Category: people

“A generation ago, people talked about [Edwin] Land in the same breath with Thomas Edison. In the digital age all pictures are instant pictures. But one of the most significant things Polaroid invented was not merely a camera-and-film system but a particular kind of casual documentary photography.”

“Fifteen years after Salman Rushdie called John le Carré a ‘pompous ass’ and le Carr&eacute: responded with an accusation of ‘self-canonisation’, one of the most gloriously vituperative literary feuds of recent times has come to an end. … The fight had its roots in le Carrés criticism of The Satanic Verses.”

“I think there’s a common view, often shared by doctors, that hallucinations denote madness – especially if there’s any hearing of voices. I hope I can defuse or de-stigmatise this a bit.” After all, the superstar neurologist has had a few himself.

In 1914, the general is said to have signed a contract with the newsreel producer Mutual Film Company under which “the rebels undertook to fight their revolution for the benefit of the movie cameras in exchange for a large advance, payable in gold.” Is this really true?

“After T.S. Eliot’s death in 1965, Mrs. Eliot became his executor, editing his poems and letters for publication and steadfastly refusing to cooperate with would-be biographers, in keeping with the poet’s last wishes.”

“John Bellany is resurrection man. Liver failure. Pneumonia. A major heart attack on the way to an exhibition in Glasgow in 2005: he’s seen them all off.”

“Roth, 78, said he has not written anything new in the last three years, and that he will not write another novel.”

“The stage was part of Mr. Sheffer’s life even before he was born; he was still in his mother’s womb when she appeared in a Yiddish play. He went on to an exuberantly varied theatrical career as a librettist, playwright, director and impresario.”

“Sequestered from the big city, [Abdel-Rahman] Elabnoudy, a songwriter, dramatist, social critic and … one of the Arab world’s best-known vernacular poets, … lives in a whitewashed home on small plot of land planted with mangoes and date palms.”

“Along the way, [the prize-winning playwright] was anointed as spokesman, standard-bearer and, unavoidably, lightning rod of sorts among Chinese-Americans, freighted with their expectations, jealousy, anger and pride, sometimes all at once.”