Sumber : Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! Alert, By Marjorie Kehe | September 26, 2008 edition

I once interviewed a little girl who lived in a run-down trailer. Her family faced every kind of economic and social deprivation you can imagine, yet she was bright and cheerful with a cherished plan for her adult years.

“I’m going to have a job that has to do with rescuing animals,” she confided in me.

How many of us there must be – we who dream of saving the animals! That means that, potentially, there’s a huge audience for Benjamin Mee’s real-life animal-rescue story We Bought a Zoo.

Of course, in Mee’s case it may seem that he was living a dream before the zoo ever came to his attention. He and his wife and two small children had just settled into an idyllic existence in the south of France where Mee was working as a freelance writer.

But when he and his mother and brother hear of a dilapidated zoo for sale in the English countryside, they can’t resist buying it (12-bedroom run-down mansion included) and fighting to turn it around, thus saving its 200 wild animal occupants from euthanasia.

Remarkably enough, the Mees succeed, although not without plenty of challenges, most tragically the loss of Mee’s wife, Katherine, to cancer. Fortunately for Mee, restoring the zoo proves cathartic and he is saved along with the animals.

It’s a lovely, true story but, unfortunately, as narrated here, not a sufficiently moving one. Mee writes of the love of animals that pushes him through his grief, but we read this without feeling it.

The animals seem a fascinating lot indeed. They include Ronnie the tapir, a “Class 1 dangerous animal,” but actually a total softie who melts when scratched; Kevin the boa constrictor, who loves to have his chin stroked while giving you a big, slippery hug; Sovereign the escape-artist jaguar; and Fudge, the brown bear with dental problems.

Yet we’re given little chance to truly connect with them either. Much of “We Bought a Zoo” is a mass of detail about less interesting aspects of buying and running a zoo (although occasional riffs about animal escapades do entertain.)

The good news is that the Dartmoor Zoological Park appears to be thriving and was featured in a four-part BBC documentary. Perhaps Mee will write again someday about his zoo (and its mission to nurture endangered species).

It’s a story that many might thrill to if the true stars – the animals – were given a chance to shine more brightly.

Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor’s book editor

Sumber : Yahoo! News via Yahoo! Alerts By KARL RITTER, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 3, 7:09 AM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – The 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature will be presented on Oct. 9, the Swedish Academy said Friday, completing the schedule of this year’s Nobel announcements

The secretive academy is not revealing any hints about its selection for the award, which many consider the highest accolade for writers. British betting firm Ladbrokes gives Italian writer Claudio Magris and Syrian poet Adonis the lowest odds for this year’s prize.

The Swedish Academy is always the last of the Nobel Prize institutions to set a date for its prize announcement. The winner is always presented by permanent secretary Horace Engdahl at the academy’s 18th century offices in Stockholm’s Old Town.

Engdahl sparked debate in literary circles this week by saying that the U.S. is too insular and ignorant to challenge Europe as the center of the literary world.

Engdahl’s comments in an interview with The Associated Press drew strong reactions in the U.S., where the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation offered to send Engdahl a reading list of American literature.

“Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world … not the United States,” Engdahl said in the interview Tuesday.

He was speaking in general about American literature — the academy insists that nationality doesn’t matter when it makes its pick.

The last U.S. writer to win the award was Toni Morrison in 1993. Americans Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates have figured in Nobel speculation for several years now, but have not been tapped.

Last year’s literature award went to British writer Doris Lessing.

The Nobel Prize announcements start Monday with the award in medicine. The winners of the prizes in physics, chemistry and peace will also be presented next week, while the economics award will be announced on Oct. 13.

