Literature │ Buddha of American prose On The Road by Jack Kerouac (published in “Avrupa” newspaper) In 1948, Jack Kerouac, born as Jean Luis Kerouac (1922-1969) placed his own stamp upon his generation of writer’s, poets; hobos who were all on a journey in the search of a truth, whilst enduring the rawness of life, he called it the “Beat Generation” of 1950s America. The Beat generation, the beatniks, all strumming along to their own beats, dancing to the beats of those around them, riding and crashing into the waves of life whilst searching for “this” truth, in the search

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Literature │ Sympathy for the Devil The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (published in “Avrupa” newspaper”) Mikhail Bulgakov has truly earned his right to be known as one of the greatest satirical writers of modern Russian literature. Born in Kiev in 1891, Bulgakov started his career life as a doctor, but fate certainly had something else in store for him, he was destined to be one of Russia’s greatest writers. Turning his back on medicine, Bulgakov pursued a literary life, albeit, it was far from easy to do so when one lived in such a restricted society, in fact

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Literature │ A Sacred PathMy Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (published in “Avrupa” newspaper) (Picture: From The Book of Festivities by Surname-I Hümayun) Pamuk invites us into the sacred world of miniaturists, a world in which, through drawing and seeing with the inner eye, leads one onto the path to god, and a world in which physical blindness towards the end of one’s life is seen (pardon the pun) as a gift from god, and if this blindness is not granted, then, as seen with Master Osman, master of the miniaturist guild, one takes it upon themselves to reach

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Literature │ The FogDarkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron (published in “Avrupa” newspaper) When someone hears the name Styron, one immediately thinks of Sophie’s Choice and what a talented writer he is, and most certainly in the same league as William Faulkner, they don’t think about his troubled soul. When one thinks of depressive writers and memoirs, most of us think of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s confessional Prozac Nation, or Plath’s The Bell Jar, but here we have an account of depression from a male perspective. Through time, we have been aware of the artist and madness which Styron

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Literature │ Who’s the King of the Jungle now?The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (published in “Avrupa” newspaper) Adiga’s The White Tiger pulls you in immediately with its persuasive narrative hook, this hook is such a clever ruse that it can not possibly fail. What is this devious hook you’re wondering? Well it is the promise that a very interesting tale is about to be told and a true depiction of Bangalore, India is about to be revealed. The White Tiger (2008) won the man booker prize that year; Adiga depicts the crippling poverty and corruption that runs throughout most

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Literature │ Oh to be a Writer…Ask the Dust by John Fante John Fante 1909-1983, came from an impoverished background, and just like Ask the Dust’s protagonist, he escaped to California to write settling near Bunker Hill, making this piece of fiction semi-autobiographical. Fante touched upon many themes within this novel which he wrote in 1939, including the importance of identity, in this case, an Italian-American one. One notices the way in which Bandini emphasizes a number of times that he is an American. From the outset, Fante’s words are full of brutal honesty, written with a strong male presence,

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Literature │ The FamilyPigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver (published in “Avrupa” newspaper) Barbara Kingsolver is a writer with many talents; she has a degree in biology, wrote for scientific journals and has produced some of the greatest books in our lifetime. Many of her books address broad social issues which make one to pause and furrow their eyebrows as they contemplate over a subject that they really had not thought of considering in the first place. She wrote the famous The Poisonwood Bible (1998) depicting the stern evangelical Nathan Price who takes his family to the Congo jungle, believing

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Literature │A Greek TragedyA View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller (published in “Avrupa” newspaper) Emile Zola once said, “The environment must determine the character” and Miller’s A View from the Bridge certainly incorporates this line of thinking, as it deals with the intimate lives of longshoremen, set against an American Italian setting, most are immigrants working hard, whilst living with the imminent danger of being found out and reported to immigration by their own families or neighbours. The opening scene is introduced by the play’s narrator, Alfieri, the neighbourhood attorney, also from Italy, who immediately divulges to the audience

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Art │A Portrait of an Artist Şifa Mustafa, artist (published in “Avrupa”) When did you know that you wanted to pursue a life in art? I’ve always wanted to do something within the creative field. I’m quite musical, I play a number of instruments, I draw inspiration from my surroundings and music helps. I use to go to drama classes; I wanted to be an actress and study it at university but decided to study art, as it’s what I truly enjoy. Where did you first study art? I studied at Camberwell College of Art for a year where I

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Literature │A Waste LandA Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh (published in ‘Avrupa’ newspaper) As I searched among the library shelves for a Vita-Sackville West novel, and unable to find one, I set out to find another book, as I can not abide leaving the library empty handed, and that was when I came across Evelyn Waugh. I knew that he had written Brideshead Revisited (1945) which had been turned into a film for a second time in 2008, but that too was not available; however, I was not disheartened, as I came across A Handful of Dust and returned

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