Reporter | Ye Qing
Edit the | Yellow Moon
Every Saturday, "Cultural Weekly" summarizes and presents you with the major events and small events worth learning about in the foreign literary and art circles, publishing circles, and bookstore industries in the past week. This week, we focus on topics such as the Goncourt Prize for Literature, the closure of the Z-Library, the Collins Dictionary of the Year, the sentencing of climate activists, and more.
Brigitte Giraud wins the Goncourt Prize for Literature
Following Anne Hernault's Nobel Prize in Literature early last month, another French woman writer has been recognized with a major literary prize: this year's Goncourt Prize winner is Brigitte Girau. Giraud, 56, is a former journalist who writes novels and short stories. In 2011, Shanghai People's Publishing House translated Giraud's short story collection "Love Is Not So Beautiful", which won the Goncourt Literary Short Story Award.
The Goncourt Prize has been held for 120 years, making it the oldest and most influential literary prize in France, and Giraud is the thirteenth female writer to receive the prize after Layla Sliemani won it in 2016 for "Tender Song".
This year's selection process was intense. According to the Guardian, the jury held a total of 14 rounds of voting. After the final round of voting, after the jury reached another deadlock, Didier Decoin, president of the Goncourt Academy, cast a decisive vote, and Girouaud won by one vote over his opponent Giuliano da Empoli (Italian-French writer, masterpiece "Politicians, Tricksters, Clowns").
Giraud's award-winning work is "Vivre Vite," and the story is based on her real experience: In 1999, Giraud's husband, Claude, died in a motorcycle accident, she suddenly became a widow, had to raise her young son alone, and worse, she had just signed a contract for a new home. In the book, Giro reviews the chain of events that led to the accident, reflecting on the role of luck and timing in life through different "what if" questions.
In his book, Giraud writes, "When no catastrophe strikes, we stare straight at the horizon and stride forward without looking back; When tragedy strikes, we turn around, linger, and keep repeating itself. We try to figure out every pose, the cause of every decision... We want to know everything about human nature, to understand the intimate and collective forces that cause it all to happen. ”
According to Radio France Internationale, Girout mentioned in her acceptance speech that she won the award not only as a female writer, but as a literary worker, and the reason for writing this book was to resonate with readers and heal pain with words.
The prize money for the Goncourt Prize is only 10 euros (about 71 yuan), and most of the winners do not cash checks, but collect them as souvenirs. But this does not mean that writers will not receive financial help after winning awards, and previous winners, such as Marcel Proust and Marguerite Duras, have sold a record 400,000 copies of their works after winning awards.
"Long Crisis" was named Collins Dictionary Word of the Year
Collins Dictionary recently announced that the word of the year in 2022 is "permacrisis", which is a combination of the words "permanent" and "crisis", and the dictionary gives the meaning of "prolonged turmoil and instability".
Protracted crises were first used in the 1970s, primarily in academic contexts. Looking back at 2022, the outbreak of war in Europe, the fermentation of the new crown epidemic, the spread of the cost of living crisis, and the political turmoil in many countries, the use of long-term crises has ushered in a significant increase. Alex Beecroft, director of education at Collins, said the term "simply and clearly sums up what a bad year 2022 has been for some."
Collins' annual vocabulary list also includes many words that record the major events of 2022, such as warm bank, partygate, Kiev, quiet quitting, the Charles era (Carolean), sportswashing and so on.
"Warm banks" represent heated public places, such as libraries or religious sites, where people with financial difficulties and unable to pay for heating go to heat due to rising energy prices; "Party Gate" refers to the fact that during the epidemic, the British government violated the lockdown rules to gather for parties many times, and then Prime Minister Johnson was photographed drinking and reveling at the Prime Minister's House in Downing Street.
"Silent resignation" is a phenomenon that has emerged in the workplace in Europe and the United States in recent years, which refers to only completing work requirements when working, not undertaking redundant work, and spending more time on personal life; "Charles Period" is the official name for the new era represented by Charles III taking over as King after Elizabeth II's death in September.
"Sports whitewashing" is "the use of sports activities by organizations or countries to improve their image or divert public attention from political crises", and Qatar, the host of the 2022 World Cup, was recently accused by foreign media of "sports whitewashing", including the country's poor treatment of night workers, homophobic policies and suppression of freedom of expression.
Beecroft says these words reflect "the state of the world as it is today": "Language is a mirror that reflects society and what is happening in the world, and it is understandable that people will feel like they are living in uncertainty and distress as the challenges of this year continue." ”
The climate activist was sentenced to 2 months in prison by a Dutch court
In last week's Cultural Weekly, we reported on the "destruction" of Dutch painter Vermeer's masterpiece "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by three climate activists, and a Dutch court recently announced that two of the activists were sentenced to two months in prison, suspended for one month. Another activist is still on trial for refusing to go to a speedy trial.
Prosecutors prosecuted the activists for vandalism and public violence, but the duo argued that the original intention was not to actually destroy the painting, but to see the destruction of the earth in the same way by letting the public see the destruction of the famous painting.
According to Reuters, prosecutors said in their case that "a painting that hung in the museum for everyone to admire was smeared by the defendants, who put their claims before everything." The prosecution asked for a four-month prison sentence, suspended for two months, but the judge cut the length of the sentence served in half, citing "not wanting to make other protesters lose courage and confidence."
Isn't it ironic that all three activists are members of Stop Oil Belgium (not associated with Stop Oil UK), and after the verdict, the group issued a statement saying that "climate activists who protest nonviolently against the massacre of life on Earth have been the object of condemnation?" ”
The e-book sharing site Z-Library was shut down by the U.S. Postal Inspectorate
According to the science and technology news website Bleeping Computer, on November 4, the domain name of Z-Library, one of the world's largest e-book sharing websites, was blocked by the US government and is now inaccessible through normal means.
The Z-Library bills itself as "the world's largest electronic library," with more than 11 million books and 84 million articles. The National Writers Guild said that Z-Library's growing popularity in recent years is due to the fact that many "tap water" users promote it on social media. "#zlibrary在TikTok上的播放量超过400万, many high school and college students mention it in videos as a first-hand source for free e-books." TikTok has blocked Z-Library-related tags.
Some writers believe that the Z-Library hurts their rights. Sarina Bowen, a New York Times bestseller writer, said in an interview, "The Z-Library is killing us. The new book that was just released in the morning was already available on this site at lunch. All my books are on it. ”
Just days before the seizure, the French National Publishing Union approved an application to remove the Z-Library from search results on French search engines. A similar ban has been issued by India's Ministry of Telecom, and Internet service providers in India have received requests to block the site.
Resources:
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/nov/01/sums-up-2022-permacrisis-chosen-as-collins-word-of-the-year
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/permacrisis-2022-word-year-collins-dictionary/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-63458467
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/03/brigitte-giraud-becomes-13th-woman-to-win-prix-goncourt-vivre-vite
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221103-brigitte-giraud-wins-goncourt-prize-france-s-top-literary-award-for-vivre-vite-live-fast
https://www.rfi.fr/en/culture/20221103-story-of-personal-tragedy-wins-france-s-prestigious-goncourt-literature-prize
https://hyperallergic.com/776589/activists-who-targeted-girl-with-a-pearl-earring-get-jail-time/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/climate-activists-who-targeted-girl-with-pearl-earring-sentenced-prison-2022-11-02/
https://goodereader.com/blog/digital-publishing/major-ebook-piracy-site-blocked-in-france-and-india
https://torrentfreak.com/tiktok-blocks-z-library-hashtag-pending-piracy-investigation-221031/
https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/z-library-domains-are-seized-and-pirate-book-site-is-dead