Podcasts about Swedish Academy

South Korean writer Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy's Nobel Committee said her work “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” 韩国作家韩康周四荣获 2024 年诺贝尔文学奖。瑞典学院诺贝尔委员会表示，她的作品“直面历史创伤，暴露了人类生命的脆弱”。 Born in 1970, Han Kang is the first South Korean to win the literature prize. Kang began her career in 1993 with the publication of several poems in Literature and Society. She published her first story in 1995 with Love of Yeosu. 韩康出生于1970年，是第一位获得文学奖的韩国人。康于1993年开始了她的职业生涯，在《文学与社会》上发表了几首诗。1995年，她发表了第一篇小说《丽水之恋》。 In 2016, Kang won the Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian. It tells the story of a woman's decision to stop eating meat and her family's worry about her mental health. The novel was the first of her books to be translated into English and was seen as her major international breakthrough. 2016年，康凭借《素食者》获得曼布克国际奖。它讲述了一名女性决定停止吃肉以及家人对她心理健康的担忧的故事。这本小说是她第一本被翻译成英文的书，被视为她在国际上的重大突破。 In a talk with the Booker Prizes, published last year, Kang said the book was written during a difficult period in her life. She questioned whether she could finish the story or even survive as a writer. 在去年出版的布克奖颁奖典礼上，康表示这本书是在她人生的困难时期写成的。她质疑自己能否完成这个故事，甚至能否作为一名作家生存下去。 "I was suffering from severe arthritis…To this day, I feel awkward when I hear about the novel's ‘success,'” she said. “我当时患有严重的关节炎……直到今天，当我听到这部小说的‘成功'时，我都感到很尴尬，”她说。 In the novel Human Acts, Kang explored the 1980 killing of hundreds of students and unarmed civilians by the South Korean military in the city of Gwangju, where she grew up. 在小说《人类的行为》中，康探讨了 1980 年韩国军队在她长大的光州市杀害数百名学生和手无寸铁的平民的事件。 "In seeking to give voice to the victims of history, the book confronts this episode with brutal actualization and, in so doing, approaches the genre of witness literature," the Academy said. 该学院表示：“为了向历史受害者发出声音，这本书以残酷的现实来面对这一事件，并以此接近了见证文学的类型。”Kang is the second South Korean to win a Nobel Prize. Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his efforts to restore democracy in the South and improve relations with North Korea. 康是第二位获得诺贝尔奖的韩国人。韩国前总统金大中因其在韩国恢复民主和改善与朝鲜关系的努力而获得2000年诺贝尔和平奖。 The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too centered on European and North American writings. It has also been awarded mainly to male writers. Kang is only the 18th woman to receive the award among more than 100 winners. 长期以来，文学奖一直面临着过于以欧洲和北美作品为中心的批评。该奖项也主要颁发给男性作家。Kang是100多名获奖者中第18位获得该奖项的女性。 Past winners of the prize include well-known writers like Irish poet W.B. Yeats, American writer Ernest Hemingway and Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In 2016, American singer Bob Dylan also received the prize “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” 该奖项的历届获奖者包括爱尔兰诗人 W.B. 叶芝、美国作家欧内斯特·海明威和哥伦比亚的加布里埃尔·加西亚·马尔克斯。2016年，美国歌手鲍勃·迪伦也因“在伟大的美国歌曲传统中创造了新的诗意表达方式”而获奖。 Mats Malm is Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy. He told reporters, “I was able to talk to Han Kang over the phone. She was having an ordinary day, it seems, she had just finished supper with her son." 马茨·马尔姆 (Mats Malm) 是瑞典学院常务秘书。他告诉记者，“我能够通过电话与韩康交谈。她今天过得很平常，好像刚刚和儿子吃完晚饭。” The prize comes with a money award of $1.1 million. 该奖项奖金为 110 万美元。

South Korean author Han Kang is this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature, making her the first Korean writer to win the award. In its citation, the Swedish Academy commended Han "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life." Both of these themes are present in the author's 2007 novel, The Vegetarian, which tells the story of a young woman who decides to give up meat. In today's episode, we revisit a 2016 interview between Han and NPR's Linda Wertheimer, which took place around the time of The Vegetarian's publication in English. In the interview, they discussed gender politics, how women cope with trauma, and Han's "long-lasting question about human violence."To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Best known for her dark and troubling novel "The Vegetarian", Han Kang has been announced as the 2024 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the Swedish Academy praising her "intensely poetic prose" and the important questions of historical trauma and human fragility that she deals with. Audrey Chapuis, the executive director of the American Library in Paris, joins us on set to discuss the themes of the author's work and its international reach, as well as the viral boost that brought Han's writing to a younger generation.

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2024 has been awarded to ChatGPTThe Nobel Prize in Literature for 2024 has been awarded to ChatGPT for "his intricate tapestry of prose which showcases the redundancy of sentience in art." This fictional accolade humorously acknowledges the ability of AI to produce sophisticated, expressive literature, suggesting that creativity can transcend traditional human boundaries.The award, granted by The Swedish Academy, celebrates the notion that artificial intelligence, despite its lack of human consciousness, has the capacity to create a profound and complex body of work—so much so that it might question the necessity of human sentience in the realm of artistic expression.Source: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/press-release/Machine Learning & AI For Dummies PROReady to accelerate your career in the fast-growing fields of AI and machine learning? Our app offers user-friendly tutorials and interactive exercises designed to boost your skills and make you stand out to employers. Whether you're aiming for a promotion or searching for a better job, AI & Machine Learning For Dummies PRO is your gateway to success. Start mastering the technologies shaping the future—download now and take the next step in your professional journey! iOS - Windows

This week on The Sound Kitchen you'll hear the answer to the question about the Swedish Academy. There's interesting information about building with bamboo, “The Listener's Corner” with Paul Myers, Erwan Rome's “Music from Erwan”, and of course, the new quiz question, so click on the “Play” button above and enjoy!  Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll hear the winner's names announced and the week's quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you've grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! 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There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English – that's how I worked on my French, reading books which were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it's a good method for improving your language skills. To get Br. Gerald's free books, click here. Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. NB: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!And don't forget, there is a Facebook page just for you, the independent RFI English Clubs. 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Be sure you include your RFI Listeners Club membership number (most of them begin with an A, followed by a number) in the questionnaire, or I will have to click “Decline”, which I don't like to do!This week's quiz: On 29 October, I asked you a question about our article “Official Swedish dictionary completed after 140 years” about the publication of the definitive, one and only, official dictionary of the Swedish language, the Swedish Academy Dictionary.You were to write in with the name of the person who founded the Swedish Academy, and in which year.The answer is, to quote our article: “The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III to promote the country's language and literature, and work for the ‘purity, vigor and majesty' of the Swedish language.”In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by Rafiq bin Khondaker Liton from Naogaon, Bangladesh: “Which season do you prefer, and why?”Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us!The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Timothy Ofori from Kumasi, Ghana. Timothy is also the winner of this week's bonus question. Congratulations, Timothy!Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Razia Khalid, a member of the RFI Seven Stars Radio Listeners Club in District Chiniot, Pakistan, as well as RFI Listeners Club members Ashik Eqbal Tokon from Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and Gayatri Sahu from Odisha, India. Last but not least, RFI English listener Debashis Gope from West Bengal, India.Congratulations winners!Here's the music you heard on this week's programme:  “Sounds of Pakistan for Flute, Rubaab, Alghoza & Tabla”, performed by the Pakistan Musical Heritage Ensemble; the traditional Swedish folk song “Den ljusa hallingen”, performed by the Anders Lillebo ensemble; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children's Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Sal Al Malecón” by Roberto Fonseca, performed by the composer with his ensemble, and "One Love” by Bob Marley, played by The Wailing Wailers.This week's question ... you must listen to the show to participate.  After you've listened to the show, read our article “French sports minister says 'no plan B' for Olympics opening ceremony” to help you with the answer.You have until 16 January to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 20 January podcast. 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Czesław Miłosz (30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. He primarily wrote his poetry in Polish. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".Miłosz survived the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II and became a cultural attaché for the Polish government during the postwar period. When communist authorities threatened his safety, he defected to France and ultimately chose exile in the United States, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry—particularly about his wartime experience—and his appraisal of Stalinism in a prose book, The Captive Mind, brought him renown as a leading émigré artist and intellectual.Throughout his life and work, Miłosz tackled questions of morality, politics, history, and faith. As a translator, he introduced Western works to a Polish audience, and as a scholar and editor, he championed a greater awareness of Slavic literature in the West. Faith played a role in his work as he explored his Catholicism and personal experience. He wrote in Polish and English.Miłosz died in Kraków, Poland, in 2004. He is interred in Skałka, a church known in Poland as a place of honor for distinguished Poles.-bio via Wikipedia Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

ESC TV Today brings you concise analysis from the world's leading experts, so you can stay on top of what's happening in your field quickly. This episode covers: Cardiology This Week: A concise summary of recent studies Current indications for Cardiac Resynchronisation Therapy The polypill for cardiovascular disease prevention Snapshots Host: Perry Elliott Guests: Carlos Aguiar, Cecilia Linde, Valentin Fuster, Stephan Achenbach Want to watch that episode? Go to: https://esc365.escardio.org/event/1139 Disclaimer This programme is intended for health care professionals only and is to be used for educational purposes. The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) does not aim to promote medicinal products nor devices. Any views or opinions expressed are the presenters' own and do not reflect the views of the ESC. Declarations of interests Stephan Achenbach, Valentin Fuster and Nicolle Kraenkel have declared to have no potential conflicts of interest to report. Carlos Aguiar has declared to have potential conflicts of interest to report: personal fees for consultancy and/or speaker fees from Abbott, AbbVie, Alnylam, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Daiichi-Sankyo, Ferrer, Gilead, Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Servier, Tecnimede. Davide Capodanno has declared to have potential conflicts of interest to report: Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, Terumo, Medtronic. Perry Elliott has declared to have potential conflicts of interest to report: consultancies for Pfizer, BMS, Cytokinetics. Cecilia Linde has declared to have potential conflicts of interest to report: research grants to institutions; Swedish Heart Lung Foundation, Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm County Council, Roche Diagnostics. Speaker honoria: AstraZeneca, Medtronic, Impulse Dynamics, Vifor, Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, MSD, Bayer Advisory Board, AstraZeneca (continuity study), Medtronic (Women and CRT), Medtronic Implementation of CRT and ICD. DSMB: UCS Uppsala ABC Study. Emma Svennberg has declared to have potential conflicts of interest to report: institutional research grants from Bayer, Bristol-Myers, Squibb-Pfizer, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Sharp & Dohme.

Can Xue is the odds on favorite for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature tomorrow. Rob and I did a podcast on her way back in 2018, and I am rereleasing it in honor of her consideration. Whatever the choice of the Swedish Academy, Can Xue has already won in my heart. 