Each Nobel Prize includes a 10 million kronor ($1.3 million) purse, a gold medal and a diploma. The awards are handed out Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

Jantung Lebah Ratu (Himpunan Puisi), Penulis: Nirwan Dewanto, Penerbit: GPU, 2008, Tebal: 94 hal.
ISBN: 978-979-22-3666- 8

Seorang kawan menghadiahi Jantung Lebah Ratu, buku puisi karya Nirwan Dewanto (ND). Tentu saya senang. Dulu, persis saat buku itu terbit kira-kira pada bulan Mei, saya sangat antusias kapan kira-kira bisa baca, bahkan kalau bisa memilikinya. Rumah Buku, perpustakaan favorit saya, sebenarnya segera mengoleksi himpunan puisi tersebut, tapi entah kenapa saya tak sempat juga meminjamnya. Ternyata buku itu sedang dipinjam anggota lain ketika saya ingin membacanya. Seorang teman sealma mater ND yang saya tahu langsung beli buku itu saya tanya, seperti apa sih puisi-puisi dia? Dia menjawab samar, “Yah, begitulah. Khas Nirwan, agak-agak susah dipahami dan berbau filsafat.” Sementara waktu kawan yang menghadiahi buku itu saya tanya kenapa memberikan buku itu, dia menjawab tanpa pretensi, “Hm… susah ya. Mungkin puisinya bukan selera saya. Kurang nikmat bacanya.”

Nirwan Dewanto merupakan penulis dengan reputasi terkemuka di Indonesia. Dia menulis esai budaya dengan beragam subjek, termasuk kritik buku, menjadi salah satu eksponen posmodern paling awal di Indonesia, ikut mendirikan jurnal Kalam (yang merayakan posmodern secara besar-besaran) , bergabung dengan Teater Utan Kayu (TUK), dan sudah menulis puisi sejak lama. Boleh dibantah, peristiwa yang membuat namanya melambung ialah ketika dia jadi salah satu pembicara kunci di Kongres Kebudayaan 1991; dia membawakan makalah berjudul Kebudayaan Indonesia: Pandangan 1991. Esai ini pula yang jadi andalan pada buku pertamanya, Senjakala Kebudayaan (Bentang, 1996)—sebuah buku yang kini sudah turun dari rak toko umum dan hanya bisa ditemui kembali di perpustakaan seperti Rumah Buku.

Namun harus disebut pula reputasi dia kadang-kadang membuat orang lain jengkel atau penasaran. Sebagai kritikus sastra, pilihannya kadang-kadang digugat, yang paling terkenal boleh jadi “Siapa Takut, Nirwan Dewanto?” oleh Richard Oh dan “Yth Tuan Nirwan” oleh Damhuri Muhammad—isinya kira-kira debat seputar kritik dan standardisasi penilaian karya sastra. Saya sendiri menganggap reputasi ND di Indonesia mirip dengan Michiko Kakutani di AS—kritikus buku The New York Times. Michiko dijuluki “kritikus yang paling ditakuti sedunia.” Keberanian Michiko memuji atau mengecam buku membuat posisinya sering ekstrem. Sebagian penulis jengkel sekali pada Kakutani. Saya juga tahu satu-dua penyair jengkel sekali pada ND dan bahkan ada yang menggunakannya sebagai bahan olok-olok dalam puisi ciptaan mereka.

Saya lebih bisa mencerap beberapa esai ND daripada puisinya. Meski begitu, saya selalu kelelahan bila baca tulisan dia di Kalam, misalnya, meski kecenderungan itu hilang bila saya baca kolom atau resensinya. Saya merasa standar dia terhadap sastra atau buku tinggi sekali, dan itu mungkin membuat posisinya jadi terasa adi luhung. Lagi pula, tampaknya, puisinya pun lebih jarang dipublikasi media massa daripada esainya; dan bila kebetulan bertemu puisinya, saya lebih banyak bingung daripada bisa asyik menikmatinya. Bagi saya, dalam selintas baca, puisinya sulit dipahami dan kurang nikmat dibaca. Ini lain sekali bila saya bertemu dengan puisi Joko Pinurbo, misalnya. Kadang-kadang, sebagian puisi Joko Pinurbo mengambang dan sulit dipahami karena makna dan kosakatanya ambigu; tapi saya masih bisa merasakan samar-samar nuansa keindahan di sana. Dalam puisi ND yang sukar, saya bahkan langsung merasa gagal meraba sebenarnya apa yang dia ungkapkan.

