Readers Club Inauguration 2013
Sh. A C Sreehari (Writer, Poet & Assistant Professor in English – Payyanur College) inaugurates readers club for the academic year 2013-14.
World Book and Copyright Day
World Book Day or World Book and Copyright Day (also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days) is a yearly event on 23 April, organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing and copyright. In the United Kingdom, the day is instead recognized on the first Thursday in March.
The connection between 23 April and books was first made in 1923 by booksellers in Spain as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes who died on that day.
In 1995, UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on this date the date is also the anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, the death of Miguel de Cervantes, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Josep Pla, and the birth of Maurice Druon, Manuel Mejía Vallejo and Halldór Laxness.
Programmes at LIbrary KV Peringome:
- Assembly Programmes.
- Decoration of library notice board.
- Book Exhibition of world classics.
World Book Day was celebrated for the first time on 23 April 1995.
World Health Day 7th April
World Health Day is celebrated every year on 7 April, under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO).
In 1948, the World Health Organization held the First World Health Assembly. The Assembly decided to celebrate 7 April of each year, with effect from 1950, as the World Health Day. The World Health Day is held to mark WHO’s founding, and is seen as an opportunity by the organization to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year. The WHO organizes international, regional and local events on the Day related to a particular theme. Resources provided continue beyond 7 April, that is, the designated day for celebrating the World Health Day.
World Health Day is acknowledged by various governments and non-governmental organizations with interests in public health issues, who also organize activities and highlight their support in media reports, such as through press releases issued in recent years by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton[2] and the Global Health Council.
Themes of World Health Day 2013:
“High Blood Pressure”
About high blood pressure
High blood pressure – also known as raised blood pressure or hypertension – increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. If left uncontrolled, high blood pressure can also cause blindness, irregularities of the heartbeat and heart failure. The risk of developing these complications is higher in the presence of other cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes. One in three adults worldwide has high blood pressure. The proportion increases with age, from 1 in 10 people in their 20s and 30s to 5 in 10 people in their 50s. Prevalence of high blood pressure is highest in some low-income countries in Africa, with over 40% of adults in many African countries thought to be affected.
However, high blood pressure is both preventable and treatable. In some developed countries, prevention and treatment of the condition, together with other cardiovascular risk factors, has brought about a reduction in deaths from heart disease. The risk of developing high blood pressure can be reduced by:
- reducing salt intake;
- eating a balanced diet;
- avoiding harmful use of alcohol;
- taking regular physical activity;
- maintaining a healthy body weight; and
- avoiding tobacco use.
Goals: Greater awareness, healthy behaviours, improved detection, and enabling environments
The ultimate goal of World Health Day 2013 is to reduce heart attacks and strokes. Specific objectives of the campaign are:
- to raise awareness of the causes and consequences of high blood pressure;
- to provide information on how to prevent high blood pressure and related complications;
- to encourage adults to check their blood pressure and to follow the advice of health-care professionals;
- to encourage self-care to prevent high blood pressure;
- to make blood pressure measurement affordable to all; and
- to incite national and local authorities to create enabling environments for healthy behaviors.
Courtesy: http://www.who.int/world-health-day/en/
for more information click here: WHO
150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekanada
Students presenting power point presentation on Swami Vivekananda as a part of library activity.
Book Exhibition on International Children’s Book Day
Vidyalaya Principal Shri. Sunil Kumar with students after the inauguration of book exhibition.
International Children’s books day
Since 1967, on or around Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday, 2 April, International Children’s Book Day has been celebrated all over the world, aiming to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s books.
The celebratory day is co-ordinated by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), a non-profit organisation dedicated to bringing children and books together. Activities include writing competitions, announcements of book awards and events with authors of children’s literature
National Science Day February 28, 2013
National Science Day Rashtriya Vigyan Diwas (राष्ट्रीय विज्ञान दिवस) is celebrated in India on February 28 each year to mark the discovery of the Raman effect by Indian physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman on 28 February 1928.
For this discovery, Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.
History of National Science Day
In 1986, the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) asked the Government of India to designate February 28 as National Science Day. The event is now celebrated all over the country in schools, colleges, universities and other academic, scientific, technical, medical and research institutions. On the occasion of the first NSD (National Science Day) on 30 May 2000 , the NCSTC announced institution of the National Science Popularization awards for recognizing outstanding efforts in the area of science communication and popularization. Sir C. V. Raman worked at Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Pune, West pimpri, India during 1907 to 1933 on various topics of Physics making discovery of the celebrated effect on scattering of light in1928, which bears his name and that brought many accolades including the Nobel Prize in 1930. The American Chemical Society designated the ‘Raman Effect’ as an International Historic Chemical Landmark in 2013.
Courtesy: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Day
National Science Day 2013 Theme is – “Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security”
85th Academy Awards (Oscar Awards)
The 85th Academy Awards ceremony (referred to as The Oscars[3]), honoring the best films of 2012 in the United States, took place February 24, 2013. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) presented its annual Academy Awards to honor the best films of 2012 in the United States. The ceremony was held at the Dolby Theatre in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California.[4] Seth MacFarlane hosted the Academy Awards for the first time.