On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Oct. 5 at 5:35 a.m. CT: OSLO, Norway (AP) — Imprisoned activist Narges Mohammadi has won the Nobel Peace Prize. She has campaigned for women's rights, democracy and against the death penalty in Iran for years. The 51-year-old has done her work despite facing numerous arrests and spending years behind bars for her activism. The chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the prize Friday in Oslo. She said it was a recognition of the work of a whole movement in Iran. Authorities arrested Mohammadi after she attended a memorial for a victim of violent 2019 protests. She is the 19th woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second Iranian woman. WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is officially backing Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the pugnacious House Judiciary Committee chairman and longtime Trump defender, to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. “Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio's 4th Congressional District,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site shortly after midnight Friday. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!” The announcement came hours after Texas Rep. Troy Nehls said Thursday night that Trump had decided to endorse Jordan for the role. WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump have asked a judge to dismiss the Washington federal election subversion case against him. The lawyers argued Thursday the Republican is immune from prosecution for actions they say were taken in his official role as president. The motion amounts to the most pointed attack on the federal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The Trump lawyers' motion says prosecutors can't argue that "Trump's efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties.” Prosecutors are expected to contest the motion. MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Biden administration is going to resume deporting migrants to Venezuela. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, speaking in Mexico City Thursday, cited the new measure as one of the “strict consequences” the Biden administration is pairing with the expansion of legal pathways for asylum seekers. The process is expected to begin shortly, two U.S. officials tell The Associated Press, though they did not provide specific details on when the flights would begin taking off. The resumption of deportation comes not long after the administration increased protected status for Venezuelans who arrive to the U.S., so if someone arrived to the U.S. before July 31 of this year, but not after, they'd be eligible for protections. NEW YORK (AP) — The father of a toddler who authorities say died of fentanyl poisoning at a New York City day care center said he had hoped to have a photo of his son's kindergarten graduation in four years. Otoniel Feliz cried as he held up a photo of his son Nicholas Dominici, who died after he and three other young children were sickened at their Bronx day care center. District Attorney Darcel Clark says Grei Mendez, Felix Herrera Garcia and Carlisto Brito were arraigned on charges including murder on Thursday. An attorney for Mendez says she is not guilty. Messages seeking comment were left with attorneys for the other two defendants. GRANADA, Spain (AP) — European Union leaders have pledged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy their unwavering support. On Friday, they will face one of their worst political headaches on a key commitment — how and when to welcome debt-laden and war-battered Ukraine into the bloc. The 27-nation EU has said since the start of Russia's invasion in February 2022 that at the end of the war it will work steadfastly on “lasting unity” that will eventually translate into Ukraine's membership in the wealthy bloc. For a nation fighting for its very survival, that moment cannot come quickly enough. For the bloc itself, that remains to be seen. BEIJING (AP) — A typhoon is heading toward southern China and Hong Kong after bringing record-breaking winds and leaving one dead in Taiwan. Typhoon Koinu is weakening Friday as it heads west across the South China Sea toward China's Guangdong province. The China Meteorological Administration forecasts it will turn to the southwest in waters off the coast by Sunday. Ferry service was suspended in parts of Guangdong province, and the city of Guangzhou canceled some flights and trains. One person was killed by flying glass Thursday in the Taiwanese city of Taichung, and more than 300 others were injured around the island. PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A first-of-its-kind assessment says whales, dolphins and seals living in U.S. waters face major threats from the warming ocean temperatures, rising sea levels and decreasing sea ice associated with climate change. Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration examined more than 100 stocks of American whale and dolphin species and found more than 70% are vulnerable to threats such as loss of habitat and food due to impacts of warming waters. The impacts also include loss of dissolved oxygen and changes to ocean chemistry. Advocates for marine mammals say the study is evidence that management of the animals must adapt to save them. An all-time NFL great dies, his former team snaps a double-digit losing streak, an ex-Big Ten football coach files a nine-figure lawsuit against his former school, the NCAA rules a college football star eligible, an MLB team's general manager steps down amid an investigation and an NBA star commits to play for the U.S. at the Olympics. Correspondent Gethin Coolbaugh has the latest in sports. On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Oct. 5 at 4 p.m. CT: NEW YORK (AP) — A man who wounded 10 people in a rush-hour subway shooting in New York City last year has been sentenced to life in prison. Frank James was sentenced on Thursday. He pleaded guilty to terrorism charges earlier this year for the April 2022 mass shooting. His attorneys requested a reduced sentence of 18 years, pointing to the lack of fatalities as evidence James didn't intend to kill anyone. Federal prosecutors say James spent years carefully planning the subway shooting in order to “inflict maximum damage at the height of rush hour.” They said the fact that no one was killed was “miraculous.” Before the shooting, James posted dozens of videos online under the moniker “Prophet of Doom.” BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's health minister says a drone attack that hit a packed military graduation ceremony in the central city of Homs has killed 80 and wounded 240. Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabash says civilians, including children, and military personnel are among those killed Thursday. He says there are concerns the death toll could rise further as many of the wounded were in serious condition. In an earlier statement, Syria's military said drones laden with explosives targeted the ceremony crowded with young officers and their families as it came to an end. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The war-torn country' is now in its 13th year of conflict. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says the U.S. military shot down an armed Turkish drone that came within 500 meters of American troops in northeastern Syria. It was a rare use of force by one NATO member against another. Air Force Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, called it a “regrettable incident” and said U.S. troops were forced to go to bunkers for safety as Turkey bombed targets nearby. He says U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Turkish counterpart about the incident Thursday and underscored the importance of close coordination between their two countries to prevent risks to U.S. forces or to the mission to defeat Islamic State militants in the region. LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former University of Southern California gynecologist charged with sexually assaulting numerous students has died. Attorney Leonard Levine said Thursday that George Tyndall was found dead in his home Wednesday. Tyndall was in his mid-70s and was awaiting trial on 35 criminal counts of sexual misconduct between 2009 and 2016 at the university's student health center. He had pleaded not guilty and was free on bond. While the coroner's office will do an autopsy, Levine said there is “no evidence of foul play or suicide.” The university agreed in 2021 to an $852 million settlement with more than 700 women who made accusations against Tyndall. WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is in talks to make a trip to Capitol Hill next week. A potential visit would come as Republicans work to decide who should be the next speaker of the House following Kevin McCarthy's ouster. Three people familiar with the talks disclosed them to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity Thursday ahead of a formal announcement. Some on the far right have floated the idea of Trump as a speaker candidate, perhaps on an interim basis. Trump has said he is focused “totally” on his campaign to return to the White House, but says, “If I can help them during the process, I would do it." STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse. The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy announced the prize Thursday in Stockholm. The academy says the prize is for Fosse's “innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable.” Fosse is a master of spare Nordic writing in a sprawling body of work ranging from plays to novels and children's books. One of his country's most-performed dramatists, Fosse said he had “cautiously prepared” himself for a decade to receive the call. He is the author of 40 plays as well as novels, short stories, children's books, poetry and essays. BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Police say a man has been accused of stalking a woman in New York via his small airplane, flying out of an airport in nearby Vermont. Sixty-five-year-old Michael Arnold appeared in court Wednesday in Bennington, Vermont. He was arrested Tuesday as he was driving into the William H. Morse State Airport in town. Police say his single-engine Cessna 180 was at the airport and he had been flying from there. Arnold, of Manchester, New Hampshire, had been served with a temporary order of protection from a court in Saratoga, New York, in May. It said he had to “cease and desist from flying any and all aircraft." WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump's lawyers have asked a judge to postpone his Florida classified documents trial until after next year's presidential election. The lawyers say they haven't received all the records they need to prepare Trump's defense. The trial on charges of illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is among four criminal cases the Republican ex-president faces. The trial is scheduled for May 20, 2024. The defense lawyers argued in a motion late Wednesday a postponement is necessary because of scheduling conflicts and because of what they say are delays in obtaining and reviewing the classified records cited in the indictment. Prosecutors deny delaying the production of evidence in the case. WASHINGTON (AP) — AT&T and Gallaudet University have developed a football helmet for quarterbacks who are deaf or hard of hearing. The innovation allows a coach to call a play on a tablet from the sideline that then shows up visually on a small display screen inside the quarterback's helmet. Gallaudet, which competes in Division III, was cleared by the NCAA to use the helmet in its game on Saturday at home against Hilbert. CHICAGO (AP) — Former Northwestern University football coach Pat Fitzgerald is suing the school for $130 million, saying his alma mater wrongfully fired him in the wake of a hazing and abuse scandal that has engulfed the athletic department. The announcement by Chicago-based attorneys Dan K. Webb and Matthew R. Carter on Thursday comes nearly three months after Fitzgerald was suspended and then fired after 17 years. Webb said that Fitzgerald would also be seeking additional money for “infliction of emotional distress,” future lost income and punitive damages. He said the suit in Cook County Circuit Court is against the university and its President Michael Schill. LOS ANGELES (AP) — On Sunday, Habitat for Humanity's 2023 annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Week Project kicked off on the President's 99th birthday. Country legends Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood hosted. They tell the Associated Press they've built alongside the Carters at many recent work projects with the exception of this one. Jimmy Carter has been in hospice care since February 2023. They say they're keeping one of the former president's traditions going — giving jobs quickly to anyone who looks like they're standing idle. Brooks adds that the construction site offers unexpected musical inspiration. He jokes that one can "pick up some good old hammer tracks here.” —The Associated Press About this program Host Terry Lipshetz is a senior producer for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Oct. 5 at 7:07 a.m. CT: STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse. The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy announced the prize Thursday in Stockholm. The academy says the prize is for Fosse's “innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable.” Fosse told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK that he was both surprised and not, saying he had cautiously prepared himself over the years for the award. The Nobel Prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor from a bequest left by their creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and diploma at the award ceremonies in December. PINEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The Powerball jackpot has climbed to an estimated $1.4 billion after no players matched all six numbers and hit it rich. The winning numbers announced Wednesday night are: 9, 35, 54, 63, 64 and the Powerball 1. Players will next have a shot at the Powerball jackpot Saturday night. No matter how large the prize grows the odds stay the same. It's those odds of 1 in 292.2 million that make the jackpot so hard to win. The $1.4 billion jackpot is for a sole winner who takes an annuity, paid annually over 30 years. Winners choosing the cash option would receive an estimated $643.7 million. McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security announced that the Biden administration leveraged sweeping executive power to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas. This is the first time the administration has done this, a practice often employed by the Trump presidency. The waived laws will allow the construction of up to 20 miles of border barriers. The Department of Homeland Security made the announcement Wednesday on the Federal Registry that waives federal protections in Starr County, Texas. Environmental advocates said they were shocked with the Democratic administration's reversal to support such construction. The structures will run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and species. MEXICO CITY (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he hoped to “manage expectations” of migrants setting out on their journeys, and to inform migrants that his city was “at capacity” after receiving around 120,000 migrants over the past year. LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers are taking to picket lines in multiple states over wages and staff shortages. Unions representing the workers who walked off the job Wednesday approved a strike for three days in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and one day in Virginia and the District of Columbia. Doctors are not participating, and the company says it will keep its 39 hospitals open. Kaiser union members say understaffing is boosting the hospital system's profits but hurting patients, while Kaiser say they offer better compensation than competitors. There have been work stoppages within multiple industries this year in the U.S. DETROIT (AP) — Meaningful progress has been made in the negotiations between the striking United Auto Workers union and Detroit's three auto companies. That's according to a person with direct knowledge of the talks, who said some offers had been exchanged. Another said there was more movement in talks with Jeep maker Stellantis, with less at Ford and General Motors. Neither person wanted to be identified because they aren't authorized to speak publicly about the bargaining. Union President Shawn Fain will update members Friday on talks toward bringing to an end the nearly 3-week-old strikes against the companies. ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Adnan Syed is now free after being imprisoned for the murder of his ex-girlfriend more than two decades ago. But his attorneys will be arguing for his freedom once again on Thursday, this time in front of the Maryland Supreme Court. The case became known to millions through the true-crime podcast “Serial.” Syed is appealing a reinstatement of his murder conviction, after a lower court ordered a redo of the hearing that let the 42-year-old walk free. The court had found that the victim's family didn't get adequate notice to attend the hearing in person. The judges said that violated their right to be “treated with dignity and respect.” It was day two of the Major League Baseball playoffs opening round on Wednesday and all four series are finished.  ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — Led by Simone Biles, the U.S. women have won a record seventh consecutive team title at the gymnastics world championships. The American team of Biles, Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely and Leanne Wong combined for a total of 167.729 points to edge Brazil and France. The U.S. team won by a margin of 2.199 points as the final proved to be a closer contest than anticipated after the Americans put up a dominant performance in qualifying. The U.S. women have won gold in the team event at every world championship that included a team competition since 2011. Their victory in Antwerp broke a tie with the Chinese men and made Biles the most decorated female gymnast in history. On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Oct. 4 at 4 p.m. CT: WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a likely roadblock from House Republicans on aid for Ukraine, President Joe Biden said Wednesday he's planning to give a major speech on the issue and hinted there may be “another means” to support Kyiv if Congress balks. Biden told a group of reporters after giving remarks at the White House that “I'm going to be announcing very shortly a major speech I'm going to make on this issue and why it's critically important for the United States and our allies that we keep our commitment” to Ukraine. NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump showed up for several hours on the third day of his New York civil fraud trial, complaining anew about his treatment before leaving for Florida. In court on Wednesday, his lawyers cross-examined an accountant who prepared financial statements at the heart of the case. Trump's lawyers are trying to blame the accountant for any shortcomings in the statements. New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit accuses Trump and his business of exaggerating his wealth in financial statements that went to banks, insurers and others. Outside the courtroom, his lawyers also appealed a key pretrial ruling. It found that Trump engaged in fraud by inflating the values of prized assets including his Trump Tower penthouse. WASHINGTON (AP) — If your cellphone was on at 2:20 p.m. Eastern time you should have heard a loud noise and seen a message flash across your screen. That's when the U.S. government on Wednesday conducted its once-every-three-years nationwide test of the emergency alert system. Alerts also went out on radio and television. The cellphone alerts went off at the White House during press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre's briefing. Ahead of the test, organizations that work with abuse survivors who have secret phones recommended they turn them off so as to not have the blaring noise tip off their abusers. The last nationwide test was Aug. 11, 2021. VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has opened a big meeting on the future of the Catholic Church. He says the church is in need of repair to make it a place of welcome for “everyone, everyone, everyone.” He says it shouldn't be a rigid barricade riven by fears and ideology. Francis presided over a solemn Mass in St. Peter's Square to formally open the meeting Wednesday. Progressives are hoping it will lead to more women in leadership roles and conservatives are warning could split the church. The meeting won't make any binding decisions and is only the first session of a two-year process. But it nevertheless has drawn an acute battle line in the church's perennial left-right divide. WILLIAMSON, W.Va. (AP) — After two years of receiving federal subsidies, 220,000 child care programs across the country lost funding. Part of the largest investment in child care in U.S. history, the monthly payments ranged from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. The funding that ended Saturday was meant to stabilize the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Providers say ending it puts at risk millions of children and their families. The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C., analyzed a provider survey and government data. It concluded that half of all providers are threatened in Arkansas, Montana, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. The once-critical white COVID-19 vaccination cards are being phased out. Vaccines are not being distributed by the federal government anymore, so the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped printing new cards. People can still get proof of vaccination from a doctor or state health department. Some states have online options that create a QR code. Health officials recommend keeping your card in a safe place if you still have one. WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican California congressman Kevin McCarthy's ouster from the speaker role has left the House of Representatives roiling. An essential body of American democracy no longer has an elected leader. Lawmakers were stunned Tuesday when a House speaker was voted out of leadership for the first time. The vacant speaker job comes as the House still grapples with the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, a Republican Party in upheaval and the United States' contested role in global leadership. The House faces pressing questions of how to avert a government shutdown, whether to continue to fund Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion and whether to proceed with an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. LAS VEGAS (AP) — The man facing a murder charge in the fatal shooting of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas 27 years ago has made his first court appearance. Duane “Keffe D” Davis faced a Nevada judge Wednesday following his indictment last week. Police and prosecutors say Davis orchestrated the drive-by killing of the hip-hop icon in September 1996 and provided his nephew with the gun to do it. Davis has publicly described his role in the killing for several years. Court records list Edi Faal as his attorney. Davis denied an interview in jail where he's being held without bail. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press and theGrio have come together for a candid conversation about issues facing Black Americans ahead of the 2024 election and amid high levels of polarization. The panel discussion, titled “Race and Democracy: The Facts and The Fury,” addresses topics ranging from targeted racial violence to barriers to voting. It is the first of its kind between the nation's oldest wire service and Allen Media Group's multimedia platform. It will be carried on APNews.com and theGrio.com, Wednesday at 12 p.m. Eastern. It also will air on theGrio Television Network Series “TheGrio with Marc Lamont Hill” at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) — Former NFL tight end Russ Francis was killed along with another aviation enthusiast when their single-engine plane crashed shortly after takeoff from an upstate New York airport. The 70-year-old Francis and 63-year-old Richard McSpadden had taken off from Lake Placid Airport in a single-engine Cessna when it crashed Sunday afternoon in a corner of the airport. Francis was a first-round pick in the NFL draft in 1975 and played with the New England Patriots from 1975 to 1980. Francis joined the San Francisco 49ers in 1982, and was part of the team that won the 1984 Super Bowl. He rejoined New England in 1987 and retired the year after. —The Associated Press About this program Host Terry Lipshetz is a senior producer for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the first African-born writer to receive the award in close to 20 years. The Swedish Academy awarded Gurnah the prize «for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents».Across the world, more and more readers are discovering Gurnah's body of work. His novels Paradise, Afterlives and Desertion explore the history of East Africa and Zanzibar, while other works, such as Admiring Silence and By the Sea, portray a migrant's encounter with British society. What they all have in common are the memorable characters created by Gurnah, characters that are not heroes, but rather unique in their quiet everydayness, and who often feel alienated from the world around them.Through these characters, Gurnah gives us masterful depictions of a region and its history, of the colonial era, of exile and migration. In a quiet revolution, he shifts the perspective from the familiar, Western narrative to an East African point of view, leading us into great history as seen through the eyes of ordinary people.“Gurnah's novels are stunningly beautiful, immersive and enticing. He exceeds all others in depicting the lives of those made small by injustice and oppression”, writer Leila Aboulela has said about Gurnah's writing, with which she has a strong connection. Aboulela grew up in Sudan, and currently lives in Scotland. She has published a number of plays, short story collections and novels, most recently River Spirit.Aboulela will join Abdulrazak Gurnah for a conversation about his body of work, about writing the history of East Africa, migration, colonial history, and the unique portraits of characters and relationships he gives us in his books.The event was supported by Norad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, the Swedish Academy praised her for giving "life to an essential aspect of American reality," in novels "characterized by visionary force and poetic import." In this 2012 conversation, Morrison speaks with Eleanor Wachtel about her novels Home and A Mercy, as well as growing up in Ohio and the death of her son, Slade. Toni Morrison died in 2019. She was 88.

