We start the day global today in Ukraine, where a poetry collection from one of Azerbaijan’s greatest writers, Seyyid Imadeddin Nasimi, has just been published.
For AzerNews, Laman Ismayilova explains,
The publication is a project of the Azerbaijan State Translation Centre (AzSTC) timed to the poet’s 650th anniversary. The executive secretary of the project is Marina Goncharuk.
The book “I Have Set Myself on the Road of Truth” was published by Kyiv-based “Samit -Kniqa” publishing house.
The publication includes about 200 of the poet’s ghazals, tuyugs (a form of verse that the Turks brought to Divan poetry) and rubais, accompanied by commentaries on phrases difficult to understand.
Seyyid Imadeddin Nasimi was a great Azerbaijani poet and eminent figure in the poetry and philosophical thought of the Orient. He was the founder of the school of philosophical poetry in the Azerbaijani language.
Read more over at AzerNews, my go to place for Azerbaijani literature news in English.
What you won’t read there is the poet Nasimi (also written as Nesimi) was skinned alive when his poetry was deemed blasphemous.
Last month Azerbaijan held a four day cultural festival in honour of the poet.
Next to Finland where News Now Finland reported recent that the new Oodi library has unsurprisingly attracted a lot of new visitors, but surprisingly there has been a ripple effect across the capital, with Helsinki libraries recording 46% more visitors – 6.8 million visits in total – between January-September this year than last year.
Laajasalo Library recorded a 37% increase in the number of visits compared to the previous year; while Maunula Library saw a 13% rise in visitors.
The number of loans and new library cards also rose this year.
By the end of September, Helsinki libraries had issued 37,000 new library cards – a growth of 54% compared to 2018.The number of loans also rise by 6% in the past year, with library visitors checking out 3.9 million items from Helsinki libraries.
For context Finland has a population of just 5.5 million.
From Finland to South Korea, where, running November 23-30, 2,000 Vietnamese titles are on show in the Republic of South Korea as part of an exhibition organised by Ho Chi Minh City Book Distribution JSC (FAHASA) in coordination with Korea’s Kyobo.
The book stall, which is set up at Kyobo Gwanghwamun book store, is expected to help Vietnamese and mixed-race families in the RoK access Vietnamese books, and develop the Vietnamese language.
There are more than 180,000 Vietnamese in the (South Korea), while nearly 200,000 Koreans are living in Vietnam.
Read more over at VietnamPlus.
Finally to Serbia where earlier this month the KROKODOKODIL Children’s Festival of Literature and Illustration was headlined by a play titled BUM! GRRR!! ŠKRIP!!! STRIP!!!!
By the way “bum”, which will have totally different meanings to American and British readers, translates as “boom!” in Serbian.
The festival, organised by Association Obrazovanje i kultura (Education and culture) and KROKODIL and supported by the Secretariat for Culture and the City of Belgrade, was formed,
formed around the premise that it is an imperative to contribute to the development of future reading audience in a dynamic, systematic and continuous way. The societies that take pride in popularity of reading are always those that have a careful and thorough system of forming such habits in the early childhood.
Festival KROKODOKODIL aims to do exactly the same, using different audio and visual materials as well as dramaturgy, directing, decor and mise en scene which results in the mixture of festival and theatre further boosted by inclusion of the state of the art multimedia so that the whole event is adapted to the sense of rhythm and general sensibility of the youngest literary audience.
Read more over at Krokodil.