Di dalam “Puisi dan Beberapa Masalahnya” (1993), Saini K.M. sudah memuji bakat dan kemampuan Nirwan Dewanto. Waktu kuliah di ITB, Nirwan Dewanto merupakan salah satu penyair muda yang puisinya mendapat perhatian Saini K.M. di Pertemuan Kecil Pikiran Rakyat. Kata Saini: “Nirwan Dewanto, dalam bentuk kesamar-samaran, memperlihatkan kemungkinan yang dapat diharapkan di masa depan. Dia tidak saja peka terhadap kehidupan batinnya, melainkan juga terhadap dunia (lahiriah) di luar dirinya. Sajaknya menyajikan renungan yang cenderung falsafi.” Puisi Nirwan Dewanto yang dimaksud Saini berjudul “Agustus.”
-*-
Jadi, kegirangan saya menerima buku puisi yang didesain dengan elok dan mencolok ini segera berubah jadi semacam bencana dan kejengkelan karena setelah membolak-balik ke sana-kemari, saya tak jua menemukan puisi yang enak atau bisa dipahami. Saya nyaris putus asa dan merutuk, karena tak kunjung ngerti, maksud dia menulis puisi itu apa? Hampir tak ada nikmat-nikmatnya. Jauh lebih nikmat bila saya baca puisi amatir kawan-kawan lama. Memang satu-dua puisinya ada yang cukup saya pahami atau cukup bisa saya rasakan keindahannya; tapi secara keseluruhan, bukunya merupakan himpunan puisi yang sukar.

Begitu baca puisi pembuka, Perenang Buta, saya seperti ditubruk oleh moncong pesawat terbang. Blas, buta sama sekali apa maksudnya. Betapa sulit saya mengira-ngira dia mau menulis tentang subjek apa. Seolah-olah ada batu karang yang begitu besar dan saya harus bisa mengangkatnya agar mampu beranjak dari sana dan segala sesuatu mengalir. Saya memaksakan lanjut ke puisi kedua, sama saja nasibnya. Rasanya ada yang mampat, “nggak bunyi.” Seterusnya, sampai akhirnya saya kacau, mencari dari halaman sana-sini, berusaha menemukan puisi yang kira-kira bisa pahami atau nikmati.

Betapa susah menemukan frasa pada puisi-puisi yang bisa dengan mudah saya pahami sebagai sesama pengguna bahasa Indonesia. ND jauh lebih semangat menggunakan kokakata yang terasa asing, jarang digunakan dalam ungkapan sehari-hari, misalnya campuhan, zuhrah, bubu—bahkan tak terdaftar dalam Tesaurus Bahasa Indonesia karya Eko Endarmoko. Tiga frasa yang membagi himpunan puisi ini pun asing sekali, yaitu Biru Kidal, Kuning Silam, dan Merah Suam; bahkan makna tersirat ketiganya pun sulit sekali diraba apa maksudnya.

ND tampak sengaja cenderung memilih cara ungkap yang sulit dipahami dan berbelit-belit, misal:
Ia seperti hendak kembali
ke arah teluk, di mana putih layar
pastilah iri pada bola matanya.

Atau: Lihat, betapa durinya melimpah ke luar mimpi, seperti hujan pagi.

Dengan cara seperti itu, mau bicara apa ND dengan puisi-puisinya?

ND menempuh cara yang sama sekali tidak populer dalam menulis puisi. Dia sengaja menggunakan bahasa adi luhung dan menyembunyikan makna serapat mungkin, malah seolah-olah ingin menaruh setinggi mungkin dari jangkauan penafsiran para pembaca. Ada kesan dia ingin menyimpan puisi-puisi itu sebagai rahasia yang sulit dipecahkan maknanya baik oleh para pembaca awam maupun kritikus ahli. Dia sengaja menyulitkan pembaca. Hasan Aspahani, seorang penyair produktif, berusaha memahami puisi-puisi ND dalam rangkaian esai cukup panjang: Tiga Belas Cara Saya Membaca Sajak Nirwan. Hasilnya, dia bahkan berhenti pada cara kesepuluh. Paragraf terakhir di esai kesepuluhnya, Hasan menulis: “Bagi pembaca yang suka kerumitan mungkin mengasyikkanlah menebak-nebak apa maunya sajak itu. Bagi saya, tidak. Ini sajak melelahkan. Dan saya kesal karena perburuan saya sepertinya sia-sia. Tapi, bukankah Nirwan sudah mewanti-wanti agar pembaca jangan berburu lambang dalam sajaknya?”

