At night I weep with longing For all that I’ve no eyes to weep with – Think – but have no brain to think – About the city lights, the time we laughed. If only you knew, if only you knew My wife, my soul’s passion, How I will … Continue reading Excerpt: Lives of the Dead by Hanoch Levin
It's summer in the big forest and the rabbit children are looking forward to their first Midsummer party. Owl, who knows everything, says Midsummer is a time for dancing, love and magic. What a fun time they will have! Then a terrible storm sweeps through the forest and the woodland animals must find shelter at … Continue reading USBBY Outstanding International Book Pick: The Midsummer Tomte and the Little Rabbits by Ulf Stark
The past seems to bubble up to the surface more frequently and picturesquely in Lithuania than in other places. The country is famous for its deposits of amber, fossilized tree resin. These golden nuggets are brought up from deep underground, sometimes containing bits of long-dead insects and plants. Lithuania is also the burial ground of … Continue reading Buried Yiddish Treasures in Lithuania
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 