The link below is to an article that considers changes to what is now the Hachette Australia Prize for Young Writers.
For more visit:
https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2020/07/01/152838/john-marsden-prize-renamed-hachette-australia-prize-for-young-writers/
The link below is to an article that looks at apps that read text aloud.
For more visit:
https://bookriot.com/apps-that-read-to-you/
The link below is to an article reporting on the addition of many more more magazines to its platform.
For more visit:
https://goodereader.com/blog/digital-magazine-news/scribd-has-just-added-hundreds-of-new-magazines
The links below are to articles reporting on the latest kindle software update (5.13.1).
For more visit:
– https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2020/07/06/new-kindle-software-update-5-13-1-released/
– https://the-digital-reader.com/2020/07/07/kindle-firmware-update-5-13-1-adds-improved-search-and-navigation-features/
– https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/the-kindle-has-a-new-page-flip-navigation-system
Stephanie Meek, University of Reading
In an open letter published in Harper’s Magazine, 152 writers, including JK Rowling and Margaret Atwood, claim that a climate of “censoriousness” is pervading liberal culture, the latest contribution to an ongoing debate about freedom of speech online.
As we grapple with this issue in a society where social media allows us all to share extreme views, the Victorian writers offer a precedent for thinking differently about language and how we use it to get our point across. How limits of acceptability and literary censorship, for the Victorians, inspired creative ways of writing that foregrounded sensitivity and demanded thoughtfulness.
There are very few cases of books being banned in the Victorian era. But books were censored or refused because of moral prudishness, and publishers often objected to attacks on the upper classes – their book-buying audience. Writer and poet Thomas Hardy’s first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, was never published because the publisher Alexander Macmillan felt that his portrayal of the upper classes was “wholly dark – not a ray of light visible to relieve the darkness”.
However, more common than publishers turning down books was the refusal of circulating libraries to distribute them. These institutions were an integral part of literary consumerism during the Victorian period as the main means of distributing books.
Most influential of these was Charles Mudie’s Select Library, established in 1842. Mudie’s library was select because he would only circulate books that were suitable for middle-class parents to read aloud to their daughters without causing embarrassment.
This shaped how publishers commissioned and what writers could get away with. Victorian literary censorship, while limiting, managed to inspire writers to develop more creative and progressive ways to get their points across.
George Eliot’s publisher, John Blackwood, criticised her work for showing people as they really were rather than giving an idealistic picture. He was particularly uncomfortable when Eliot focused on the difficulties of working-class life.
In Mr Gilfil’s Love Story(1857), Eliot’s description of the orphan girl, Caterina, being subjected to “soap-and-water” raised Blackwood’s censorious hackles:
I do not recollect of any passage that moved my critical censorship unless it might be the allusion to dirt in common with your heroine.
As well as dirt, alcohol consumption was also seen as an unwanted reminder of working class problems. Again in Mr Gifil’s Love Story, Eliot describes how the eponymous clergyman enjoys “an occasional sip of gin-and-water”.
However, knowing Blackwood’s views and anticipating she may cause offence galvanised Eliot to state her case directly to the reader within the text itself. She qualifies her unromantic depiction of Mr Gilfil with an address to her “lady” readers:
Here I am aware that I have run the risk of alienating all my refined lady readers, and utterly annihilating any curiosity they may have felt to know the details of Mr Gilfil’s love-story … let me assure you that Mr Gilfil’s potations of gin-and-water were quite moderate. His nose was not rubicund; on the contrary, his white hair hung around a pale and venerable face. He drank it chiefly, I believe, because it was cheap; and here I find myself alighting on another of the Vicar’s weaknesses, which, if I cared to paint a flattering portrait rather than a faithful one, I might have chosen to suppress.
Here, literary censorship enriches Eliot’s writing. Eliot’s refusal to suppress her work becomes part of the story and reinforces her agenda to portray Mr Gilfil as he really is, a vicar who mixes gin with water because he is poor.
As well as inspiring narrative additions, censorship was also powerful because of what was left out of a text.
One of Hardy’s most loved books, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, highlights the crimes of sexual harassment in the workplace and of rape. Because Hardy had to be careful about the way that he presented the sexual abuse of Tess, his descriptions were very subtle. This is how he portrays the scene where Tess is sexually assaulted by her employer, Alec D’Urberville:
The obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves. Everything else was blackness alike. D’Urberville stooped; and heard a gentle regular breathing. He knelt, and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears.
The influence of censorship meant that Hardy could not describe this scene in graphic detail. Instead, his depiction is more sensitive and thoughtful. Hardy does not dehumanise Tess by depicting her as a sexual object to entertain the reader.
By focusing on Tess’s “gentle regular breathing” and the poignant image of her tear-stained eyelashes, Hardy avoids gratuitous depictions of violence while at the same time making us painfully aware of the injustice she has suffered. This makes his portrayal of Tess more powerful and poignant. It can be argued that this was achieved because of the limits placed on his writing, not in spite of them.
In these instances, we can see how literary censorship influenced writers to tread more carefully upon difficult territory. It made them think about whether including violence or socially controversial depictions were necessary or gratuitous to their narratives.
