Literature

Han Kang’s fight against violence, revisionism, and alienation

December 6, 2024 By Jenny Farrell

On Dec. 10, Han Kang, a writer deeply attuned to Korea’s history of violence and resistance, will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the second Korean and the first Asian woman to earn this honor.

‘The Bespoke Overcoat’: Gogol’s giggles, ghosts and class struggle

March 28, 2024 By Ed Rampell

A theatrical adaptation of “The Overcoat,” a short story written in 1842 by the Ukrainian-born Nikolai Gogol, who along with Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Gorky is one of the most renowned contributors to Russian literature.

East German author Katja Oskamp wins Dublin Literary Award with ‘Marzahn, Mon Amour’

June 1, 2023 By Jenny Farrell

Oskamp writes with understanding and compassion, preserving and enacting the sense of solidarity and community that was a feature of GDR society.

Bertolt Brecht (and me)

February 13, 2023 By Victor Grossman

Regardless of his sometimes sharp but always constructive criticism, Brecht supported the GDR attempt to build a socialist state in Germany with all his heart.

George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’: A study in working-class literature

November 9, 2022 By Jenny Farrell

Highlighted at the award ceremony was “his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty.”