Life of Pi won four awards (the most for the evening) including Best Director for Ang Lee, and Argo won three awards including Best Picture. Les Misérables also won three awards; Django Unchained, Lincoln and Skyfall won two awards each. Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress award for her role in Silver Linings Playbook. Daniel Day-Lewis won a third Best Actor (the most for any actor) for his role as President Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln.
Winners
Best Picture: Argo – Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, and George Clooney
Best Director: Ang Lee – Life of Pi
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln as Abraham Lincoln
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook as Tiffany Maxwell
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained as Dr. King Schultz
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway – Les Misérables as Fantine
Best Writing – Original Screenplay: Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino
Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay: Argo – Chris Terrio from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez & The Great Escape by Joshuah Bearman
for more details click here
International Mother Language Day
Shaheed Minar, or the Martyr’s monument, located at Dhaka University Campus, Bangladesh, commemorates the sacrifice for Bengali Language on 21 February 1952
International Mother Language Day is an observance held annually on 21 February worldwide to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. It was first announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999. Its observance was also formally recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution establishing 2008 as the International Year of Languages.[1]
International Mother Language Day has been observed every year since 2000 February to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.
International Mother Language Day was proclaimed by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999 (30C/62).On 16 May 2009 the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution A/RES/61/266 called upon Member States “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world”. By the same resolution, the General Assembly proclaimed 2008 as the International Year of Languages, to promote unity in diversity and international understanding, through multilingualism and multiculturalism.
Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.
courtesy: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day
Republic day celebration
Republic day
World Cancer Day 4 February 2013
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and accounted for 7.6 million deaths (around 13% of all deaths) in 2008.
Each year on 4 February, WHO supports International Union Against Cancer to promote ways to ease the global burden of cancer. Preventing cancer and raising quality of life for cancer patients are recurring themes.
Cancer is the uncontrolled growth and spread of cells. It can affect almost any part of the body. The growths often invade surrounding tissue and can metastasize to distant sites. Many cancers can be prevented by avoiding exposure to common risk factors, such as tobacco smoke. In addition, a significant proportion of cancers can be cured, by surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy, especially if they are detected early.
World Cancer Day 4 February 2013
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and accounted for 7.6 million deaths (around 13% of all deaths) in 2008.
Each year on 4 February, WHO supports International Union Against Cancer to promote ways to ease the global burden of cancer. Preventing cancer and raising quality of life for cancer patients are recurring themes.
Cancer is the uncontrolled growth and spread of cells. It can affect almost any part of the body. The growths often invade surrounding tissue and can metastasize to distant sites. Many cancers can be prevented by avoiding exposure to common risk factors, such as tobacco smoke. In addition, a significant proportion of cancers can be cured, by surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy, especially if they are detected early.
Admission 2013-14
Admission forms for admission to class I, VI,and VIII will be available from 8th February 2013. Last date for submission of completed forms will be 10th March 2013. There are no vacancies in classes II, III, IV, V, VII.
MCQ-test Questions and Answers
KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA CRPF PERINGOME
Reader’s Club and Library and Information Center
National Library Week celebration 2012
Know Your Literature
Answers
1. Who invented movable type printing?
(C) Johannes Gutenberg
2. What was the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson?
(D) Lewis Carroll
3. What was Samuel Langhorne Clemens’ pen-name?
(B) Mark Twain
4. The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) code was increased to how many digits from 1 January 2007?
(A) Thirteen
5. What is the pen-name of novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-80)?
(D) George Eliot
6. French writer Sully Prudhomme was the first winner of what prize in 1901?
(C) Nobel Prize for Literature
7. “Make then laugh; make them cry; make them wait…” was a personal maxim of which novelist?
(B) Charles Dickens
8. Which Indian author wrote the English novel called ‘Untouchable’ (novel) in 1935?
(D) Mulk Raj Anand.
9. R.K.Narayan has his stories centered on which imaginary place?
(D) Malgudi
10. Which Indian writer has a National Park named after him?
(B)Jim Corbett
11. Who wrote ‘Meghadut’?
(B) Kalidasa,
12. Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel prize for writing:
(C) Gitanjali
13. What is the pen name of V V Ayyappan –
(B) Kovilan
14. What is the pen name of P C Kuttikrishnan-
(D) Uroob
15. ______________is a Malayalam poet and lyricist from Kerala, India, who won Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award in India for the year 2007
(C) O.N.V. Kurupu
16. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012
(C) Mo Yan
17. Hilary Mantel’s book _______________ won Man Booker Prize 2012
(B) Bring up the Bodies
18. _____________________is the autobiography of Adolf Hitler
(A) Mein Kampf
19. Who wrote “Glimpses of world history”
(A)Jawaharlal Nehru
20. ____________________is the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi.
(D) The Story of My Experiments with Truth
21. The famous book “ The count of Monte Cristo” written by
(C) Alexandre Dumas
22. _______________________________is the author of Harry Potter series stories
(B) J. K. Rowling
23. Who wrote the English novel called ‘Angry river’
(A) Ruskin Bond
24. ________________________________ is the autobiography of A. P. J Abdul Kalam.
