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In the last week of 2021, let's see what major events have happened in the literary and art circles at the end of the year.
The writers who appear today are: Colm Tobin, Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, and Anne Rice
01 Irish writer Colm Tobin
Winner of the David Cohen Prize for Literature
On 13 December, the David Cohen Prize for Literature was announced, and colm Tóibín, a renowned contemporary Irish writer, won the £40,000 Literary Prize.
Established in 1993 and funded by the late Jewish arts philanthropist David Cohen through his family's John Cohen Foundation, the David Cohen Prize is one of the most important literary awards in the UK, recognising living British or Irish writers who have made outstanding contributions in the fields of fiction, poetry, prose, theatre and other literary fields. Award-winning writers include Harold Pinter, Hilary Mantel, Tom Storpater and others.
Hermione Lee, a professor of literature at Oxford University, president of this year's jury, praised Tobin, saying: "He is a writer who knows the world, but he is also extremely humorous and amazingly large. He is a truly international figure... He is one of the most important writers of this era. ”
Upon learning of his award, Colm Tobin said: "When I was in London in 1993 at the David Cohen Prize ceremony, I couldn't imagine that my writing would receive such an honor. Past winners have been artists I respect very much, and I'm proud to be among them. ”
At present, Tobin's works "Famous Doors", "Masters", "Brooklyn", and "Mary's Confessions" have been launched by Archipelago Books and Shanghai Translation Publishing House in cooperation with Chinese editions; "Blackwater Lighthouse" and "Empty Home" are about to be listed; and the new work "The Magician" is being translated and is expected to be published in 2022.
On December 29, 2021 (Wednesday) from 19:00 to 20:30, Islands Book Publisher Peng Lun, writer Zhang Dinghao, and "Master" and "Brooklyn" translator Bai Que will talk about Tobin, the most important writer in the English literary world, in the translation live broadcast room. WeChat video number, Bilibili live broadcast, Jingdong live broadcast, Dangdang 🍑 live broadcast, Bao live broadcast platform synchronous live broadcast.
Click to book a live broadcast:
Works by Colm Tobin
Brooklyn
Brooklyn
[Ireland] by Colm Tobin
Translated by Bai Que
Shanghai Translation Publishing House
The Master
The Master
House of Names
"Famous Doors"
Translated by Wang Xiaoxiong
The Testament of Mary
"Confessions of Mary"
Translated by Zhang Yun
02 Adaptation of Haruki Murakami's works
The movie "Drive My Car" rushes to Austria
On December 22, the shortlist of the 94th Academy Awards for Best International Film (formerly Best Foreign Language Film) was officially announced, and the finalists will be selected from the 15 films in the short list, representing Japan in the competition is "Driving My Car" directed by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
The main plot of the film is taken from the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's short story of the same name, "Driving My Car", and incorporates two other short stories by Haruki Murakami, "Kino" and "Yamaruzod" (both included in the short story collection "Men Without Women"), and the film also highlights "Uncle Vanya" (Chekhov's drama work) mentioned in the original text.
"Driving My Car" premiered at the 74th Cannes International Film Festival in July this year, and was selected for the main competition section, winning three awards, including the Best Screenplay Award. At the end of the year, the film won the Best Picture at the Asia Pacific Film Awards, the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Picture, and won several Film Critics Association Awards in the United States: the 87th New York Film Critics Association "Best Picture" Award, the 20th Washington Film Critics Association "Best International Film" Award, the 42nd Boston Film Critics Association "Best Picture", "Best Director", "Best Screenplay" and "Best Actor" four awards, the 2021 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards "Best Director" award, etc. In addition, the film was shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Golden Globe Awards
The finalists for the 94th Academy Awards for Best International Film will be announced on February 8, 2022, so let's look forward to the performance of "Drive My Car" together.
Men Without Women
"Men Without Women"
👆
[Japanese] by Haruki Murakami
Lin Shaohua, Mao Danqing, et al. translation
03 Issued by Canada Post
A special stamp featuring Atwood
On November 25, Canada Post unveiled a new commemorative stamp to commemorate Margaret Atwood and her incredible 60-year writing career.