Via email, Saut Situmorang, penyair asal Yogyakarta yang baru-baru ini menerbitkan buku puisi Otobiografi, mengomentari buku Nirwan begini: “Dia memilih mana yang kira-kira akan membuat pembacanya tahu kalau dia baru saja habis baca sajak-sajak orang lain.”

Karena saya langsung kesulitan membaca buku puisi itu, seorang teman yang sama-sama pernah jadi ketua Grup Apresiasi Sastra (GAS) ITB seperti ND, menanggapi: “Komentar kamu mirip orang yang ngomel pada lukisan Picasso tentang wanita cantik. Kotak-kotak nggak karuan kok dibilang wanita cantik?! Enakan melihat karya Basuki Abdullah… begitu ya. Saya rasa Nirwan mencoba menggunakan metafora baru, dengan latar belakang bacaannya tentang negeri Amerika Latin, sejarah bangsa-bangsa, dan seterusnya. Mungkin terasa asing buat imajinasi kita. Tapi ya nikmati saja kalau ada metaforanya yang enak atau kata-kata yang unik.”

Ajakan yang persuasif sebenarnya. Dalam sajak, kita berharap mendapat inti makna yang lebih sensitif dibandingkan membaca prosa atau berita. Boleh jadi karena ada proses internalisasi di sana. Para penyair memiliki ruang yang lebih sempit untuk menaruh kata-katanya demi membangun makna. Dibandingkan esais sekalipun, pilihannya kurang leluasa. Dia harus lebih hati-hati memutuskan kata yang dipilih. Tapi bila hasilnya menyulitkan sebagian pembaca, apa yang sebaiknya dilakukan?

Mari kita mulai dari orang yang mula-mula mengomentari buku puisi Nirwan. Melanie Budianta, seorang ilmuwan sastra, berpendapat bahwa puisi Nirwan merupakan sehamparan momen estetika. Menurut Melanie, buku Nirwan ini berusaha memperluas potensi kata, sensasi imajinasi dan nuansa makna.

Berbeda dengan penyair yang kerap mengejar imajinasi batin, menerangkan idealisme, atau membangun suasana, Nirwan banyak bicara tentang binatang, tetumbuhan, juga benda-benda mati. Pilihan subjek ini tampak ajaib sekaligus menantang. Di dunia binatang, dia bicara tentang kunang-kunang, ubur-ubur, cumi-cumi, harimau, semut, ular, lembu, kucing persia, anjing, burung hantu, keledai; di dunia tetumbuhan dia menulis tentang apel, semangka, putri malu, nenas, makanan, kopi, mawah, garam; tentang benda mati dia bicara tentang peniti, kain, kancing, akuarium, gerabah, patung, bubu, biola, selendang, bayonet, lonceng. Subjek itu sangat aneh bila dibandingkan penyair yang gemar bicara cinta atau romantisme. Tapi bukan pula Nirwan anti membicarakan perasaannya, sebab dia menyisakan ruang untuk menulis tentang puisinya (Semu) juga tentang musim gugur dalam dua belas rangkaian haiku yang imajinatif (Dua Belas Kilas Musim Gugur.)

Pemikir Islam Ulul Abshar-Abdalla, menyatakan bahwa Nirwan berusaha membiarkan benda-benda dan peristiwa mengalir lewat dirinya, menjadi sebentang sajak yang mirip cangkang telur putih dan kabur. Dengan begitu, boleh jadi sajak Nirwan sebenarnya rapuh karena sudah berusaha menetaskan kata sebagai makna.