(C) Wings of fire
25. The Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by ______________while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
(B) Anne Frank
26. The Story of My Life, first published in 1903, is autobiography of ___________
(A) Helen Keller
27. The Evolutionary biology book the origin of species written by________________________________
(A) Charles Darwin
28. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, often referred to as simply the Principia, is a work in three books by___________________________
(D) Sir Isaac Newton
29. Who was the Indian author won Man Booker Prize for his book “The white tiger” in 2008
(B) Aravind Adiga
30. It is considered to be the first Malayalam novel.
(C) Kundalatha
Chinese novelist Mo Yan wins Literature Nobel
Mo Yan, a novelist who brought to life the turbulence of the 20th century China in vivid and often graphic works set against the tumult of the Japanese invasion and a struggling countryside, on Thursday became the first writer in China to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, praised Mr. Mo as an author “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary” in the announcement, which was hailed in China as a long-awaited landmark heralding the arrival of the country’s literature on the world stage.
Born Guan Moye, Mr. Mo adopted the pen name of Mo Yan — meaning “don’t speak” in Chinese. Mr. Mo revealed in a speech in Hong Kong that he chose the name to remind himself of the lines he could not cross as a writer in a country where the government routinely censors the works of authors and artists.
The turbulence Mr. Mo experienced in his early life in the rural north-eastern province of Shandong was reflected in his writing. Forced to leave school when he was only 12, when Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966-76) began, Mr. Mo spent his childhood herding cattle and surviving on weeds and tree bark as he was too poor to eat rice.
The hardships of life in rural China were captured in his breakthrough work Red Sorghum, which brought him nationwide acclaim when made into an award-winning film by renowned director Zhang Yimou in 1987.
His sweeping novels often reflected the turmoil of 20th century China, from the Cultural Revolution to the horrors of family planning campaigns, depicted powerfully in his 2009 work Frog, which tells the story of a midwife haunted by the forced abortions she witnesses.
Mr. Mo has, however, received criticism from some Chinese dissidents and authors for not being critical enough of the Communist Party’s censorship regime and not speaking up for other silenced writers.
Mo Yan
As Chinese names, Guan Moye’s family name is Guan, Mo Yan’s family name is Mo.
| Mo Yan 莫言 |
|
|---|---|
| Mo Yan in 2008 | |
| Born | Guan Moye (管谟业) 17 February 1955 (age 57) Gaomi, Shandong, China |
| Pen name | Mo Yan |
| Occupation | Writer, teacher |
| Language | Chinese |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Education | Master of Literature and Art – Beijing Normal University (1991) Graduated – People’s Liberation Army Art School (1986) |
| Period | 1981 – present |
| Notable work(s) | Red Sorghum Clan, The Republic of Wine, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out |
| Notable award(s) | Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 |
| Spouse(s) | Du Qinlan (杜勤兰) (1979-present) |
| Children | Guan Xiaoxiao (管笑笑) (1981-present) |
|
|
|
Guan Moye (simplified Chinese: 管谟业; traditional Chinese: 管謨業; pinyin: Guǎn Móyè; born 17 February 1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan (Chinese: 莫言; pinyin: Mò Yán), is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. He has been referred by Donald Morrison in U.S. news magazine TIME as “one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers”,[2] and by Jim Leach as the Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller.[3] He is best known to Western readers for the novels Red Sorghum and Sorghum Wine, which were later adapted for the film Red Sorghum. In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer “who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”.[4][5]
Contents
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Biography
Mo Yan was born in 1955, in Gaomi County in Shandong province to a family of farmers, in Dalan Township (which he fictionalised in his novels as “Northeast Township” of Gaomi County). He left school during the Cultural Revolution to work in a factory that produced petroleum. After the Cultural Revolution he joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA),[6] and began writing while he was still a soldier, in 1981. Three years later, he was given a teaching position at the Department of Literature in the PLA Academy of Art and Literature, where he published his first novella, A Transparent Radish (1984).[7] In 1991, he obtained a master’s degree in Literature from Beijing Normal University.[6]
Pen name
“Mo Yan” — meaning “don’t speak” in Chinese — is his pen name.[8] In an interview with Jim Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, he explains that name comes from a warning from his father and mother not to speak his mind while outside, because of China’s revolutionary political situation from the 1950s, when he grew up.[3] The pen name also relates to the subject matter of Mo Yan’s writings, which reinterpret Chinese political and sexual history.[9]
Works
Mo Yan began his career as a writer in the reform and opening up period, publishing dozens of short stories and novels in Chinese. His first novel was Falling Rain on a Spring Night, published in 1981. Several of his novels were translated into English by Howard Goldblatt, professor of East Asian languages and literatures at the University of Notre Dame.[10]
Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum Clan is a non-chronological novel about the generations of a Shandong family between 1923 and 1976. The author deals with upheavals in Chinese history such as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Communist revolution, and the Cultural Revolution, but in an unconventional way; for example by portraying the suffering of the invading Japanese soldiers.[1] His second novel, The Garlic Ballads, is based on a true story of when the farmers of Gaomi Township rioted against a government that would not buy its crops. The Republic of Wine is a satire around gastronomy and alcohol, which uses cannibalism as a metaphor for Chinese self-destruction, following Lu Xun.[1] Big Breasts & Wide Hips deals with female bodies, from a grandmother whose breasts are shattered by Japanese bullets, to a festival where one of the child characters, Shangguan Jintong, blesses each woman of his town by stroking her breasts.[11] The book was controversial in China because some leftist critics regarded Big Breasts’s perceived negative portrayal of Communist soldiers.[11]
