This was a bit of a surprise to me. Salman Rushdie, best known as the writer who had a death sentence placed on his head by Islamic leaders, was honored once again for writing the book considered the best of the Man Booker Prize winners. It's not for his Satanic Verses, which was the one that pissed off the imams, but rather for Midnight's Children, which won the Booker Prize in 1981.I've read Satanic Verses and have another of his books in a stack, but I've not read Midnight's Children. What surprises me is not that this book has won so many prizes but that the Emory University press release (Rushdie is a writer-in-residence there) can't do simple math. It notes that "at least half of the voters are under the age of 35, therefore not yet born when Rushdie wrote the novel." I'm sorry, it's been a while since the Reagan and Thatcher administrations, but not quite that long; 1981 is only 27 years ago. You'd think that, since the Booker Prize has only been around for 40 years, such math would have been easier.
Regardless, my congratulations to Salman Rushdie. I think I'll need to read your book
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HEY...NICE BLOGS! BUT DON'T YOU HAVE A E-MAIL AT ALL??? I'M LONGING TO SHARE OPINIONS AND IDEAS WITH PEOPLE WHO LOVE WRITING AS MUCH AS I DO!
IN CASE, CONTACT ME AT
marzouno@libero.it
OH, ALMOST FORGOT! MY NAME IS GRAZIA, AND I'M AN ENGLISH>ITALIAN TRANSLATOR...I LIVE IN SICILY AND I LOVE BOOKS (both writing and reading them!)
CHEERS!
THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF ONE OF MY OWN SHORT TALES I WROTE AND TRANSLATED MYSELF.
"Ireland is full of ghosts.
I know it. I’m sure of it. Well, I do believe it anyway.
Daniel does not. Because his family is Catholic, of course. They don’t believe in “middle courses”: it’s either Heaven or Hell. But…no, it is not his education. The fact is, Daniel doesn’t believe that ghosts exist and that’s all. He is a practical guy. And he thinks I'm the fool, because at 19 I still look at old castle's walls, looking for pale, floating faces.
- When are you going to grow up, Beth? – he asks, laughing, when he finds me reading the last news about ghost sighting on the newspaper. I should hate him, when he speaks that way, but I can’t.
I should hate him for some other reason, according to half of my Protestant friends, but again…I can’t. When I met him at that concert where my College friends almost dragged me, I didn’t really wonder: is he rich? is he poor? does he come from the right side of the town? is he Protestant as my family, or is he a Catholic? I just saw the great contrast of his dark brown hair and his light blue eyes, very clear, transparent as the water of lake Neagh.
I saw his smile as he told me he thought I was very sweet (yes, “very sweet”, not “beautiful”…and it’s the best compliment I have ever heard!). I saw his nice manners and I understood I would never let him go. WE would never let each other go. We've been a couple for almost 10 months now. (....) "
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