Author: Matthew Westphal

After Three Years In Prison, Turkish Author Ahmet Altan Is Freed

“The 69-year-old [author of I Will Never See the World Again] was arrested in 2016 with his brother, the economist and journalist Mehmet Altan, on allegations of spreading ‘subliminal messages announcing a military coup’ on television. Alongside journalist Nazlı Ilıcak, the Altan brothers were charged with attempting to overthrow constitutional order, interfering with the work of the national assembly and the government.” – The Guardian

South American Literature’s Master Of Malaise — And Role Model To García Márquez, Fuentes And Vargas Llosa

“Over a career spanning 50 years, [Juan Carlos] Onetti depicted Uruguay in short stories and novels as a place marked by pettiness, idiocy and squalor — a Gogolian province in the tropics [sic] — and populated by characters who are by and large unhinged. However unflattering, his portrait of his country was one in which Uruguayans recognized something of themselves.” – The New York Times Book Review

The YouTube Post-Prison-Transition Counselor

After Christina Randall was released from jail after a three-year term for battery and robbery, she finished a bachelor’s degree and hoped to get into social work — but with her incarceration history, she couldn’t get hired. So she started a YouTube channel on which, “in addition to sharing beauty tips, … she also talks candidly about life behind bars and the process of re-entry” to more than 400,000 subscribers. – The New York Times

Israel Philharmonic Pulls Out Of Charity Concert Because Rabbi Can’t Abide Female Singers

The November 20 event in Tel Aviv was planned as a benefit for a nonprofit providing medical care to indigent patients. But that organization’s founder, an Orthodox rabbi, asked that no female singers be included, per a stricture observed by ultra-Orthodox Jews. Furious debate broke out around the country, and the Israel Philharmonic was the first among several performers to withdraw. The concert has now been canceled. – The Times of Israel

Playwright William B. Branch Dead At 92

“As a playwright Mr. Branch delved into the black experience, both in the 20th century and earlier, in Off-Broadway plays like A Medal for Willie, about the bitterness that ensues when a black World War II veteran who had been mistreated in the service is decorated posthumously; A Wreath for Udomo, with its theme of colonial oppression in South Africa; and In Splendid Error, about the tangled relationship between the abolitionists Frederick Douglass and John Brown.” – The New York Times

Voters In Charlotte Reject Sales Tax Hike To Fund Arts And Education

For the second time in five years, voters in North Carolina’s largest city and surrounding Mecklenburg County defeated a proposal to raise the sales tax locally by a one-fourth of a percentage point, to a total of 7.5%. The additional tax had been expected to raise roughly $50 million annually, to be shared between the city’s arts (45%), parks (34%), and education (16%), with 5% for arts and parks in the county’s other towns. – Qcitymetro (Charlotte)

Ernest J. Gaines, Author Of ‘Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman’ And ‘A Lesson Before Dying’, Dead At 86

“Mr. Gaines, who spent his first 15 years on a plantation near Baton Rouge, later moved with his family to Northern California, but in many ways he never left the landscape, rhythms and painful history of his childhood. … In eight novels and many short stories, Mr. Gaines created a fictional world surrounding a town called Bayonne, in St. Raphael Parish, not unlike his boyhood home.” – The Washington Post

Nigeria’s First-Ever Oscar Entry Disqualified From Best Foreign-Language Film Category

Lionheart, by director Genevieve Nnaji, includes only 11 minutes of dialogue that aren’t in English. A statement from the Academy said that even though the name of the category was changed this year from Foreign Language Film to International Feature Film, the rules have not changed, and they require that a candidate film must have “a predominantly non-English dialogue track.” – The Hollywood Reporter

‘The Girl With The Golden Eyes, French Singer And Actress Marie Laforêt, Dead At 80

“The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Ms. Laforêt won a radio talent contest as a teenager and … went on to appear in 37 feature films, including the 1961 dramas Saint-Tropez Blues, where her performance of the title song with rock vocalist Jacques Higelin effectively launched her singing career” — she ultimately sold more than 35 million records as a pop star — and The Girl With the Golden Eyes, a Balzac adaptation with a title that endured for decades as her nickname.” – The Washington Post