Atwood's literary empire is vast, encompassing novels, short stories, poems, reviews, children's stories, and more, and is one of Canada's most successful and admired writers of all time, even known as the "Queen of Canadian Literature". Atwood has received international acclaim and has won numerous major awards, including the Booker Award twice, the Arthur Clark Award, the Governor of Canada Award, and the National Association of Book Critics Awards, and has been adapted into films and television series, such as The Handmaid's Tale, which won the Emmy Award for Best Drama Series.
The stamp features a photograph of Atwood with the sentence "A word after a word after a word is power" from his poem Spelling.
The official premiere features Atwood's sketch of "Not Fish, No Meat" on the front, and the postmark on its side is designed as a silhouette of a bird, inspired by Atwood's interest in birds and their relationship with nature.
Many of Atwood's works, including the Booker Award-winning Blind Assassin and Testimony, as well as its best-selling works "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Mad Adam Trilogy" have been launched by Shanghai Translation Publishing House for Chinese.
Atwood works
The Handmaids' Tale
The Handmaid's Tale
[Canada] by Margaret Atwood
Translated by Chen Xiaowei
Testament
Testimony
So translated
The MaddAddam Trilogy
Mad Adam Trilogy
Wei Qingqi et al. translations
04 The 2021 National Vocabulary of the Year is out
Vax, vaccine, NFT, perseverance, etc. were elected
At the end of each year, many media, publishers and research institutions select "Word of the Year" based on indicators such as word popularity and search volume. These words may fall into different fields, but they all reflect the hot spots and social realities of the past year.
The 2021 word published by Oxford Languages, the compiler of the Oxford English Dictionary, is vax. It comes from vaccine and vaccination and can mean "vaccine" and "vaccination". In September, vax exploded, 72 times as often as last year, jumping from extremely low frequencies to high-frequency and prolific words. Vax involved in the composition of the word include the widely used vax site (vaccination point), double vaxxed (two doses of vaccine), fully vaxxed (fully vaccinated), etc. Oxford Languages believes that no word is more precise than vax in 2021.
Merriam-Webster, the compiler of merriam-Webster's University Dictionary, chose vaccine as its word of the year. The report said the number of searches for vaccine in 2021 was 601% in 2020. It is worth noting that this year's discussion of vaccine is not limited to the vaccine itself, but also to vaccine-related policies (such as the hotly discussed compulsory vaccination in the United States), the authorization of emergency use of new vaccines, and vaccination rates.
Collins Dictionaries, the compiler of the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary, has announced NFT as its 2021 Word of the Year. NFT is an abbreviation for non-fungible token, referring to "non-homogeneous token", which is a unit of data in the blockchain that can be used as an electronic authentication of ownership of virtual goods (artworks, games, etc.). Now, NFTs have entered the mainstream trading market, witnessing millions of people spending on popular images and videos.
The Cambridge Dictionary, the compiler of the Cambridge Advanced Dictionary, chose persistence as its word of the year. After NASA's Perseverance probe landed on Mars, searches for the word "perseverance" surged. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the term also reflects the resilience of the past year in the face of the challenges posed by COVID-19 and the climate crisis.
Want to hear more about the analysis and usage of popular words? Listen to the "Vocabulary Lessons for University Scholars: The Tidbit & Plus" developed by the team of the English-Chinese Dictionary Compilation Office, 99 lessons, 7 major topics, each lesson condenses an English news into two sentences, which is convenient for learners to memorize, analyze vocabulary and grammar rules, and use fragmented time to learn English efficiently.
Scan code to learn
05 The famous American novelist Anne Rice died
He died on December 31, 2012 at the age of 8
Anne Rice, the original author of "Night Interview with a Vampire", died on the evening of December 11, local time in the United States, at the age of 80 due to complications caused by stroke.
Rice became famous for the "Vampire" series of novels, known as the "Mother of Vampires", and her two novels "Night Interview with the Vampire" and "Vampire Queen" have been adapted to the screen. Her 1976 Night Interview with the Vampire was released in 1994 and starred Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst, and was nominated twice at the 67th Academy Awards in 1995 and won four awards at the 48th British Academy Film Awards.
Rice's twelve major works, known as the Vampire Chronicles, include Interview with the Vampire, Lester the Vampire, and The Cursed Queen, which sold a total of about 135 million copies, making her one of the most popular fantasy writers of all time.
Rice's son, Christopher Rice, said Anne-Rice would be buried in a private ceremony in New Orleans and a public commemoration was planned for next year.
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