Hindutva is theocratic Hindu nationalism. It is a powerful force in what is now the world's most populous country. Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, is a lifelong member of the RSS, an openly Hindu supremacist organization. Le Monde Diplomatique reports: Hindutva “followers regard India as a Hindu country. Non-Hindus are at best guests, at worst invaders, and must be identified, watched, deprived of certain rights, and in some cases expelled or even eliminated. The main victims of Hindutva are India's large Muslim minority. Hindutva adherents oppose mixed Hindu-Muslim marriages, calling them a ‘love jihad' that aims to convert Hindu women so that their offspring will be raised as Muslims. This paranoid fantasy has encouraged violence and widespread denigration of Indian Muslims.” Recorded at the Swedish Academy at the Thought and Truth Under Pressure conference.

Meet Karsten Thurfjell, a cultural journalist well-known from Swedish Radio, as he visits the podcast and talks to Elisabeth and Julia about Swedish food. As the Secretary of the Swedish Academy of Gastronomy, he knows all about Swedish food production, Swedish tastes and traditional Swedish food. Listen to this conversation about everything from mushrooms and tacos to salted liquorice and wine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Das mit Spannung erwartete Debüt Fuchsmädchen von Maria Grund ist im Januar bei Random House erschienen. Die Autorin, die ursprünglich aus Stockholm stammt, derzeit aber auf Gotland lebt, ist vor allem Drehbuchautorin und hat zuvor hauptsächlich in der Film- und Medienbranche gearbeitet, unter anderem viele Jahre als Redakteurin für das britische Medienunternehmen The Smalls, bevor sie nach Schweden zurückkehrte. Von der Swedish Academy of Crime Fiction als bestes Debüt des Jahres 2020 ausgezeichnet, standen die Türen für die Autorin offen und das internationale Interesse an der Übersetzung war ungewöhnlich hoch. Musik von Kevin MacLeod.

Nobel Prize award body says Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah has won the 2021 Nobel Prize in literature.The prestigious prize was awarded by the Swedish Academy, which cited Gurnah's uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. He is best known for his 1994 novel “Paradise”, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.

Nobel Prize award body says Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah has won the 2021 Nobel Prize in literature.The prestigious prize was awarded by the Swedish Academy, which cited Gurnah's uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. He is best known for his 1994 novel “Paradise”, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.

Nobel Prize award body says Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah has won the 2021 Nobel Prize in literature.The prestigious prize was awarded by the Swedish Academy, which cited Gurnah's uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. He is best known for his 1994 novel “Paradise”, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.

The Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize for literature to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah. The author of numerous novels who grew up in Zanzibar, Gurnah was selected for his "uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism." And, many in the US are asking what went wrong in Afghanistan after two decades of war ended with Taliban rule. Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth is calling for a 9/11-style commission to look at the past 20 years of US involvement in Afghanistan.  Also, traffic in Indian cities can get really noisy with car horns and sirens blaring nonstop. Now, India's transport minister is working on a new law that would replace them with the soothing sounds of tablas and other Indian instruments.

The Tanzanian writer, Abdulrazak Gurnah, has won this year's Nobel Prize for literature. He is best known for his novels 'Paradise' and 'By the Sea'. We spoke to him minutes after he had heard the news from the Swedish Academy. He is the first black African writer to win the prize since 1986; we will look at the significance of this accolade. Gas markets continue to rise, but there is a shift after Russia offers to stabilise energy prices. And the veteran anti-apartheid activist, archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrates his 90th birthday. (Photo: Abdulrazak Gurnah. Credit: Getty Images)

There's no better way to kick off September as the Pain Awareness Month than bringing you a conversation with Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand, whose research took the medical world by storm, even risking his license, as he sought out to answer the question of; what if we give children anesthesia and analgesia?  I truly believe that he is the reason why my career as a pediatric pain and palliative care physician exists today and serves as an available path for many healthcare professionals. In this episode,  Dr.  Anand, a professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, describes his groundbreaking research back in the 80s, when a popular held belief was that babies don't feel pain!  With the findings  and intervention offered in his RCT, they were able to cut down the infant mortality rates by half.  It is the work of doctors like him that paved the path for someone like me to practice pediatric pain management as a specialty-- hoping to save and improve the lives of many more children by debunking the fallacies that still surround children's pain and its management.   Takeaways In This Episode   What fueled Dr. Anand's desire to research perioperative care for infants His hypothesis around morbidity and mortality of neonates and infants undergoing surgeries, relationship to anesthetic management  Conducting the randomized controlled trial study and its results that changed the history and trajectory of childrens pain and perioperative management Sometimes it's worth picking the fights How his study gained momentum and changed how the healthcare world approaches pain management for children and infants When and how infants develop the ability to feel pain The long-term consequences of poorly or inadequately  managing children's pain Changing the minds of colleagues who perpetuate the belief that children are “hardy” and will “get over it” Dr. Anand's message to the audience   Links Connect with Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand: Stanford Profile LinkedIn Love, Pain, and Intensive Care. K.J.S. Anand, Richard W. Hall Clinicians' Pain Evaluation Toolkit Proactive Pain Solutions   About the Guest    Kanwaljeet S. Anand, MBBS, MD, D Phil, FRCCM   He is currently the professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He directs the pain and stress neurobiology lab, the Jackson Vaughan Critical Care Research Fund, and he serves as the Editor of the journal Pediatric Research and is the Division Chief for Pediatric Critical Care at the Department of Pediatrics at Standford School of Medicine. He graduated from M.G.M. Medical College, Indore (India). He received the D.Phil. degree as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, a categorical Pediatrics residency training at Boston Children's Hospital, and a Critical Care Medicine fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He is the recipient of innumerable awards, including the Dr. Michael Blacow Award from the British Pediatric Association in 1986, the Pediatric Resident Research Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the inaugural Young Investigator Award in Pediatric Pain from the International Association for Study of Pain in 1994, the Jeffrey Lawson Award for advocacy of children's pain relief, the highest recognition in pediatric pain medicine in the United States. He's also been awarded many awards across Europe in many countries such as the Nils Rosén von Rosenstein Award from the Swedish Academy of Medicine and the 2015 Journées Nationales de Néonatologie Address at The Pasteur Institute to name a few. For his dedication and work in the field of pediatric pain management, he is considered a world authority on pain and stress in newborns and pain management in infants. 

2021-07-24 | This evenings guest is Dr. Deepti Gurdasani from the UK. She is a clinical epidemiologist and statistical geneticist by background. She is a public health researcher at the Queen Mary University of London. Deepti is talking with Andrew Ewing (professor of chemistry and molecular biology, member of Swedish Academy of Science) and Johanna Höög (associate professor in cell biology) about the rapidly spreading Delta variant, UK-strategy, "children don't get sick" and how autumn and vinter is starting to look like "The Perfect Storm". This discussion on Youtube: https://youtu.be/SCaIpdMlafE Vill du stötta vårt arbete? Du kan bli medlem i Vetenskapsforum Covid-19 här: vetcov19.se/bli-medlem/ Du kan även donera till vårt arbete: vetcov19.se/donera/