Baik setelah membaca urut dan membolak-balik, dari ke 46 puisi itu saya hanya menemukan tiga sajak yang terasa paling mudah untuk dimasuki, yaitu Kain Sigli, ode tentang keindahan kain dari sebuah daerah di Aceh; Kopi, ode tentang kenikmatan minum kopi; dan Dua Belas Kilas Musim Gugur, ode ala haiku tentang musim gugur. Sisanya saya merasakan persis yang dikhawatirkan Enin Surpiyanto terhadap puisi bebas, yakni saya menghadapi kabut kata dan kalimat yang sulit saya cerna untuk sekadar beroleh kenikmatan kata dan bahasa.
-*-
Setelah berbagi kesulitan membaca puisi Nirwan Dewanto, saya menaruh buku itu di antara himpitan buku lain dalam rak, entah kapan lagi saya akan membukanya. Jelas saya gentar, lantas teringat komentar Farid Gaban tentang tulisan-tulisan sulit karya sejumlah cendekiawan Indonesia. Kata dia: Tulisan itu mengandung ide yang bagus dan jarang dibicarakan, namun ide yang bagus itu ditulis dengan bahasa yang sulit dipahami orang awam. Buku Nirwan Dewanto boleh jadi salah satu buku paling sulit yang pernah saya baca. Tapi untunglah, seorang kawan mengirim pesan, “Tax, apa boleh pinjam buku Nirwan?” Wah… tak sabar saya ingin mengirim buku itu kepadanya.[]

Anwar Holid, eksponen TEXTOUR, Rumah Buku Bandung, blogger @ http://halamanganji l.blogspot. com
Anwar Holid, penulis & penyunting, eksponen TEXTOUR, Rumah Buku.

Sumber : The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! Alert, By Theo Lippman Jr. | September 24, 2008 edition

Col. Peter R. Mansoor was sworn in to lead the Ready First Combat Team in two districts of Baghdad in July 2003. It was a time when Iraqi politicians were squabbling over how to create a democratic civilian government.

And it was a time of growing insurgency and terrorism. His 3,500-strong command was charged with dealing with both problems.

A West Pointer with a PhD, he decided to keep “a journal and dutifully logged daily entries that provide a first hand, immediate perspective of events as they unfolded.”

Later he added to it from interviews, newspaper accounts, after-action reports, etc.

The result was Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq.

In his account, Mansoor is meticulous to the point that some readers will turn pages faster than they can read. Mansoor gives the names of many of his own troops and those of other military commanders. He lists the members of a USO troupe and a congressional delegation. He tells you of meals, ailments, his daughter’s birthday, rodents in his tent, etc., etc., etc.

But as a reader I found that I came to like the day-to-day detail. Trivia helps to humanize. When Mansoor isn’t being the bureaucratic soldier (using abbreviations over and over and over, for example), his narrative skill is good.

One of my favorite examples: His team is seeking out the enemy on Christmas Eve (“Project Trenton,” named for George Washington‘s famous Christmas Eve attack) to “disrupt the largest group of insurgent cells in the Ready First Combat Team zone and possibly preempt a planned enemy attack on Christmas Day.”

But when they reached their target – nothing.

“The area was completely deserted. Intuition told me something was amiss…. A huge explosion from behind knocked me forward into the windshield, Audible or not I had one thought. [Expletive]. We had driven into an IED [improvised explosive device] ambush.” Mansoor ordered his driver, Sgt. Calvin Williams, to “get through on the radio to the rear of the convoy…. [Williams did and said] ‘Sir, the sergeant major is down hard.’

“We were vulnerable … I unholstered my pistol and scanned to the left as we quickly walked back down the road to the scene of the explosion…. A crowd of young men had already gathered at the nearest intersection. They seemed to be celebrating the insurgents’ success in targeting one of our vehicles. Worse still were the glares of the men in the windows of the buildings near the site of the explosion. Anger boiled inside me; I drew a bead on one exceptionally arrogant man looking down from his perch on the second floor. I pressed the laser, put the dot right on his chest, and resisted the urge to pull the trigger.”

That is to me a sort of a metaphor of America in Iraq in 2003 and 2004: Danger, bravery, anger, futility – and death. (Sgt. Maj. Eric Cooke perished in the incident described above.)

Mansoor is a critic of nonwarfare elements in Iraq. For example, commanders had money to fund reconstruction projects and humanitarian activities that put money in Iraqis’ hands right away.