For Hardy and Eliot, censorship and its limits inspired creativity, sensitivity and thoughtfulness. These examples can provide food for thought in the debate today about free speech and censorship. As Hardy and Eliot wrestled with as they wrote, can things be said differently and, in some cases, do they need to be said at all?
Stephanie Meek, PhD Candidate in English Literature, University of Reading
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The links below are to articles reporting on the winner of the 2020 Miles Franklin literary Award, Tara June Winch for ‘The Yield.’
For more visit:
– https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/16/tara-june-winch-wins-2020-miles-franklin-award-for-her-book-the-yield-it-broke-my-heart-to-write-it
– https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2020/07/16/153760/winch-wins-2020-miles-franklin-for-the-yield/
Catherine Harris, Sheffield Hallam University and Bernadette Stiell, Sheffield Hallam University
As people seek to educate themselves in response to Black Lives Matter protests, sales of books by black British authors, such as Reni Eddo-Lodge and Bernadine Evaristo, have topped the UK bestseller lists. Several recent prestigious awards have also been won by black writers, including Candice Carty-Williams who won book of the year for Queenie at the British Book Awards. Although proud of her achievement, she was also “sad and confused” on discovering she was the first black author to win this award in its 25-year history.
While these firsts must be celebrated, they also shine a light on publishing’s systemic practices, which have maintained inequalities and under-representation for black, Asian and minority ethnic writers and diverse books. Despite awareness of its shortcomings and years of debates and initiatives (diversity schemes, blind recruiting practices and manuscript submission processes) the industry has generally failed to achieve lasting change. This is because they fail to address the broader systemic inequalities faced by people of colour, which contribute to ongoing under-representation in the industry.
Our research on diversity in children’s publishing included an online survey of 330 responses and 28 in-depth follow-up interviews with people working across the sector. We found that a key barrier has been the engrained perception among industry decision-makers that there is a limited market for diverse books. This is a belief that books written by black and diverse authors or featuring non-white characters just don’t sell.
This perception is seen across the industry, including in children’s literature. This is despite evidence of substantial markets. For instance, a third of English primary pupils are from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background. However, a report by the Centre For Literacy in Primary Education revealed that although the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic protagonists in children’s books had increased from 1% in 2017 to 4% in 2018, there is still a long way to go to achieve representation that reflects the UK population.
Similarly, BookTrust reported that only 6% of children’s authors published in the UK in 2017 were from ethnic minority backgrounds, only a minor improvement from 4% in 2007.
What we found was that the lack of role models in the books read by children and young people of colour meant that they were less likely to aspire to careers in the sector. From those we spoke to, this was compounded by the lack of diversity, particularly in senior roles, in publishing. For those who had pursued a publishing career, experiences of everyday racism and microaggressions were widespread. This added to feelings of frustration and a sense that they were not welcome or did not belong in the industry.
This all has a knock-on effect on what gets published. Authors of colour that we spoke to expressed frustration about the commissioning process. This included quotas for books by or featuring people of colour, a perceived limited appeal for these books and a feeling that authors of colour could only write about race issues.
Reliance on “traditional routes” to publishing also disadvantages black and working-class authors. Publishers reported receiving high volumes of submissions and heavy workloads led to them relying on established writers rather than seeking out new, diverse talent. This has the impact of narrowing the pool of authors from which books are published.
Our participants – including authors, illustrators, editorial assistants and agents – widely reported that a lack of cultural understanding can also lead to the view that diverse books are a riskier investment. They explained how limited promotion and marketing budgets often resulted in lower sales, reinforcing perceptions of limited demand. From their experience, miscommunication at subsequent points along the supply chain about the demand for and availability of diverse books means that those that are published may not even reach bookshop shelves.
These interconnected factors (among others) create a negative cycle which perpetuates the lack of representation of minorities across all parts of the sector, including the lack of authors of colour being nominated for prizes and awards. Recommendations from our research include ensuring diversity on selection panels for events and awards and some good work is already taking place. However, more systematic collaboration and commitment from the sector will be required to produce lasting and meaningful changes and achieve equality and representation.
Our research participants pointed out that social media was allowing individuals to more effectively come together and raise their voices in support of diversity and representation. They expressed hope that this may help to drive forward meaningful and lasting change in the sector. There are signs that this may be the case with recent campaigns emerging in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The #publishingpaidme campaign highlighted racial disparities in publishing advances. The publisher Amistad, an imprint of Harper Collins dedicated to multicultural voices, ran the campaign #BlackoutBestsellerList and #BlackPublishingPower to draw attention to black authors and book professionals and demonstrate the market for these books. The newly formed Black Writers’ Guild, including many of Britain’s best-known authors and poets, wrote an open letter airing concerns and demanding immediate action from publishers. The hope is that these campaigns can focus the industry on bringing about meaningful change.
Catherine Harris, Research Associate, Sheffield Hallam University and Bernadette Stiell, Senior research fellow in the Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The link below is to an article that takes a look at the free ebooks site, ‘Standard Ebooks.’