T.S. Eliot - The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock - Poetry Supplement - Episode 2 Hi, This is Christy Shriver, and we're here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.    I'm Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is week two in our discussion of the trans-Atlantic icon, Thomas Stearns Eliot or as he's widely referred to, TS Eliot.  As we mentioned last week, TS Eliot was the recipient of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature.  When the Swedish Academy presented him this award, Gustaf Helstrom compared Eliot's contribution to those of Sigmund Freud.  Eliot understood and expressed so much of the heart of humanity during those years.      He also spoke and commented on man's hope for the future, which is something you don't really think about especially when you think about how dark a lot of his poetry is.      For Eliot, hope for the future was often found in the study of the past, and as a history and psychology teacher, this is something that resonates strongly with me.  He believed that by looking backwards we could make a better future.  I want to read just the final couple of sentences of Helstrom' introduction during the ceremony where he received his Nobel Prize.  “For you the salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition, which, in our more mature years, lives with greater vigor within us than does primitiveness, and which we must preserve if chaos is to be avoided. Tradition is not a dead load which we drag along with us, and which in our youthful desire for freedom we seek to throw off. It is the soil in which the seeds of coming harvests are to be sown, and from which future harvests will be garnered. As a poet you have, Mr. Eliot, for decades, exercised a greater influence on your contemporaries and younger fellow writers than perhaps anyone else of our time.”    Of course that resonates with me as well.  There has been so much criticism about studying the writings of the past and many see little value to the thoughts, stories and experiences of those who lived on this planet before us.  But I strongly disagree, and  I love listening to Eliot and Helstrom.     Ha!  Well, you know what I call that?    Of course, I do, you call it, “the arrogance of the presence”    Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't coin that phrase, but yes- I believe that's exactly what it is- and creating that continuity between the past and the present seems to be the impetus, at least in part, for all the classical and historical allusions in Eliot's writing.    Well, there is no doubt about that.  For sure.  However, I wanted to go back to the psychology side of it for a minute.  When we talking Gatsby, we mentioned we'd get into a little neuroscience about what makes us enjoy all these weird metaphors and ironies.  We mentioned that Eliot would be an interesting place to talk about that because for one thing- his writing is so obviously psychological and weird- two things we don't associate with beauty necessarily.  Today, our goal is to look at the words, the metaphors, the ironies of this poem.  I promise, it will be interesting although I'm not sure I've made it sound so quite yet, so let's start our discussion thinking about our brains.    For sure,  of course the unanswerable question is the mysterious connection behind the brain and art.  Art and beauty are so important to being human.  There is no doubt it's essential for happiness.  The research behind this connection beyond that however,  is complex and there is not total agreement on what all of it means.  Of course we know art raises serotonine levels- and that's where happiness comes from- if we're talking biochemistry-      can tell you definitely from a scientific standpoint what makes any one particular thing beautiful, why do we call certain things beautiful, and why it even matter?  Of course, we all know it does, even children feel this.     We know that it absolutely DOES matter; there is no debate that we must have beauty in our world.  But let's look specifically at the beauty of words.  That matters too, but a lot of times, we really don't think of it  as much as we think visual art or music.  We know that neurons get excited when two arbitrary ideas are connected- like in the case of puns or metaphors.  Think of it like we get a hit of brain-happiness.  So, when we read poems like Prufrock, even though the images may not be what we traditionally consider beautiful, like sunsets or roses or things like that, because there is so much that is unexpected and unique, our brain is activated in different ways and we find pleasure in these connections.    Let me give you an example that is not from this poem, but most people would understand.  Let's go back to visual art. Have you ever wondered why the Mona Lisa is so famous?  Is it because this woman is just that gorgeous?  This has always confused people.  One scientist, Dr. Maragaret Livingstone, suggests the delight, at least in part is because depending on the angle, Mona Lisa's expression is different, and we get pleasure from these unexpected changes- they're unexpected.  Our brain activity is affected- and we get a happiness hit.     So, when Eliot or Fitzgerald or anyone puts two expressions together that take us by surprise- we are affected neurologically?      Researchers definitely think that's a part of it..  When we listen to the words in some of those more poetic parts of Gatsby, we can feel sensations of brain activity that scientists would connect to sensations of pleasure.  We can say it more than once and feel it again.  At the end of the day, there is pleasure in making connections- that is the human experience.  It makes us feel our humanity.  If you're far away from home and you find someone from your same hometown- you make a connection- even if it's no more than, funny, we went to the same high school,  bam- there's a sensation of pleasure.  We've made a human connection.    Having that idea in mind, when you read a poem like TS Eliot, and if you take the time to try to understand or make sense of all the connections, neuroscientists would tell you that the intellectual pursuit towards understanding the patterns in the words, solving the problems in the poem, or seeing the images provoke neural stimulation that is actually positive- especially if you have a natural affinity for word games- and that is true even if the poem itself is dark.        Which of course it really is.  It is strange when you think of a poem like Prufrock that can be so frustrating;  you have to wonder, why do people like reading it over and over again?  Why do we like reading any poem over and over again?      Exactly- Why do we like to read some books or watch some movies over again.  There are many, and I'd say the majority even if we enjoyed them the first time, do not entice us to re-read or re-watch at all?  The answer, from the neuroscience perspective is because things like poems such as Prufrock prevent easy absorption- you will understand one part of the text, but the next reading, you may find something else in a different place. So, it's a piece of art that re-stimulates your brain differently and that will keep you coming back.  Did that make sense or was that just confusing?    No, it makes sense- humanities people use words like the connection between body and spirit- science speak might be biology and psychology and our spirit- And it's easy for me to accept how all these human elements work together in a mysterious way.  I will also say, as a teacher who interacts with hundreds of people every single day, I get a lot of pleasure from all kinds of unexpected connections.  Truth be told, that may be one of my favorite things.  I don't know.  I'd have to reflect.    So, after all that intro- Let's see these connections and stimulate some brain waves.  Read stanza one, and I'll give you some thoughts on it. .     Let us go then, you and I,  When the evening is spread out against the sky  Like a patient etherized upon a table;  Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,  The muttering retreats  Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels  And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:  Streets that follow like a tedious argument  Of insidious intent  To lead you to an overwhelming question ...  Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”  Let us go and make our visit.    So, the first thing you may ask yourself is who is he talking to?  The poem. is in the second person- who's YOU? This is never explained.  Eliot never names a second person.   Is the reader being talked to- am I supposed to be the second person, like a letter or a traditional dramatic monologue? Is there an imaginary person that's this second person; is he talking to himself?  The first rule in reading modern poetry is that modern poets are like powerful women- they never explain themselves.      Well, there you go-I can almost hear that coming out of Maggie Smith's mouth in her role as the Dowager in Downton Abbey.     I know- that's who I was channeling, to be honest.  But in the case o Modern poets, they deliberately leave these ambiguities in the text for a reason, and the purpose is not to confuse the reader, although that may be how it feels.  What they want you to do, as a reader, is meet them halfway in building meaning- you, as a reader, are to make the work of art more about you as an individual- a personal connection, so to speak.  So, in this case- Who IS the YOU?- And, I'd have to ask, who do you want it to be?  What will help you make the most meaning out of the words.  What helps you make the most sense of the images?      That sounds like you're making the reading exhausting.    Well, there is that risk, so, I'm going to defy the modernists and just give you my opinion or how I interpret this- just to maybe make it easier- but let me just say- I'm not right.  I'm not wrong, but I'm also not right.  This is just ONE way of seeing things.  In fact, I may give you a couple of theories and let you go from there.      That has always frustrated me about English teachers.  There is never a right or wrong answer.    Not true, there definitely can be a wrong answer- a wrong answer is one that cannot be supported from the text.  So, it would be wrong to say, that he's talking about Martians and space aliens here- but then again, maybe- that's not true either and  you could have a space reading of this poem, I've never tried.      But here's one way of looking at it- When I look at those lines that you just read- here are my first thoughts- the words are initially decisive- come- you-and I- let us go? Like me saying, come, Garry, let's go get dessert.  Let's go to the park.   It's a nice invitation-  I see it as a guy talking in his own mine- role-playing how he wished he would talk to people in the real world- how he would like to engage other people- but there isn't anyone there yet, so he's just saying it to himself- practicing and getting up his nerve to do something he wants to do for real.  However, this spirit of bravery collides immediately with the first image.  Now remember- an image is something you can see or experience in your mind- we can see a sky- we can also feel or at least remember how it feels to be etherized- he puts these to images together-to mix the messages.    The evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table.      How do those two things even go together?  Obviously they don't-     If you are etherized- that means you're under the influence of ether-today we don't use ether for this- but during WW1, they used it to numb people for medicinal purposes.    Does it knock people out, make them unconscious?    Well, just smelling it won't make you lose consciousness, but it was used as an anesthetic until safer methods were invented.     And so here's how this all works- this poem is about how it feels to be a modern man- or modern person- to use more politically correct terminology.  Think of J Alfred as gender- generic- it applies beyond gender-This guy is alone.  so I look at it like he's talking to himself.  He walks out in the sky- it should be a romantic scene- he wants it to be we will see later- we're going to see that he's going to a party with a lot of women (at least maybe he is), but in this stanza, the sky doesn't invigorate him, it doesn't give him peace or a sense of fresh air- he feels nothing- it's a sensation of numbness- like being a patient who has been given strong numbing medication.  And as we keep reading, he takes us- or as I interpret it- the other side of himself- the YOU- he's talking to- into the streets and look what he sees.  These are not romantic images.  These are sleezy images.  One-night cheap hotels, sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells.  There is nothing here that connotes human connections, intimacy, fellowship. Nothing here that makes you feel happy.    Eliot creates a simile but he also personifies the streets- the streets are compared to a tedious argument- tiresome, boring, pointless- he says the intent of the streets is insidious- the definition of insidious means gradual, subtle, but with harmful effects.      The streets are not our friends.      No, they don't seem to be.  They pretend to be, but they are insidious- deceitful with harmful effects. And all of this brings us to this next like where he asks what he calls “an overwhelming question”- but he won't tell us what the question is.  Is it because he doesn't know the question?  Is it because there is not question?  There is a feeling of pointlessness in this entire stanza- and remember, for modern poetry,  the feeling is the thing.      Well, I cannot say that I don't understand this emotion that he's expressing.  I think every young person does at one point in their life or another.  We all think whatever the streets represent is glamorous at some point- but then we get knocked back by reality…hopefully sooner rather than later.    Well, that's true, and especially for modern people.  People who live in urban environments.  People who live in communities without big family or historical connections- and there is nothing in this poem to suggest that that is Prufrock's case- look at what I'm doing- I'm putting my own meaning in this poem.  I did grow up in a city of 3 million people.  My window as a child faced to the streets with people walking and laughing looking like the night life was where happiness lived.  I grew up in a city with no historical connections and so forth- so I'm meeting  Eliot in this poem and creating the images in my mind not of seedy Boston, but Belo Horizonte (although my neighborhood wasn't seedy).  It was modern.  Does that make sense at all?    Sure it does.      .  Now that I gave one spin on this first stanza- and I promise I won't do this the entire way through- we'd never finish this episode- but I want to express a framework for how to enjoy a poem like this.  Here's a second way reading this same stanza, and this may be the majority view.  Lots of people think  he's talking to a woman- the woman he wants to ask out.  It is a love song, that's in the title, so, it stands to reason if you look at it that way, that he's talking to a woman- the woman he's going to meet.  The overwhelming question in this case would be a proclamation of a love interest of some sorts.  Read the next several stanzas.     In the room the women come and go  Talking of Michelangelo.    The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,  The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,  Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,  Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,  Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,  Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,  And seeing that it was a soft October night,  Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.    And indeed there will be time  For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,  Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;  There will be time, there will be time  To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;  There will be time to murder and create,  And time for all the works and days of hands  That lift and drop a question on your plate;  Time for you and time for me,  And time yet for a hundred indecisions,  And for a hundred visions and revisions,  Before the taking of a toast and tea.    In the room the women come and go  Talking of Michelangelo.    This business of Michelangelo is funny.  Why do they have to be talking of Michelangelo?      I know- Eliot does a lot with figurative language in this poem- meaning he isn't always being literal about everything.  This will sound technical, but not boring, I hope.   As we all know- even today, authors use similes and metaphors to help us understsnd their ideas- that take something we don't understand, compare it to something we do understand and bam- they make sense- oh my love is a red red rose- you don't know what your love is like, but you do know what a rose is and a red red rose must be a very very deep and beautiful one so there- the metaphor makes me love you    Or at least Robert Burns.  Didn't he say that?    True, although I think that line has gotten some use over the year.  Elliot's uses metaphors and similes but really for as much imagining as we have here- not all that much.  There really are only three similes in this entire poem of over 100 lines which is strange.  He uses what we call metonymy and synecdoche-     Synec-do-what?  Isn't there a sad movie with Phillip Seymor Hoffman called that.    Yes- and ironically not too different from Prufrock- it's Big word- But it means when some part of something is used to represent something bigger than just the one thing.  So, here's what's going on- he says the women are talking of Michelangelo- what we are to understand is that the women may or may not literally be talking about Michelangelo.  Michelangelo is a thing that is standing in to represent the kinds of things women like this talk about.  These women are cultured= or at least they pretend to be- they talk about sophisticated things like classical art- likely dull things- I'm not saying that Michelangelo is necessarily dull- but for some people, maybe like a guy like Prufrock it could be- it's tedious pretentiousness- talking about things you're supposed to be interested in- things you can snub others about- but not really enjoyable- “The Galleria d' accademia is such a small museum for such an impressive piece of art like Michelangelo's David.” Don't you agree?  But I will say the sunlight there highlight  the craftmanship so characteristic of the high renaissance.  To which someone replies- “oh most definitely”..and there's a wonderful tea shop just across the street with a marvelous pastry chef name Leonardo, who makes the best biscotti.     Hahahaha- it sounds like you've been talking of Michelangelo, yourself.  Is that true about Leonardo.    Ha!  Well, it is- but it's just a bakery I found on Google.  I'm just pretending to have eaten the biscotti- I read that in a Google Review.  But the idea is the  snobbery.  Metonymy is when you use a thing to represent a bunch of things that are associated with a thing- and that's what Michelangelo is standing in for here.  Synecdoche and metonymy are so close to the same things- don't bother trying to separate them- it's something representing a larger group.    So, is the yellow fog metonymy too?    The yellow fog is the most confusing part of the whole poem.  Again, you're supposed to interpret it for yourself- but here's one idea.  We have this guy, he's getting his courage to go into a party of sophisticated women and he expects to be snubbed.  This is kind of how he sees himself- like a cat- but a fog cat it's- licking its tongue, suddenly leaping- rubbing its muzzle- a tom cat could be suave and debonair, but this one is kind of foggy- and definitely unattractive.    This is really stream of consciousness- psychological- this guy thinking of himself like a tom cat, like a fog, slying going into a party-  on a soft October night, curling up in a corner and falling asleep-  this is the most positive point in the entire poem.    Exactly- and it really is- even though it feels disconnected and scattered- but is actually highly structured and organized.  Prufrock is definitely not a sly tom cat getting ready to pounce in real life.  And when he thinks about it for half a second more he knows it.   He starting talking about time- which is really an allusion to the Bible passage in Ecclesiastes as well as Andrew Marvelll's poem To His Coy Mistress.  Marvel's poem is one of the most famous seize the day poems ever written in English.   In Marvell's poem, a suave sexy man seduces a woman by telling her they need to seize the day because she might die.  In Marvel's poem, he basically says, if we had all the time in the world, I wouldn't mind playing this coy game of you pretending to be prudish, but we don't have all the time in the world and you aren't, you're going to die, worms are going to take your virginity- you'll be ugly so if you want to maximize what you have we need to consummate this thing right now.    Ha! Well, if you know that poem, this part is extremely ironic.  Prufrock isn't bold or brave like Marvel.  Instead of overpowering the women, He makes excuses for himself- he says the exact opposite- there's plenty of time, life is long, I can put off making my move.      And the line that people have really enjoyed is that last phrase, “Time for you and time for me and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea.     There is a sense that he's putting things off, but there is another sense where he sees his life as an indistinguishable endless charade of toast and tea and pointlessness.  No end in sight to the mad dreariness of his existence.  Prufrock as we're going to see as we keep reading is going no where.  He's going no where in life- and I think you could think that he's physically going no where-     like he may not even really be at the party-- even though at the beginning of the poem he definitely says, let us go,    I think so.  It's ambiguous.  Maybe he's no where- this encounter is in his mind, and that's why he's in hell.  Hell is a place you never get out of.      And indeed there will be time  To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”  Time to turn back and descend the stair,  With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —  (They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)  My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,  My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —  (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)  Do I dare  Disturb the universe?  In a minute there is time  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.    For I have known them all already, known them all:  Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,  I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;  I know the voices dying with a dying fall  Beneath the music from a farther room.                 So how should I presume?    And I have known the eyes already, known them all—  The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,  And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,  When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,  Then how should I begin  To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?                 And how should I presume?    And I have known the arms already, known them all—  Arms that are braceleted and white and bare  (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)  Is it perfume from a dress  That makes me so digress?  Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.                 And should I then presume?                 And how should I begin?    Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets  And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes  Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?    There are no less than 15 questions in this poem.  The most important ones seem to be centered here with “can I ask a woman out for a date?  Which some how gets connected to “What is the meaning of life?”  Prufrock is a poem about being lonely, isolated, unable to make human connections.  Unable to get out of my head, my physical location- the hell I've created for myself.    Well, in a sense, it's possible these are two versions of the same questions.  Human intimacy and interaction is what makes us love our life.  What is a life without intimacy, connectivity, courage.  These are the things that a modern man like  J. Alfred Prufrock does not have.  Prufrock clearly wishes he could get beyond himself- to ask out a woman is an expression of that.  It changes reality- one way or another.  But it takes boldness to do that.  You have to, as we used to say, “man up”- and Prufrock has none of that.  The sexual loneliness is a manifestation of a metaphysical problem really.      Which takes us to another synechoche- these claws  Here the claws represent the crab.  Prufrock thinks he should have been a crab.     I should have been a pair of ragged claws  Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.    And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!  Smoothed by long fingers,  Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,  Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.  Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,  Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?  But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,  Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,  I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,  And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,  And in short, I was afraid.    And would it have been worth it, after all,  After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,  Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,  Would it have been worth while,  To have bitten off the matter with a smile,  To have squeezed the universe into a ball  To roll it towards some overwhelming question,  To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,  Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—  If one, settling a pillow by her head                 Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;                 That is not it, at all.”    And would it have been worth it, after all,  Would it have been worth while,  After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,  After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—  And this, and so much more?—  It is impossible to say just what I mean!  But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:  Would it have been worth while  If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,  And turning toward the window, should say:                 “That is not it at all,                 That is not what I meant, at all.”    And here we see way more of Eliot criticizing modern man.  We are too anxious, likely overeducated in impractical things.  Our anxiety of failure brought on by our culture, our education, urban expectations paralyze us into doing nothing.  We have no courage.  There's a reference here to John the Baptist which I think is really interesting.  John the Baptist had his head cut off and served to King Herod.  Here, Eliot references that, but in Prufrock's case, what would bother him about being decapitated in this scenario would be that his dead head that would be served up to King Herod would reveal he's balding.  He just can't, to use his phrase,   “ bite off the matter with a smile,  and squeeze the universe into a ball”.  He can't be like Lazarus in the Bible and come back from the dead. And when we see what horrifies him- he's horrified that he'll approach a woman, she'll listen to him then reply that “that is not what I meant at all.  That is not it, at all.”    Oh my, how could a guy like J. Alfred misinterpret my politiness for interest?  “That is not what I meant t all”. It's embarrassement, shame, rejection- all of the bad things in life.  Prufrock's life has so little meaning in any other area thst. Concern about his looks, a rejection from a woman he doesn't appear he even cares about, is enough to wipe him out.  Let's finish.     No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;  Am an attendant lord, one that will do  To swell a progress, start a scene or two,  Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,  Deferential, glad to be of use,  Politic, cautious, and meticulous;  Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;  At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—  Almost, at times, the Fool.    I grow old ... I grow old ...  I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.    Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?  I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.  I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.    I do not think that they will sing to me.    I have seen them riding seaward on the waves  Combing the white hair of the waves blown back  When the wind blows the water white and black.  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  Till human voices wake us, and we drown.    Prince Hamlet, of course, is the most famous slow-mover in the world.  Prince Hamlet's most famous line is, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”  Prince Hamlet was told by his father, as a ghost, that he was supposed to revenge his father's death.  Hamlet waffled, went back and forth, debated, worried about if life was even worth- should I kill myself. But the thing about Hamlet, in the final scene of the play he does act. He does actually have a purpose to exist.  He does revenge his father.  He does DO something.      Prufrock is not Prince Hamlet.  He's not even a prince at all.      And, He will NEVER act, and he knows it.  He is going be a failure, a loser, and not because he tried and failed, but because he doesn't have any energy, any courage, any desire to even try for anything.  He is just going to do nothing?  He will spend his energy worrying if he should eat a peach.  Not even  fictitious sirens in his imagination will try to seduce him- that's an allusion to the Odyssey- but you'd think, if you were a person who can live in a made up world- in your made up world the sirens would want you- isn't that what video game world is about in part.?  For for Prufrock, Not even in his dreams is he seductive.  He just linger by the sea in his imagination until he wakes up and the final lines of the poem, “we drown.”    That IS dark.  So nihilistic.      Well, it's modernism for- not the most positive take on the modern world- those guys knew how to see the dark side of life.  But you know what, unlike Fitzgerald who chose to sink in a sea of poor choices, Eliot did not.  The man who wrote Prufrock as a young man, wrote The Waste Land slightly older, and then wrote the “Four Quartets” later in life.  These last meditations are about time, divinity, and humility among other things and are considered his finest works.  All the things that confuse Prufrock and defeat Prufrock really don't defeat the real T.S. Eliot.  And I guess that's where I find the redemption.  Eliot's work takes us through the modern world but he navigates himself to a place of peace. I like that about him. We've all been Prufrock at one time or another.  The virtual world of today is way worse than anything Eliot experienced, and  Especially now because of the pandemic, many of us have felt a lot of the stream of conscious judgement poor Prufrock feels- but we don't have to drown or be him- we can be Lazarus- and come out of it.  And that's the thought I want to take away from this.    Well, there you have it, the positive spin on nihilism.  We hope you have been able to understand just a little bit of this very confusing poem.  Maybe it's inspired you, maybe it hasn't.  Thanks for being with us this week.  Next week, we are going to change directions and get into a little fantasy literaeture with J.R.R. Tolkein and The Hobbit.  That will be a welcome change of pace.      HA!1. It will be good though.  He's a great writer, and although also a devoted Catholic, and from Oxford, England has a very different take on things.  I look forward to it.       