Extremely prolific, Mo Yan wrote his latest novel, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in only 42 days.[3] He composed the more than 500,000 characters contained in the original manuscript on traditional Chinese paper using only ink and a writing brush. He prefers writing his novels by hand rather than by using a pinyin input method, because the latter method “limits your vocabulary”.[3] Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out is the story of a landlord who is reincarnated in the form of various animals during the Chinese land reform movement.[7] The landlord observes and satirizes Communist society, such as when he (as a donkey) forces two mules to share food with him, because “[in] the age of communism… mine is yours and yours is mine.”[9]
Influences
Mo Yan’s works are predominantly social commentary, and he is strongly influenced by the social realism of Lu Xun and the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez. In terms of traditional Chinese literature, he is deeply inspired by the folklore-based classical epic novel Water Margin.[12] He also cites Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber as formative influences.[3]
Mo Yan, who himself reads foreign authors in translation, strongly advocates the reading of world literature.[13] At a speech to open the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, he discussed Goethe’s idea of “world literature”, stating that “literature can overcome the barriers that separate countries and nations”.[14]
Style
Mo Yan’s works are epic historical novels characterised by hallucinatory realism and containing elements of black humor.[9] A major theme in Mo Yan’s works is the constancy of human greed and corruption, despite the influence of ideology.[1] Using dazzling, complex, and often graphically violent images, he sets many of his stories near his hometown, Northeast Gaomi Township in Shandong province. Mo Yan says he realised that he could make “[my] family, [the] people I’m familiar with, the villagers…” his characters after reading William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.[3] He satirizes the genre of socialist realism by placing workers and bureaucrats into absurd situations.[9]
Mo Yan’s writing is characterised by the blurring of distinction between “past and present, dead and living, as well as good and bad”.[11] Mo Yan appears in his novels as a semiautobiographical character who retells and modifies the author’s other stories.[7] His female characters often fail to observe traditional Chinese gender roles, as the mother in the Shangguan family in Red Sorghum fails to bear her husband sons, and is instead an adulterer, becoming pregnant with girls by a Swedish missionary and a Japanese soldier, among others. Male power is portrayed cynically in Big Breasts & Full Hips, and there is only one male hero in the novel.[11]
Relationship with other writers
The Chinese writer Ma Jian has deplored the lack of solidarity and commitment of Mo Yan to other Chinese writers and intellectuals who were punished or detained in violation of their Constitutionally protected freedom of expression.[15]
Mo Yan has been criticized for hand-copying Mao Zedong’s influential poem Yan’an Talks on Literature and Art in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the speech, as the poem is seen as controversial by many intellectuals.[16]
List of works
-
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Novels
- Falling Rain on a Spring Night (1981)
- Red Sorghum Clan, including five parts: “Sorghum Wine”, “Sorghum Funeral”, “Dog Road”, “The Odd Dead”, “Red Sorghum” (1987; English: 1993)
- The Garlic Ballads[17] (1988; English: 1995)
- The Republic of Wine: A Novel[17] (1992; English: 2000)
- Big Breasts & Wide Hips[17] (1996; English: 2005)
- Sandalwood Death: A Novel (2004; English: 2013)
- Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out[17] (2006; English: 2008)
- Change (2010) ISBN 9781906497484
- Pow![18] (2013) ISBN 9780857420763
Short story collections
- Explosions and Other Stories
- Shifu: You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh[17] (1999; English: 2002)
Other published works include White Dog Swing, Man and Beast, Soaring, Iron Child, The Cure, Love Story, Shen Garden and Abandoned Child.
Awards and honours
- 1998: Neustadt International Prize for Literature, candidate
- 2005: Kiriyama Prize, Notable Books, Big Breasts and Wide Hips
- 2006: Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize XVII
- 2007: Man Asian Literary Prize, nominee, Big Breasts and Wide Hips
- 2009: Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, winner, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
- 2010: Honorary Fellow, Modern Language Association
- 2011: Mao Dun Literature Prize, winner, Frog
- 2012: Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2012
On 11 October 2012, the Swedish Academy announced that Mo Yan had received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work “with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”.[5] Aged 57 at the time of the announcement, he was the 109th recipient of the award and the first ever resident of mainland China to receive it—Chinese-born Gao Xingjian, a citizen of France, having been named the 2000 laureate. According to Swedish Academy head Peter Englund: “He has such a damn unique way of writing. If you read half a page of Mo Yan you immediately recognise it as him”.[19]
Adaptations
Several of Mo Yan’s works have been adapted for film:
- Red Sorghum (1987) (directed by Zhang Yimou)
- Happy Times (2000) (directed by Zhang Yimou, adaptation of Shifu: You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh)
- Nuan (2003) (directed by Huo Jianqi, adaptation of White Dog Swing)
- The Sun Has Ears (1995) (directed by Yim Ho, adaptation of Grandma Wearing Red Silk)
Courtesy
The hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/arts/books/literature-nobel-for-chinese/article3988032.ece
Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Yan
Hilary Mantel wins 2012 Man Booker Prize
The whittling has finished. The judges of this year’s Man Booker Prize started with a daunting 145 novels and have winnowed, sifted, culled, and in some cases hurled, until there was only one left: Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies.
