Review: Damon Galgut- In a Strange Room
Damon Galgut’s novel, In a Strange Room, did not win the Man Booker Prize last October. It lacked the novelty of Emma Donoghue’s powerhouse, Room, the historical significance of Andrea Levy’s...
Why I Sing My Blues: Women and Hindi Soaps
Deciphering the universe of Hindi soaps demands an astute eye for the texture of relationships within joint families. A few clarifications, hence, for folk unfamiliar with the nuances of an Indian...
SlutWalk goes international: The uses and limitations of a simple idea
If the international spread of SlutWalk means anything, it means this: You should never underestimate the power of a simple idea. Nor should you expect that idea to remain simple for very long....
Obama vs. Netanyahu: What does it mean?
On 18 May 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to to publicly encourage a Palestinian/Israeli accord based on the 1967 borders. Not only that, but he did so in...
Review: Su Tong – Madwoman on the Bridge
Su Tong, Madwoman on the Bridge, Transworld Publishers, 2008. Su Tong is a Chinese author who has gained international recognition for his work, recently being nominated for the Man Booker...
Why do we care about the Rapture? Living with the fear of the end
For those who have been living under a rock (or worse, been offline), the world is supposed to end today. More accurately, a group of fringe evangelical Christians in California led by Harold...
This season’s network TV finales end with a whimper, not a bang
This week marked the season finales of a number of shows in the 2010-2011 television season, which was less than stellar almost from the start. (The networks promise to liven things up a bit in the...
Man-made natural disasters: Poverty and the Mississippi floods
With each passing day, the Mississippi River nears or sets new flood records. This spring’s titanic rainfall in Missouri, Arkansas, and other states of the Mississippi Valley has threatened...
Al Nakba in the Arab Spring: The Egyptian March on Palestine
May 15th marks the simultaneous anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel, and the mass expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their land. While Israelis celebrate their independence...
Review: Adam Kotsko’s Awkwardness
Adam Kostko, Awkwardness, O books, 2010 It's a sign of a good piece of cultural criticism that it makes you re-evaluate a piece of art you'd previously discarded as uninteresting or even unpleasant....