But he complains that they got far less money – millions not billions – than “multinational corporations such as Halliburton,” which were engaged in large, long-term projects. Mansoor also expresses contempt for Ambassador Paul Bremer, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

Mansoor’s last words based on his year-plus adventure were, “The culture of the U.S. Army must change or the organization will be unprepared to fight and win the wars of the twenty-first century. Offensive operations to kill or capture the enemy must be balanced by defensive and stability operations to hold territory, protect civilian populations, and rebuild infrastructure, economies, and political institutions…. Counterinsurgency is troop intensive. A big, populous country such as Iraq…. [r]equires a force of at least five hundred thousand troops to maintain security,” which, he said, should be provided by the host nation.”

Mansoor quotes Gen. David Petraeus: “Armies of liberation have a half-life beyond which they turn into armies of occupation.”

In 2007 he was back in Baghdad as executive officer to General Petraeus, now of “surge” fame. Last month Colonel (now ret.) Mansoor wrote in The Washington Post that the surge has worked well enough to believe it may be possible to “turn around a war that was nearly lost less than two years ago.”

But he also wrote that, “Success is not guaranteed,”

Theo Lippman Jr. is a freelance writer who lives in Fenwick Island, Del

Sumber : Yahoo! News via Yahoo! Alert, By Joseph Nasr Tue Sep 30, 10:41 PM ET

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) – For 15 years Israeli Saleh Abbasi has traded books between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors, fostering a rare cultural link.

But in August Israeli authorities suddenly refused to renew his trading license because he was trading with “enemy” states Lebanon and Syria, frustrating both Abbasi’s business and the Arab and Israeli readers he has helped interest in each other’s literary traditions.

“How can the People of the Book be against books?” Abbasi asked, evoking the Jewish Bible as the first monotheistic holy text. “Books are a bridge to peace between cultures.”

An Israeli Trade Ministry spokeswoman declined to explain the timing of the ban. But she cited a recent legal opinion that forbade importing goods from four countries Israel views as enemies — Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Israel has no diplomatic ties with Beirut or Damascus, so 57-year-old Abbasi uses Jordan and Egypt, the only Arab nations to sign peace deals with the Jewish state, as conduits.

Abbasi’s original aim was to cater for Israel’s 1.2 million minority Arab citizens, many of whom feel the perpetual absence of relations between Israel and its neighbors denies them cultural and ethnic ties to the Arab world.

But he branched out, and over the past 10 years has sold over half a million copies of some 16 Hebrew titles to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab countries, where the translated books reach Arab readers mainly through public libraries and universities.

FROM FACT TO FICTION

Most are biographies of famous Israeli statesmen and military commanders, such as former prime ministers David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, or former armed forces chief Moshe Dayan, the general with the iconic eye patch.

But Abbasi has noticed a shift in Arab readers’ tastes in Hebrew books. Last year, he sold over 30,000 copies of seven novels by Israeli writers in 15 Arab countries, including Syria and Lebanon.

“Arab readers … are over the know-your-enemy mentality. Nowadays they want to know what Israeli novelists write about,” Abbasi said.

Prominent Israeli actress Gila Almagor, whose semi-autobiographical novel Abbasi translated into Arabic and sold in Arab countries, said the decision to ban books from Syria and Lebanon was “arbitrary and stupid,” especially as translation is funded by Israel’s National Lottery.

“When I was told that my book would be translated into Arabic it was very emotional for me,” said Almagor, whose book “The Summer of Aviya” depicts her childhood with a mother driven to insanity by their experiences during the Holocaust.

“My story is universal and I always believed that publishing it in Arabic would help give Israel and its people a face, an image other than that of the conflict,” Almagor said.

From his office in an Arab neighborhood near the Port of Haifa, Abbasi said the ban would have a major impact on his business, given that Lebanon translates and prints more books in Arabic than any other country.

Lebanon’s Publishers’ Union said the country publishes 3,000 new titles every year, surpassing Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

“Children’s books like Pinocchio and Harry Potter and thousands of works in many fields are translated and printed in Arabic only in Lebanon,” Abbasi said.

“MORE THAN DISAPPOINTING”

Among Abbasi’s recent imports is “Gate of the Sun,” a novel by Lebanese author Elias Khoury that explores the suffering of Palestinian refugees. The book, which Saleh translated into Hebrew, has been a hit with both Arabic and Hebrew readers.