For more visit:
https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/standard-ebooks-is-a-great-place-to-download-free-content
Tyrone August, Stellenbosch University
This is an edited extract from a new biography about Dennis Brutus, the anti-apartheid activist, poet and author. Brutus died in 2009. The extract records Brutus’s reluctance to write about his life when he was still alive. But as Tyrone August, author of the biography, writes, it was inevitable that his life story would eventually be told: “Brutus’s life is woven far too deeply into the fabric of the recent history of South Africa.”
Dennis Brutus, the South African poet and veteran anti-apartheid activist, lived in Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape, during the first half of the twentieth century. This tumultuous period saw the emergence of apartheid, a legally codified system of racial segregation and discrimination. It was followed by the development of a ruthless state apparatus designed to systematically eliminate any resistance.
It was in these grim circumstances that Brutus, who was classified as coloured – a term used to refer to people of mixed European (“white”) and African (“black”) or Asian ancestry – under the Population Registration Act of 1950, distinguished himself as a student, teacher, poet, journalist, sports administrator and anti-apartheid activist.
Yet, despite this range of achievements, there was not a single biography on him – until now. Nor did he publish any extended autobiographical work in a single volume. In a letter to the South African writer and academic Es’kia Mphahlele in November 1970, he confirmed his ambivalence about
get (ing) that mess of autobiographical material out of my system.
He expressed a similar sentiment in a tape recording in October 1974, and attributed his reluctance to embark on a full-scale autobiography to his belief that there was no coherent or unifying narrative in his life.
I fail to see in my life any kind of cohesion or pattern or unifying thread which would justify an autobiography … It seems to me that autobiographies need organisation of one’s knowledge of one’s life in such a way that a pattern emerges, some kind of intelligibility is made of the mass.
He added emphatically that he saw no such pattern in his life. And, until he could impose some such order on what had happened to him, it didn’t seem to him that he was entitled to write about it. He thought that, although some instances in his life might be exciting or flattering to him, they did not justify a book.
Despite his aversion to writing an autobiography, Brutus conceded in the same tape recording that he was beginning to find the prospect “less repellant” than before. He went on to entertain the possibility of at least writing what he described as fragments of an autobiography in the form of essays.
So, by the time Hal Wylie, a University of Texas academic, approached him in 1988 about working towards an autobiography, he was more amenable to the idea. Wylie offered to assist with “spade-work and organising, etc”.
He tried to persuade Brutus that an autobiography would be preferable to an academic work on his life as it would be enriched by certain poetic and literary qualities. It could focus on existential details, memories, personal aspects that would not be appropriate for an official biography, but would be more striking, interesting, with greater human interest.
In an admittedly subjective work one would have more choice and editorial focus. It would be more direct and forceful.
In addition, Wylie submitted that Brutus’s life was closely interlinked with the rise of apartheid and, at the same time, offered “a new way of looking at the anti-apartheid struggle”. He drew particular attention to Port Elizabeth and the Eastern Cape as major sites of this struggle. In response, Brutus wrote encouragingly: “I like the project.”
Nevertheless, Brutus expressed concern about the amount of work required by an autobiography. Instead, he advised, he would still prefer a biography written by Wylie or, alternatively, a biography “as told to Hal Wylie”. Despite his reservations about writing a fully fledged autobiography, Brutus started working with Wylie on a rough draft. This effort was provisionally titled – in a handwritten addition – The Autobiography of the South African Troubadour (or, alternatively, The Story of a Troubadour/Griot).
Wylie recalled in personal correspondence how this draft was created: “It was based on tapes that Dennis recorded, which I then transcribed and typed up. It was then supplemented with additions he wrote in by hand and responses he gave me in response to my questions.”
However, this collaboration eventually collapsed. “When we got to late adolescence and adulthood he clammed up and wouldn’t respond to further questions, so it was abandoned at that point”, Wylie stated.
He then passed the project to another biographer, whose name has since escaped him, but it did not get any further. This is not surprising.
Although initially Brutus felt sufficiently comfortable about working with Wylie on an autobiography, he continued to harbour deep suspicions about the intrusive nature of biographical writing.
His discomfort with the possibility of potential biographers invading his private life is clearly reflected in an untitled poem published in 1973 in his collection, A Simple Lust:
Finding this rubbish,
this debris,
of mine after
I am dead,
when they come to pry
mouse-rustling in my papers,
ghoulishly-hopeful in my things,
what rubbish they will find!
Will I shrivel, inanimate, in my shame?
Will the dead flesh curl up in protest
being assessed by curious strangers’ hands?
But, in the long run, renewed interest from potential biographers was probably inevitable. Brutus’s life is woven far too deeply into the fabric of the recent history of South Africa. This is true especially of the first four decades of his life, which, as the most important period in his personal, literary and political development, is the particular focus of Dennis Brutus, The South African Years, published by Best Red, an imprint of HSRC Press. Brutus died of prostate cancer at his home in Cape Town on 26 December 2009.
Tyrone August, Research fellow, Stellenbosch University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The link below is to an article reporting on The Australian Booksellers Association’s (ABA) shortlists for 2020 ABA Bookseller of the Year.
For more visit:
https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2020/06/25/152566/aba-2020-bookseller-of-the-year-shortlists-announced/
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