Category: people

Haruki Murakami, author of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood and After the Quake, didn’t set out to be who he is. “Elements of Murakami’s background are mysterious, even to him. He can’t say why he decided to become a writer. It merely struck him one day, out of the blue, while watching a baseball game.”

Concert pianist Mitsuko Uchida, who mixes her Japanese heritage, German musical training and life in the U.K. as she continues to find musical success: “What truly matters is that your love of music is stronger than your love of yourself. Success will come if you have something [musical] to say.”

How did Steve Jobs go from genius dropout of Reed College to impresario of the personal computer, music player and tablet revolutions? Ask his fellow calligraphers.

“The problem was this: Baudelaire wanted to shield his private life. So he made himself into a public entity. Yet, as he did, Baudelaire became the public persona he created. As he surrounded himself with layers of artificiality, the ‘real’ Baudelaire became hidden even from Baudelaire.”

In their latest artist biography, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith “question the accepted story that Van Gogh went into the fields at Auvers-sur-Oise, France, on the evening of July 27, 1890, took out a revolver and shot himself in the chest.”

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been named the most powerful person in the art world, according to a poll compiled by ArtReview magazine. But Mr Ai, who was released in June after being detained for more than 80 days by Chinese authorities, told the BBC he does “not feel powerful at all”.

The 29-year-old star of American Ballet Theatre is now in the midst of his first stay in the Russian capital since joining the Bolshoi Ballet. He’s already doing classes and rehearsals all day and shows at night, and he’s making his first attempts to master Russian.

In the early ’60s, the mischievous English playwright and his boyfriend (and later murderer) would check out books from their local library and return them with satirical or surreal collages on the dustjackets and naughty alterations to the blurbs. Now the library is putting those dustjackets on display.

With his wife, Chitra, he led the contemporary revival and popularization of ghazals, a classic form of sung Persian poetry. “[He] performed to packed audiences in India, Pakistan and elsewhere in South Asia and released dozens of albums during his 40-year career.”