Radio Sweden brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on April 15th, 2021. Presenter: Brett Ascarelli Producer: Sujay Dutt

In another radically titled episode we'll take a look at everything to do with the Nobel Prizes and their ongoing association with both Sweden and Norway We'll start off with a basic overview and then delve into the life of Alfred Nobel, take a look at the Nobel Foundation, the different Nobel Committees and the awards process including the ceremonies, lectures and what each of the winners receives (and it's more than I thought). I'll wrap things up with a look at some of the controversies and scandals that have occurred across the years including the Swedish Academy scandal of 2017/2018

Having lived a lifetime alongside poetry has given Bengt Berg, an award-winning poet originally from Sweden, a lifetime of adventure and reflection. His verses are full of humor, tenderness and sharp commentary about the world around us, which he prefers to traverse while looking for unexpected marvels. Bengt Berg’s debut poetry collection, Where the Dream Ends, appeared in 1974; and since then he has written more than 35 books, mostly poetry. His poems have been translated into more than 15 languages and won him several Swedish Literary prizes, among them some from The Swedish Academy.   In this conversation Bengt talks about the need for poetry and his relationship with it, the definition of socialism for current times in case of doubts, and why he is always looking for shadows everywhere he goes.

Radio Sweden brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on October 13th 2020. Presenter: Philip Barjami Producer: Kris Boswell

Each year in early October, the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. For the BXC podcast brothers, this event sparks an annual "Xchange" of reactions and thoughts over who won it, how familiar we are with the writer and whether we think it was warranted. It also reminds us of the work of other Nobel laureates we cherish, read and re-read, and want to recommend to others. In this episode we talk a bit about the prize in general, congratulate American poets Louise Glück on her recent honor, and then discuss the work of some of our favorite Nobel laureates. The work of past Nobel winners present to readers a rich and diverse pool of amazing writing, so we invite all listeners to dive in with us... you may just find some new books to read, learn from and possibly treasure. As always, thank you for listening to our little show! BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE What Jude is currently reading/plans to read next: 'Giant,' Edna Farber 'Manual of Painting and Calligraphy,' José Saramago What John is currently reading/plans to read next: 'Fiskadoro,' Denis Johnson 'Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition 1761-1767,' Thorkild Hansen Nobel Laureates Recommended by Jude: José Saramago Gabriel Garcia Marquez William Faulkner Nobel Laureates Recommended by John: Seamus Heaney Halldor Laxness Rabindranath Tagore Nobel Laureate "Should Haves" (now deceased) from John: James Joyce Leo Tolstoy Graham Greene Jorge Luis Borges Tarjei Vesaas Richard Wilbur Nobel Laureate "Recommended Picks" from Jude: Cormac McCarthy Joyce Carol Oates Jane Smiley Billy Collins T. C. Boyle Isabel Allende Hillary Mantel Tim Winton Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Planned next episode of the Book XChange podcast: "100 Years of Reading": The BXC Co-Hosts Discuss A Lifetime of Reading Across 50 Years (Times 2)

Radio Sweden Daily brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on December 2nd 2019. Presenter: Simon Linter Producer: Frank Radosevich

Radio Sweden Daily brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on November 20th, 2019. Producer: Frank Radosevich Presenter: Lee Roden

The Swedish Academy today announced the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Winners, not winner, because, embroiled in a scandal over allegations of sexual assault by the husband of one of its members, the Academy delayed last year’s prize until today. The 2019 winner is Austrian writer Peter Handke, a controversial figure, one of whose early plays was called Offending the Audience, and 2018's winner Olga Tokarczuk is a leading Polish novelist who won the Man Booker International Prize last year for her book Flights. Front Row has the only UK interview with Olga Tokarczuk today and the critic Arifa Akbar considers the work of the winners and the implications of these awards. Goldie, real name Clifford Price, is a musician, actor and artist whose career lifted off with the '90s Drum and Bass boom. The frenetic, high-tempo sound which has played a key role in the evolution of dance music is celebrated on a new 60-track collection compiled by Goldie – a former graffiti artist who became the celebrity poster boy of ‘DnB’ at the height of its popularity and was awarded an MBE in 2016. He talks to Front Row about the revolutionary but often misunderstood genre. Es Devlin has created ambitious sets and sculptures for theatre, opera and large-scale rock concerts, from U2 to Beyoncé. Her latest commission is Memory Palace, an 18-metre-wide white chronological sloping landscape of buildings and places, in which she charts pivotal shifts in human perspectives over 70,000 years. The artist and designer discusses her work which is at Sir John Soane’s former country home, Pitzhanger Manor. Presenter John Wilson Producer Simon Richardson