Hers is a story unique in Man Booker history. She becomes only the third author, after Peter Carey and J.M. Coetzee, to win the prize twice, which puts her in the empyrean. But she is also the first to win with a sequel (Wolf Hall won in 2009) and the first to win with such a brief interlude between books. Her resuscitation of Thomas Crowell – and with him the historical novel – is one of the great achievements of modern literature. There is the last volume of her trilogy still to come so her Man Booker tale may yet have a further chapter.
Hilary Mantel
| Hilary Mantel | |
|---|---|
| Born | Hilary Mary Thompson 6 July 1952 (age 60) Glossop, Derbyshire, England, UK |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, essayist and critic |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Sheffield |
| Notable work(s) | Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies |
| Notable award(s) | Man Booker Prize 2009 Walter Scott Prize 2010 Man Booker Prize 2012 |
Hilary Mary Mantel CBE (/mænˈtɛl/ man-TEL;[1] born 6 July 1952), née Thompson, is an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and critic. Her work, ranging in subject from personal memoir to historical fiction, has been short-listed for major literary awards.[2] In 2009, she won the Man Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall. Her latest book, Bring Up the Bodies, the second instalment of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy, won the 2012 Man Booker Prize. She is the first woman to receive the award twice, following in the footsteps of J. M. Coetzee, Peter Carey and J. G. Farrell (who posthumously won the Lost Man Booker Prize).[3][4]
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Early life
Hilary Mary Thompson was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, the eldest of three children, and was brought up in the mill village of Hadfield, attending St Charles local Roman Catholic primary school. Her parents, Margaret and Henry Thompson, both of Irish descent, were also born in England. When Hilary was a small child, she had great-aunts and great-uncles who remembered Ireland, but by the time she was ten, they had died and her awareness of being Irish declined.[5] Her parents separated and she did not see her father after age eleven. The family minus her father, but with Jack Mantel (1932 – 1995)[6] who by now had moved in with them, relocated to the lower middle class town of Romiley in Cheshire, and Jack became her unofficial stepfather.[7] She took his surname.
She explores her family background, the mainspring of much of her fiction, in her memoir Giving Up the Ghost (2003). She lost her religious faith at age 12 and says that this left a permanent mark on her:
the “real cliche, the sense of guilt. You grow up believing that you’re wrong and bad. And for me, because I took what I was told really seriously, it bred a very intense habit of introspection and self-examination and a terrible severity with myself. So that nothing was ever good enough. It’s like installing a policeman, and one moreover who keeps changing the law.”[8]
Mantel attended Harrytown Convent in Romiley, Cheshire. In 1970 she began her studies at the London School of Economics to read law.[2] She transferred to the University of Sheffield and graduated as Bachelor of Jurisprudence in 1973. During her university years, she was a socialist.[5]
Career and health
After university, Mantel worked in the social work department of a geriatric hospital, and then as a sales assistant in a department store. In 1974 she began writing a novel about the French Revolution, which was later published as A Place of Greater Safety.
In 1977 Mantel went to live in Botswana with her husband, Gerald McEwen, a geologist, whom she had married in 1972. Later they spent four years in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia; she published a memoir of this time, “Someone to Disturb”, in the London Review of Books. She later said that leaving Jeddah felt like “the happiest day of my life”.[9]
During her twenties, Mantel suffered from a debilitating and painful illness. She was initially diagnosed with a psychiatric illness, hospitalised, and treated with anti-psychotic drugs. These drugs paradoxically produced psychotic symptoms, and as a consequence, Mantel refrained from seeking help from doctors for some years. Finally, in Botswana and desperate, she consulted a medical text-book and realised she was probably suffering from a severe form of endometriosis, a diagnosis confirmed by doctors in London. The condition and necessary surgery left her unable to have children and continued to disrupt her life. Continued treatment by steroids caused weight gain and radically changed her appearance. She was patron of the Endometriosis SHE Trust.
Literary career
Her first novel, Every Day is Mother’s Day, was published in 1985, and its sequel, Vacant Possession, a year later. After returning to England, she became the film critic of The Spectator and a reviewer for a number of papers and magazines in Britain and the United States.
Her novel Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (1988), which drew on her first-hand experience in Saudi Arabia, uses a threatening clash of values between the neighbours in a city apartment block to explore the tensions between the cultures of Islam and the liberal West.
Her Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize-winning novel Fludd is set in 1956 in a fictitious northern village called Fetherhoughton. It features a convent and Roman Catholic church. A mysterious stranger brings about alchemical transformation in the lives of the downtrodden, the depressed and the despised.
A Place of Greater Safety (1992) won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award, for which her two previous books had been shortlisted. A long novel based on historical accuracy, it traces the career of three French revolutionaries, Danton, Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, from childhood to their early deaths during the Reign of Terror of 1794.
