To be or not to be
Pode alterar-se o texto de Shakespeare para «agradar» às «modern audiences»? Ou é blasfémia? Artigo na The New Republic.
Žižek em Teerão
Artigo de Slavoj Žižek na London Review of Books sobre o Irão, com o divertido título «Berlusconi in Tehran»:
«When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, but before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture often takes place. All of a sudden, people know the game is up: they simply cease to be afraid. It isn’t just that the regime loses its legitimacy: its exercise of power is now perceived as a panic reaction, a gesture of impotence. Ryszard Kapuściński, in Shah of Shahs, his account of the Khomeini revolution, located the precise moment of this rupture: at a Tehran crossroad, a single demonstrator refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman withdrew. Within a couple of hours, all Tehran had heard about the incident, and although the streetfighting carried on for weeks, everyone somehow knew it was all over. Is something similar happening now?»
Moonwalk
Mais Michael Jackson: a Random House comprou os direitos de reimpressão da autobiografia de Michael Jackson, Moonwalk. A nova edição sairá em Outubro (a anterior tinha sido publicada pela Doubleday).
Prada
Juan Manuel de Prada, também cronista do ABC, publicado em Portugal pela Dom Quixote, ganhou o Prémio Biblioteca Breve, organizado pela editora catalã Seix-Barral.
Portugal Futuro
A Sextante publicará já em Setembro, e sob a direcção de António José Teixeira (jornalista, director de informação nda SIC Notícias) uma nova colecção de debate sobre Portugal: Portugal Futuro. Os primeiros títulos são de Mário Soares (Elogio da Política), Lídia Jorge ou do ex-PGR Francisco da Cunha Rodrigues.
Vendas
A lista de best-sellers do The New York Times para esta semana.
O conservadorismo negro
Michael Jackson na The New York Review of Books:
«During Jackson's childhood in Gary, Indiana, black conservatism would have reigned. Among US cities with a population of 100,000 or more, Gary—a steel town twenty-five miles southeast of downtown Chicago—has the highest percentage of black residents, mostly Southern transplants, mostly Christian, and steadfastly heterosexual. Both of Jackson's parents' roots were in the South. His mother, Katherine, was a devout Jehovah's Witness. She suffered Joe's various infidelities and cruelties to their nine children with the forbearance of one whose reward will come not in this world, but the next.»
Direitos de e-books
Não é uma matéria actual entre nós, mas veja-se o que acontece nas negociações de direitos de e-books com a Random House: «Random House UK has come under fire from literary agents for offering e-book royalty rates below other publishers» No The Bookseller.