The 2019 Nobel Prizes for chemistry and physics were awarded this week, and — as is the case most of the time — they went to men. That's despite steps the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which runs the Nobel program, took just last year to be more inclusive.The academy's secretary-general, Göran K. Hansson, sent a letter to scientists asking them to take geography and gender into consideration in their nominations and asked more women to suggest candidates.But efforts to diversify Nobel winners are slow going, and there's a long history to overcome: Of the more than 600 Nobel Prizes that have been given out in the sciences, just 20 have gone to women. Some other prize categories, such as peace and literature, are more diverse, but they are considered more “acceptable” for women. (The 20 awards include prizes in physiology or medicine, chemistry and physics.)But those prizes have also had their challenges. The Nobels haven't been spared from modern movements like #MeToo; last year, because of a complicated sexual harassment scandal, the Royal Swedish Academy didn't award a prize for literature — so there are two awards in that category this year.Related: Nobel Literature prize award postponed amid turmoil over sex scandalHansson told the journal Nature that he couldn't do more to increase diversity because of a covenant laid down by the original funder of the prizes, Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite. Nobel explicitly said nationality shouldn't be considered in awarding winners.“It's important to remember that the Nobel Prize is awarded for discoveries and inventions, and those who receive it have made major contributions to humankind, and that's why they get the prize.”Göran K. Hansson, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, secretary-general “It's important to remember that the Nobel Prize is awarded for discoveries and inventions,” Hansson said at the 2018 press conference to announce the Nobel Prize winner for physics, “and those who receive it have made major contributions to humankind, and that's why they get the prize.”At that press conference, Canadian Donna Strickland was named winner for her work on lasers. She became the first woman to receive a Nobel for physics in 55 years. She took questions from reporters, and seemed surprised when one told her she was only the third woman ever to earn a Nobel for physics. (It went to French physicist Marie Curie in 1903, who was also awarded the Nobel in chemistry in 1911, and German-born American physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer received the physics Nobel in 1963.)The scene was not quite the same this year when the Nobel committee announced its prize for chemistry to three men in an Oct. 9 press conference.Related: Physics Nobel for laser pioneers includes first woman in 55 years“I thought there might have been more,” Strickland said. “Obviously, we need to celebrate women physicists because we're out there. And hopefully, in time, it'll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe. I don't know what to say. I'm honored to be one of those women.”(Strickland was promoted to full professor within weeks of the announcement of her Nobel win.)Hansson, joining in, said, “We expect more to come.”There's no way to know who's been nominated for a Nobel; those names are kept confidential for 50 years. So, at that 2018 press conference, a reporter asked just for the percentage: How many women were among the total number of nominees? Hansson said he didn't have that in front of him.“It's a small percentage that's for sure,” Hansson said. “And that's why we're taking measures to encourage more nominations. Because we don't want to miss anyone.”His academy colleague, physics professor Olga Botner, added that the percentage is small because a few decades ago, there were many fewer women in science.“So, the number has been increasing steadily over the years, but the number of nominations rather reflect the percentages as they were, say, two or three decades back in time,” she said.“Thank you,” Hansson responded. “Good point.”Related: Fighting the STEM gender gap with stories of trailblazing female scientistsBut is it? Liselotte Jauffred investigated.“I think it was a dinner table discussion,” said Jauffred, an associate physics professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. “We were thinking, ‘Is it just by random that they only chose men?'”So, she and her colleagues used historical data and modeling to find out if the smaller number of women in scientific fields fully accounts for the low number of female Nobel laureates. They published a paper about it last October. The results, Jauffred says, are clear — even accounting for fewer women in the sciences throughout history, women are underrepresented among Nobel Prize winners.“With 95% probability, there is a bias against women,” she said.And there are plenty of examples of women who seem to have deserved the Nobel Prize.Claudia Rankins, co-founder of the Society of STEM Women of Color, points to Lise Meitner, the Austrian physicist who Rankins argues discovered nuclear fission. Meitner fled Nazi persecution, but refused to work on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. Her teammate, Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in 1944.Related: Lise Meitner — the forgotten woman of nuclear physics who deserved a Nobel Prize“And that's just one example,” said Rankins, who is also a program officer at the National Science Foundation, but is speaking here only of her personal views. “I'm sure you can find throughout history, and even now, many other examples where men and women worked side by side, and the man gets the prize.”The Swedish Academy can't give Nobels to those who might have been overlooked; its own rules don't allow posthumous awards.Women and people of color are still underrepresented in many scientific fields. And they don't rise as fast: Rankins points out that when Strickland won the physics Nobel last year, she was still an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, despite her accomplishments. Recent studies suggest that women have been winning more science awards, but those awards often pay less, are lower status, and have to do with teaching, not research.Rankins said being a woman or minority in a largely white, male field can still be a daily hardship.“It takes a toll on you on your health and well-being,” she said. “And then for somebody to say, ‘Hmm, there are only white men scientifically advanced enough to be worthy of the Nobel Prize,' just sort of adds insult to injury.” 

The 2019 Nobel Prizes for chemistry and physics were awarded this week, and — as is the case most of the time — they went to men. That’s despite steps the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which runs the Nobel program, took just last year to be more inclusive.The academy's secretary-general, Göran K. Hansson, sent a letter to scientists asking them to take geography and gender into consideration in their nominations and asked more women to suggest candidates.But efforts to diversify Nobel winners are slow going, and there’s a long history to overcome: Of the more than 600 Nobel Prizes that have been given out in the sciences, just 20 have gone to women. Some other prize categories, such as peace and literature, are more diverse, but they are considered more “acceptable” for women. (The 20 awards include prizes in physiology or medicine, chemistry and physics.)But those prizes have also had their challenges. The Nobels haven’t been spared from modern movements like #MeToo; last year, because of a complicated sexual harassment scandal, the Royal Swedish Academy didn’t award a prize for literature — so there are two awards in that category this year.Related: Nobel Literature prize award postponed amid turmoil over sex scandalHansson told the journal Nature that he couldn’t do more to increase diversity because of a covenant laid down by the original funder of the prizes, Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite. Nobel explicitly said nationality shouldn’t be considered in awarding winners.“It’s important to remember that the Nobel Prize is awarded for discoveries and inventions, and those who receive it have made major contributions to humankind, and that’s why they get the prize.”Göran K. Hansson, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, secretary-general “It’s important to remember that the Nobel Prize is awarded for discoveries and inventions,” Hansson said at the 2018 press conference to announce the Nobel Prize winner for physics, “and those who receive it have made major contributions to humankind, and that’s why they get the prize.”At that press conference, Canadian Donna Strickland was named winner for her work on lasers. She became the first woman to receive a Nobel for physics in 55 years. She took questions from reporters, and seemed surprised when one told her she was only the third woman ever to earn a Nobel for physics. (It went to French physicist Marie Curie in 1903, who was also awarded the Nobel in chemistry in 1911, and German-born American physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer received the physics Nobel in 1963.)The scene was not quite the same this year when the Nobel committee announced its prize for chemistry to three men in an Oct. 9 press conference.Related: Physics Nobel for laser pioneers includes first woman in 55 years“I thought there might have been more,” Strickland said. “Obviously, we need to celebrate women physicists because we’re out there. And hopefully, in time, it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe. I don’t know what to say. I’m honored to be one of those women.”(Strickland was promoted to full professor within weeks of the announcement of her Nobel win.)Hansson, joining in, said, “We expect more to come.”There’s no way to know who’s been nominated for a Nobel; those names are kept confidential for 50 years. So, at that 2018 press conference, a reporter asked just for the percentage: How many women were among the total number of nominees? Hansson said he didn’t have that in front of him.“It’s a small percentage that’s for sure,” Hansson said. “And that’s why we’re taking measures to encourage more nominations. Because we don’t want to miss anyone.”His academy colleague, physics professor Olga Botner, added that the percentage is small because a few decades ago, there were many fewer women in science.“So, the number has been increasing steadily over the years, but the number of nominations rather reflect the percentages as they were, say, two or three decades back in time,” she said.“Thank you,” Hansson responded. “Good point.”Related: Fighting the STEM gender gap with stories of trailblazing female scientistsBut is it? Liselotte Jauffred investigated.“I think it was a dinner table discussion,” said Jauffred, an associate physics professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. “We were thinking, ‘Is it just by random that they only chose men?’”So, she and her colleagues used historical data and modeling to find out if the smaller number of women in scientific fields fully accounts for the low number of female Nobel laureates. They published a paper about it last October. The results, Jauffred says, are clear — even accounting for fewer women in the sciences throughout history, women are underrepresented among Nobel Prize winners.“With 95% probability, there is a bias against women,” she said.And there are plenty of examples of women who seem to have deserved the Nobel Prize.Claudia Rankins, co-founder of the Society of STEM Women of Color, points to Lise Meitner, the Austrian physicist who Rankins argues discovered nuclear fission. Meitner fled Nazi persecution, but refused to work on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. Her teammate, Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in 1944.Related: Lise Meitner — the forgotten woman of nuclear physics who deserved a Nobel Prize“And that's just one example,” said Rankins, who is also a program officer at the National Science Foundation, but is speaking here only of her personal views. “I'm sure you can find throughout history, and even now, many other examples where men and women worked side by side, and the man gets the prize.”The Swedish Academy can’t give Nobels to those who might have been overlooked; its own rules don’t allow posthumous awards.Women and people of color are still underrepresented in many scientific fields. And they don’t rise as fast: Rankins points out that when Strickland won the physics Nobel last year, she was still an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, despite her accomplishments. Recent studies suggest that women have been winning more science awards, but those awards often pay less, are lower status, and have to do with teaching, not research.Rankins said being a woman or minority in a largely white, male field can still be a daily hardship.“It takes a toll on you on your health and well-being,” she said. “And then for somebody to say, ‘Hmm, there are only white men scientifically advanced enough to be worthy of the Nobel Prize,’ just sort of adds insult to injury.” 

Radio Sweden brings you a roundup of the main news in Sweden on May 10th 2019. Presenter: Simon Linter Producer: Loukas Christodoulou

Radio Sweden brings you a roundup of the main news in Sweden on April 26th 2019. Presenter: Ulla Engberg Producer: Frank Radosevich

Radio Sweden Daily brings you a roundup of the main news in Sweden on March 28th 2019. Presenter: Simon Linter Producer: Ulla Engberg

Radio Sweden Daily brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on January 10th 2019. Presenter: Brett Ascarelli Producer: Frank Radosevich

Radio Sweden Daily brings you a roundup of the main news in Sweden on October 19th 2018. Presenter: Brett Ascarelli Producer: Loukas Christodoulou

This week, Sharifah joins Jeff to talk the awarding of the New Academy Prize (aka, The Alternative Nobel), the meh-tastic finalists of The Great American Read, rage-inducing #metoo responses, Macarthur "Genius" winners, and much more. This episode is sponsored by: The Devil's Thief by Lisa Maxwell Curtain Call by Wilifred Lupano Bombas Links discussed in this episode: Alternative Nobel goes to Maryse Conde Nobel shenanigans: Swedish Academy elects new members Great American Read top 10 finalists Stephen Elliott sues Moira Donegan Amazon gives employees another pay bump to make up for lost bonuses Kelly Link among MacArthur Genius Grant Winners 2018 National Book Award finalists

This week: Contemplating the potential unionziation of comics creators after #metoo and #timesup, the Swedish Academy elected two new members in planning for next year’s Nobel, Brazil’s National Museum prepares to rebuild, the PEN/Pinter prize awarding came with a plea for authors to call out lies, HarperCollins took a big step toward Spanish-language literature, the Alternative Nobel is announced, and Marvel fires an author over online harassment. All this, plus the New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists and the latest news from aois21, Literally This Week. aois21 audio would like your help! We are currently conducting surveys of listeners to several of our podcast series. Visit www.surveys.aois21.com or the homepage of each podcast to find the link. It will only take a couple minutes of your time and we will thank you with 21% off any purchase from the aois21 market and enter you for a chance to win a $25 Visa gift card. This episode is brought to you by Audible. Get access to over 180,000 audiobooks with your first month free. Visit www.audibletrial.com/aois21 and your first book is on us! Additional support is provided by the Blue Ridge Writers 2018 Book and Arts Fair! Join us and 35 local authors on Saturday, October 27th at the CitySpace in downtown Charlottesville, Va, for a day of readings, music, and fun. Visit www.BlueRidgeWriters.org or www.events.aois21.com for more information! It is also sponsored by Photolemur, photo editing made easy. Version 3.0 is now out with this AI directed photo editor and you can download it for free. Just visit https://photolemur.sjv.io/aois21 today! Literally This Week is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, TuneIn, Spotify, Podomatic, and www.audio.aois21.com. You can support this podcast either by buying an ad through Advertisecast, or on the aois21 page on Patreon. For news during the week, follow @aois21 on Twitter. If there’s a story we missed, tweet to us with the #literallythisweek and we’ll check it out.