A Change of Climate (1994), set in rural Norfolk, explores the lives of Ralph and Anna Eldred, as they raise their four children and devote their lives to charity. It includes chapters about their early married life as missionaries in South Africa, when they were imprisoned and deported to Bechuanaland, and the tragedy that occurred there.
An Experiment in Love, which won the Hawthornden Prize, takes place over two university terms in 1970. It follows the progress of three girls – two friends and one enemy – as they leave home and attend university in London. Mrs Thatcher makes a cameo appearance in a novel that explores women’s appetites and ambitions, and suggests how they are often thwarted. Though Mantel has used material from her own life, it is not an autobiographical novel.
Her next book, The Giant, O’Brien, is set in the 1780s and is based on the true story of Charles O’Brien or Byrne. He came to London to earn money by displaying himself as a freak. His bones hang today in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The novel treats O’Brien and his antagonist, the Scots surgeon John Hunter, less as characters in history than as mythic protagonists in a dark and violent fairytale, necessary casualties of the Age of Enlightenment. Mantel adapted the book for BBC Radio 4, in a play starring Lloyd Hutchinson as the Giant, Alex Norton as John Hunter, and Frances Tomelty and Deborah Finley as two of the women who cross their path.[citation needed]
In 2003 Mantel published her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, which won the MIND ‘Book of the Year’ award. That same year she brought out a collection of short stories, Learning To Talk. All the stories deal with childhood and, taken together, the books show how the events of a life are mediated as fiction.
Her 2005 novel, Beyond Black, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Set in the years around the millennium, it features a professional medium, Alison Hart, whose calm and jolly exterior conceals grotesque psychic damage. She trails around with her a troupe of ‘fiends,’ who are invisible but always on the verge of becoming flesh.[citation needed]
The writer Thomas Mallong compared Mantel’s work and that of Muriel Spark.[10]
The long novel Wolf Hall, about Henry VIII’s minister Thomas Cromwell, was published in 2009 to high critical acclaim.[11] The book won that year’s Man Booker Prize and, upon winning the award, Mantel said, “I can tell you at this moment I am happily flying through the air”.[12] Judges voted three to two in favour of Wolf Hall for the prize. Mantel was presented with a trophy and a £50,000 cash prize during an evening ceremony at the London Guildhall.[13][14] The panel of judges, led by the broadcaster James Naughtie, described Wolf Hall as an “extraordinary piece of storytelling”.[15] Leading up to the award, the book was backed as the favourite by bookmakers and accounted for 45% of the sales of all the nominated books.[13] It was the first favourite since 2002 to win the award.[4]
The sequel to Wolf Hall, called Bring Up the Bodies, was published in May 2012 to wide acclaim. It won the 2012 Man Booker Prize.[16] Mantel is working on the third novel of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, called The Mirror and the Light.[17]
She is also working on a short non-fiction book called The Woman Who Died of Robespierre, about the Polish playwright Stanisława Przybyszewska. Mantel also writes reviews and essays, mainly for The Guardian, the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.
The Culture Show programme on BBC Two broadcast a profile of Mantel on 17 September 2011.[18]
Honours
Prizes and awards
- 1987, Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize
- 1990, Southern Arts Literature Prize (Fludd)
- 1990, Cheltenham Prize (Fludd)
- 1990, Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize (Fludd)
- 1992, Sunday Express Book of the Year (A Place of Greater Safety)
- 1996, Hawthornden Prize (An Experiment in Love)
- 2003, MIND Book of the Year (Giving Up the Ghost (A Memoir))
- 2006, Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book) (shortlist) (Beyond Black)
- 2006, CBE
- 2006, Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) (Beyond Black)
- 2009, Man Booker Prize (winner) (Wolf Hall), National Book Critics Circle Award (winner) (Wolf Hall)
- 2010, Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) (Wolf Hall)
- 2010, Walter Scott Prize (winner) (Wolf Hall)
- 2012, Man Booker Prize (winner) (Bring Up the Bodies)
Mantel was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2006 Birthday Honours.
Bibliography
Books
- Every Day is Mother’s Day: Chatto & Windus, 1985
- Vacant Possession: Chatto & Windus, 1986
- Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: Viking, 1988
- Fludd: Viking, 1989
- A Place of Greater Safety: Viking, 1992
- A Change of Climate: Viking, 1994
- An Experiment in Love: Viking, 1995
- The Giant, O’Brien: Fourth Estate, 1998
- Giving Up the Ghost (A Memoir): Fourth Estate, 2003
- Learning to Talk (Short Stories): Fourth Estate, 2003
- Beyond Black: Fourth Estate, 2005
- Wolf Hall: Fourth Estate, 2009
- Bring Up the Bodies: Henry Holt and Co, 2012
- The Mirror and the Light: in progress
World Food Day – October 16
World Food Day – October 16
World Food Day is celebrated every year around the world on 16 October in honor of the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. The day is celebrated widely by many other organisation concerned with food security, including the World Food Programme.
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Origins
U.S. National Committee for World Food Day offices in Washington, D.C.
World Food Day (WFD) was established by FAO’s Member Countries at the Organization’s 20th General Conference in November 1945. The Hungarian Delegation, led by the former Hungarian Minister of Agriculture and Food, Dr. Pál Romány has played an active role at the 20th Session of the FAO Conference and suggested the idea of celebrating the WFD worldwide. It has since been observed every year in more than 150 countries, raising awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger.