Radio Sweden brings you a round-up of the main news in Sweden on October 4th, 2018. Presenter: Loukas Christodoulou Producer: Frank Radosevich.

This week Michelle Fern talks Earl, Mooch, Shtinky Puddin’ and the rest of the crazy cast of characters in the hit comic strip, Mutts with cartoonist and Mutts creator, Patrick McDonnell. In 1994, Patrick McDonnell created the comic strip MUTTS, which now appears in over 700 newspapers in 20 countries. McDonnell has received numerous awards for this strip, including the National Cartoonists Society’s highest honor, The Reuben, for Cartoonist of the Year; five Harvey Awards for Best Comic Strip; Germany’s Max and Moritz Award for Best International Comic Strip; and the Swedish Academy of Comic Art’s Adamson Statuette. More details on this episode MP3 Podcast - Are Cats Mutts? Yesh! with Michelle Fern

This week we're discussing Irish writer Edna O'Brien, and her debut novel from 1960: The Country Girls. The book's frank depiction of sex--or, more accurately, the sexual thoughts of young girls and women--was enough to get it banned, and even burned, in its native country. We consider how the book has aged, and whether it still feels scandalous today. We also talk a bit about O'Brien's trajectory as a writer, and as a young woman, enduring what seemed to be a pretty lousy marriage before breaking free and joining swinging London society. In the second half of the show, we talk about the recent scandal at the Swedish Academy that has forced the Nobel Prize in Literature to go on hiatus for a year. We unpack the scandal's details, and consider how a group of Swedes got into a position to dole out the biggest prize in letters in the first place. If you like the show, please consider subscribing to our Patreon, which helps offset our costs and allows us to keep doing the podcast each week. In exchange for $5, you'll also get access to a monthly bonus episode, Book Fight After Dark, in which we explore some of the weirder reaches of the literary universe: Amish mysteries, caveman romances, end-times thrillers and more!

Google, the Cloud, or podcasts would not exist without the internet, so it's with an incredible honor that we celebrate our 100th episode with one of its creators: Vint Cerf. Listen to Mark and Francesc talk about the origins, current trends, and the future of the internet with one of the best people to cover the topic. About Vint Cerf Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He contributes to global policy development and continued spread of the Internet. Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet” Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. He has served in executive positions at MCI, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and on the faculty of Stanford University. Vint Cerf served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007 and has been a Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1998. Cerf served as founding president of the Internet Society (ISOC) from 1992-1995. Cerf is a Foreign Member of the British Royal Society and Swedish Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum, the British Computer Society, the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, the Worshipful Company of Stationers and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has served as President of the Association for Computing Machinery, chairman of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and completed a term as Chairman of the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. President Obama appointed him to the National Science Board in 2012. Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet, including the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, US National Medal of Technology, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Tunisian National Medal of Science, the Japan Prize, the Charles Stark Draper award, the ACM Turing Award, Officer of the Legion d'Honneur and 29 honorary degrees. In December 1994, People magazine identified Cerf as one of that year's “25 Most Intriguing People.” His personal interests include fine wine, gourmet cooking and science fiction. Cerf and his wife, Sigrid, were married in 1966 and have two sons, David and Bennett. Also, he's awesome. Cool things of the week We interviewed Vint Cerf! Interview Question of the week Who will you interview for episode 100? Vint Cerf.

Prof. Richard Thaler says his work recognizes that economic agents are human, and that money decisions are not strictly rational. The Swedish Academy cites Thaler for his pioneering work in behavioral economics. Plus the day's news, sports & weather ...

To Nobel or not to Nobel that is, sometimes, the question with the prizes given by the Swedish Academy. And in the case of Bob Dylan we could not substract ourselves from a conversation which goes to the core of what constitutes poetry or literature and their validity and relevance in these times that are changing. With Patricio Bosich, Andre López Turner and Juan Toledo

It didn't take Auston Matthews long to live up to the hype. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft scored four goals in his first regular-season NHL game, in the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday's season opener for both teams. He also became the first player to score four goals in his NHL debut. Has Matthews already peaked? American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". The Swedish Academy announced its decision on Thursday, drawing to a close the 2016 Nobel season. This year, the Sweden-based body, which has awarded the literature prize since 1901, registered about 220 proposals that were later cut to a short list of five. Warning environmentally sensitive land in York Region is particularly vulnerable, Sony Rai is urging the provincial government to turn down requests to open up thousands of hectares of land on the Greenbelt to development. “I think it would be catastrophic for the province to consider any changes to the Greenbelt at this point,” said Rai, director of Sustainable Vaughan. The leader of the PC Party of Ontario Patrick Brown joins to show to talk Kathleen Wynne, carbon price plans, and eHealth.  

更多内容可以关注今天微信头条Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy made the announcement."The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2015 is awarded to the Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time."Danius said Alexievich is not interested in simply recounting events. The events she covers, for example, the Chernobyl disaster and the Second World War, are just a pretext for exploring what history does to the individual and where individual life intersects with the course of historical events."What she is really interested in is the soul of events, of the inner life of individuals, that's what she has been uncovering book after book.”Alexievich was born on May 31, 1948 in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk, the daughter of a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother. When her father had completed his military service, the family moved to Belarus, where both parents worked as teachers.Alexievich worked as a teacher and as a journalist, and she studied journalism at the University of Minsk."She has conducted thousands of interviews over the years with man and women and children, she always keeps herself in the background unlike most journalists."Danius recommended that people read her first book "War's Unwomenly Face" translated into English in 1988. It was about one million Soviet women in the red army who participated in the Second World War alongside male soldiers.Alexievich's book Voices of Utopia and Voices from Chernobyl about nuclear proliferation are also recommended by Danius.

更多内容可以关注今天微信头条Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy made the announcement."The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2015 is awarded to the Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time."Danius said Alexievich is not interested in simply recounting events. The events she covers, for example, the Chernobyl disaster and the Second World War, are just a pretext for exploring what history does to the individual and where individual life intersects with the course of historical events."What she is really interested in is the soul of events, of the inner life of individuals, that's what she has been uncovering book after book.”Alexievich was born on May 31, 1948 in the Ukrainian town of Ivano-Frankivsk, the daughter of a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother. When her father had completed his military service, the family moved to Belarus, where both parents worked as teachers.Alexievich worked as a teacher and as a journalist, and she studied journalism at the University of Minsk."She has conducted thousands of interviews over the years with man and women and children, she always keeps herself in the background unlike most journalists."Danius recommended that people read her first book "War's Unwomenly Face" translated into English in 1988. It was about one million Soviet women in the red army who participated in the Second World War alongside male soldiers.Alexievich's book Voices of Utopia and Voices from Chernobyl about nuclear proliferation are also recommended by Danius.

The New Elizabethans: Doris Lessing. A spirited, straight-talking Nobel laureate who has been praised for her ability to inhabit different fictional worlds. Radicalised in colonial Africa, her first novel The Grass is Singing is set in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where she grew up. The government there would later accuse her of "subversive activities" and she was labelled a prohibitive immigrant. Most famous as author of The Golden Notebook, she has resisted the way in which feminists have claimed the book as an inspiration and has been critical of the "rubbishing of men". Awarded The Nobel Prize by the Swedish Academy in 2007, she was described as "That epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". The New Elizabethans have been chosen by a panel of leading historians, chaired by Lord (Tony) Hall, Chief Executive of London's Royal Opera House. The panellists were Dominic Sandbrook, Bamber Gascoigne, Sally Alexander, Jonathan Agar, Maria Misra and Sir Max Hastings. They were asked to choose: "Men and women whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and/or given the age its character, for better or worse." Producer: Clare Walker.

This week Swedish soprano Gisela Stille is with us to discuss the texts "Längtan heter min arvedel" and "I drömmen du är mig nära". We concentrate on the fun rounded H [ɧ], what I keep calling the C that turns back in over itself (but is officially called C with a curl) [ɕ], some of the differences between colloquial speech and lyric diction and a reminder of some spelling rules. At the end of the episode, I also compare some of the sounds of Swedish and Norwegian. Both of our poets today were members of the Swedish Academy at the same time. "Längtan heter min arvedel" is by Erik Axel Karlfeldt, who was also a member of the Nobel Committee and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature posthumously in 1931. "I drömmen du är mig nära" was written by Tor Hedberg (Wikipedia doesn't have this article in English!) and set to music by Emil Sjögren. On the episode, I refer often to Anna Hersey's terrific article in the NATS Journal of Singing (Jan/Feb 2012 edition) "An Introduction to Swedish Diction." If you aren't a subscriber to the Journal, the online link to the article shows up incomplete and with phonetic letters defaulting to regular letters, so if you are really interested in this topic it's important to get a copy of the actual article. Back copies of the Journal of Singing are also available for purchase. A big thank you to Anna Hersey for letting me know about her article, and to the people who have recently written about their own diction books and dissertations! I'm always thrilled to have new resources and as I wade through all this material, I'll keep everyone posted on what I find! Please contact me with questions, comments and suggestions (or new diction resources! :-) ) here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter @dictionpolice or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

In announcing the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy said of Orhan Pamuk: his "quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, Istanbul, led him to discover new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." Pamuk reads from his new novel, The Museum of Innocence, and discusses his life and work with Reza Aslan (How to Win a Cosmic War).

In announcing the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy said of Orhan Pamuk: his "quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, Istanbul, led him to discover new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." Pamuk reads from his new novel, The Museum of Innocence, and discusses his life and work with Reza Aslan (How to Win a Cosmic War).