Themes
Since 1981, World Food Day has adopted a different theme each year, in order to highlight areas needed for action and provide a common focus.
Most of the themes revolve around agriculture because only investment in agriculture – together with support for education and health – will turn this situation around. The bulk of that investment will have to come from the private sector, with public investment playing a crucial role, especially in view of its facilitating and stimulating effect on private investment.
In spite of the importance of agriculture as the driving force in the economies of many developing countries, this vital sector is frequently starved of investment. In particular, foreign aid to agriculture has shown marked declines over the past 20 years.
- 1981: Food comes first
- 1982: Food comes first
- 1983: Food security
- 1984: Women in agriculture
- 1985: Rural poverty
- 1986: Fishermen and fishing communities
- 1987: Small farmers
- 1988: Rural youth
- 1989: Food and the environment
- 1990: Food for the future
- 1991: Trees for life
- 1992: Food and nutrition
- 1993: Harvesting nature’s diversity
- 1994: Water for life
- 1995: Food for all
- 1996: Fighting hunger and malnutrition
- 1997: Investing in food security
- 1998: Women feed the world
- 1999: Youth against hunger
- 2000: A millennium free from hunger
- 2001: Fight hunger to reduce poverty
- 2002: Water: source of food security
- 2003: Working together for an international alliance against hunger
- 2004: Biodiversity for food security
- 2005: Agriculture and intercultural dialogue
- 2006: Investing in agriculture for food security
- 2007: The right to food
- 2008: World food security: the challenges of climate change and bioenergy
- 2009: Achieving food security in times of crisis
- 2010: United against hunger
- 2011: Food prices – from crisis to stability
Nobel Prizes 2012
The Nobel Prize in Physics
Serge Haroche, David J. Wineland
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Robert J. Lefkowitz, Brian K. Kobilka
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Sir John B. Gurdon, Shinya Yamanaka
The Nobel Prize in Literature
Mo Yan
The Nobel Peace Prize
European Union (EU)
The Prize in Economic Sciences
Alvin E. Roth, Lloyd S. Shapley
for more detailes click here
International Literacy Day 2012-September 8
Literacy and Peace
The theme of International Literacy Day 2012 is Literacy and Peace. This theme was adopted by the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) to demonstrate the multiple uses and value that literacy brings to people.
Literacy contributes to peace as it brings people closer to attaining individual freedoms and better understanding the world, as well as preventing or resolving conflict. The connection between literacy and peace can be seen by the fact that in unstable democracies or in conflict-affected countries it is harder to establish or sustain a literate environment.
Education brings sustainability to all the development goals, and literacy is the foundation of all learning. It provides individuals with the skills to understand the world and shape it, to participate in democratic processes and have a voice, and also to strengthen their cultural identity. 
Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director General
About the Day
For over 40 years now, UNESCO has been celebrating International Literacy Day by reminding the international community that literacy is a human right and the foundation of all learning.
Why is Literacy important?
Literacy is a human right, a tool of personal empowerment and a means for social and human development. Educational opportunities depend on literacy.
Literacy is at the heart of basic education for all, and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy. There are good reasons why literacy is at the core of Education for All (EFA).
A good quality basic education equips pupils with literacy skills for life and further learning; literate parents are more likely to send their children to school; literate people are better able to access continuing educational opportunities; and literate societies are better geared to meet pressing development.
International Literacy Day Poster
Milestones
Starting from 2003, when UNESCO took the lead of the the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012), and going back to 1946, when UNESCO first established a committee to promote ‘Fundamental Education’, review the major milestones on the road to Literacy for All. More
Curiosity sets down on Mars, beams first image
AP This photo released by NASA’s JPL, shows one of the first images taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars on Sunday evening.
In a show of technological wizardry, the robotic explorer Curiosity blazed through the pink skies of Mars, steering itself to a gentle landing inside a giant crater for the most ambitious dig yet into the red planet’s past.
A chorus of cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Sunday night after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built sent a signal to Earth. It had survived a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.
“Touchdown confirmed,” said engineer Allen Chen. “We’re safe on Mars.”
Minutes after touchdown, Curiosity beamed back the first pictures from the surface showing its wheel and its shadow, cast by the afternoon sun.
It was NASA’s seventh landing on Earth’s neighbour; many other attempts by the U.S. and other countries to zip past, circle or set down on Mars have gone awry.
The arrival was an engineering tour de force, debuting never-before-tried acrobatics packed into “seven minutes of terror” as Curiosity sliced through the Martian atmosphere at 20,920.5 kph.
In a Hollywood-style finish, cables delicately lowered the rover to the ground at a snail-paced 2 mph. A video camera was set to capture the most dramatic moments which would give earthlings their first glimpse of a touchdown on another world.
The extraterrestrial feat injected a much-needed boost to NASA, which is debating whether it can afford another Mars landing this decade. At a budget-busting $2.5 billion, Curiosity is the priciest gamble yet, which scientists hope will pay off with a bonanza of discoveries.
Over the next two years, Curiosity will drive over to a mountain rising from the crater floor, poke into rocks and scoop up rust-tinted soil to see if the region ever had the right environment for microscopic organisms to thrive. It’s the latest chapter in the long-running quest to find out whether primitive life arose early in the planet’s history.
The voyage to Mars took more than eight months and spanned 352 million miles (566 million kilometers). The trickiest part of the journey? The landing. Because Curiosity weighs nearly a ton, engineers drummed up a new and more controlled way to set the rover down. The last Mars rovers, twins Spirit and Opportunity, were cocooned in air bags and bounced to a stop in 2004.
The plans for Curiosity called for a series of braking tricks, similar to those used by the space shuttle, and a supersonic parachute to slow it down. Next – Ditch the heat shield used for the fiery descent.
And in a new twist, engineers came up with a way to lower the rover by cable from a hovering rocket-powered backpack. At touchdown, the cords cut and the rocket stage crashed a distance away.
The nuclear-powered Curiosity, the size of a small car, is packed with scientific tools, cameras and a weather station. It sports a robotic arm with a power drill, a laser that can zap distant rocks, a chemistry lab to sniff for the chemical building blocks of life and a detector to measure dangerous radiation on the surface.
It also tracked radiation levels during the journey to help NASA better understand the risks astronauts could face on a future manned trip.
After several weeks of health checkups, the six-wheel rover could take its first short drive and flex its robotic arm.
The landing site near Mars’ equator was picked because there are signs of past water everywhere, meeting one of the requirements for life as we know it. Inside Gale Crater is a 5-kilometre-high mountain, and images from space show the base appears rich in minerals that formed in the presence of water.
Previous trips to Mars have uncovered ice near the Martian north pole and evidence that water once flowed when the planet was wetter and toastier unlike today’s harsh, frigid desert environment.
Curiosity’s goal: to scour for basic ingredients essential for life including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and oxygen. It’s not equipped to search for living or fossil microorganisms. To get a definitive answer, a future mission needs to fly Martian rocks and soil back to Earth to be examined by powerful laboratories.
The mission comes as NASA retools its Mars exploration strategy. Faced with tough economic times, the space agency pulled out of partnership with the European Space Agency to land a rock-collecting rover in 2018. The Europeans have since teamed with the Russians as NASA decides on a new roadmap.
Despite Mars’ reputation as a spacecraft graveyard, humans continue their love affair with the planet, lobbing spacecraft in search of clues about its early history. Out of more than three dozen attempts flybys, orbiters and landings by the U.S., Soviet Union, Europe and Japan since the 1960s, more than half have ended disastrously.
One NASA rover that defied expectations is Opportunity, which is still busy wheeling around the rim of a crater in the Martian southern hemisphere eight years later.
Courtesy The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article3733533.ece
Jeet Thayil on Man Booker Prize long-list
The Guardian: his novel Narcopolis is a “blistering debut”
Jeet Thayil, noted Kerala-born poet and novelist, has been long-listed for the 2012 Man Booker Prize for his debut novel Narcopolis, built around the opium and heroin dens of Mumbai.
The Guardian hailed it as a “blistering debut” likening it to William Burroughs’s Junky and Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
A self-confessed former drug addict, Mr. Thayil is thought to have drawn on his own experiences of Mumbai’s “seedy underbelly,” as one critic put it. In an interview, he described Narcopolis as “Bombay’s secret history” as distinct from its “official” history of “money and glamour.”
“You can sanitise… as much as you like, but… can’t get rid of the grime,” he told the interviewer.
Mr. Thayil (53) is among 12 writers long-listed for the £50,000 Prize, arguably the most prestigious literary honour in the English-speaking world.
A shortlist of six will be announced in September, and the winner at London’s Guildhall on October 16.
If Mr. Thayil goes on to win, he will join a select band of India or India-born writers such as Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga, who have won a Booker.
Others on the list include Nicola Barker for The Yips; Ned Beauman (The Teleportation Accident); André Brink ( Philida); Tan Twan Eng ( The Garden of Evening Mists ); Michael Frayn (Skios); Rachel Joyce (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry); Deborah Levy (Swimming Home); Hilary Mantel (Bring up the Bodies); Alison Moore (The Lighthouse); Will Self (Umbrella) and Sam Thompson (Communion Town).
Peter Stothard, Editor of The Times Literary Supplement who chaired the judges, described “goodness, madness and bewildering urban change” as the dominant themes of this year’s list
“In an extraordinary year for fiction the ‘Man Booker Dozen’ proves the grip that the novel has on our world. We did not set out to reject the old guard but, after a year of sustained critical argument by a demanding panel of judges, the new has come powering through,” he said.
The list includes four debut novels, three small independent publishers and one previous winner.Mr. Thayil, who spent his early years in Hong Kong and lived in America, returned to India after 9/11. In an interview with him in The Hindu Literary Review in 2006, critic Nilanjana S. Roy noted that the former’s return to India coincided with “one of the most productive phases of his life.”
About the time he spent in Mumbai or what was then Bombay, Mr. Thayil said: “I spent most of that time sitting in bars, getting very drunk, talking about writers and writing. And never writing. It was a colossal waste. In two years, I’ve done more than I did in 20 years. I feel very fortunate that I got a second chance.”
Courtesy: The Hindu
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