“The ban is more than disappointing. It’s a shock, especially for people like me who know that the best Arabic books come out of the capital of Arab culture, Beirut,” said Ya’akoub Hijazi, an ardent reader of Arabic poetry and literature who is a 60-year-old Arab citizen of Israel.

Rana Idriss, manager of Lebanese publisher Dar al-Adab, said the ban was disastrous for business because Arab Israeli and Palestinian booksellers were a large chunk of her clientele.

“It’s not a democratic step at all by a country that says it’s open to thought,” Idriss said. The ban amounted to “war” on Lebanese culture and Arab thought, she said.

In Syria, publishing firm Dar Cana’an translates and prints more than 15 Hebrew titles under government supervision, including some by renowned Israeli writer Amos Oz, Abbasi said.

Dar Cana’an’s manager Saeed Barghouti said Israel’s decision showed it had no interest in peace with Syria and Lebanon.

Abbasi said the ban could mean the end of his business.

“If the ban is final — and I plan to go all the way to the High Court — I have two choices: close or leave the country.”

(Editing by Opheera McDoom and Catherine Evans)

BAGHDAD – The U.S. military says it has killed a senior al-Qaida in Iraq leader suspected of masterminding deadly bombings in Baghdad.

The military says U.S. troops acting in self-defense also killed his wife in Friday’s firefight.

Saturday’s statement identifies the man killed as Mahir Ahmad Mahmud Judu’ al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad or Abu Rami.

It says he directed the insurgent cell that was believed to be responsible for nearly simultaneous car bomb and suicide attacks that killed at least eight people on Thursday.

The military says he was suspected in several other attacks against Iraqis and U.S. forces in past years. It also says he is seen in the videotaped execution of one of four Russian diplomats in June 2006

Sumber : Yahoo! News via Yahoo! Alerts By SHAWNA OHM, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 3, 6:45 AM ET

JERUSALEM – Pages from an Israeli astronaut’s diary that survived the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia and a 37-mile fall to earth are going on display this weekend for the first time in Jerusalem.

The diary belonged to Ilan Ramon, Israel‘s first astronaut and one of seven crew members killed when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003. Part of the restored diary will be displayed at the Israel Museum beginning Sunday.

A little over two months after the shuttle explosion, NASA searchers found 37 pages from Ramon’s diary, wet and crumpled, in a field just outside the U.S. town of Palestine, Texas. The diary survived extreme heat in the explosion, extreme atmospheric cold, and then “was attacked by microorganisms and insects” in the field where it fell, said museum curator Yigal Zalmona.

“It’s almost a miracle that it survived — it’s incredible,” Zalmona said. There is “no rational explanation” for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not, he said.

NASA officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. space agency returned the diary to Ramon’s wife, Rona, who brought it to forensics experts at the Israel Museum and from the Israeli police. The diary took about a year to restore, Zalmona said, and it took police scientists about four more years to decipher the pages. About 80 percent of the text has been deciphered, and the rest remains unreadable, he said.

Two pages will be displayed. One contains notes written by Ramon, and the other is a copy of the Kiddush prayer, a blessing over wine that Jews recite on the Sabbath. Zalmona said Ramon copied the prayer into his diary so he could recite it on the space shuttle and have the blessing broadcast to Earth.

Most of the pages contain personal information which Ramon’s wife did not wish to make public, he said.

“We agreed to do the restoration completely respecting the family’s privacy and the sensitivity about how intimate the document is,” museum director James Snyder said.

The diary provides no indication Ramon knew anything about potential problems on the shuttle. Columbia’s wing was gashed by a chunk of fuel tank foam insulation at liftoff and broke up in flames just 16 minutes before it was scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All seven astronauts on board were killed.

The diary is being displayed as part of a larger exhibit of famous documents from Israel’s history, held to mark the country’s 60th anniversary this year. Also on display will be Israel‘s 1948 declaration of independence, the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and a bloodstained sheet of paper with lyrics to a peace anthem that was carried by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at the time of his assassination in 1995

Sumber : The Christin Science Monitor via Yahoo! Alerts, By Yvonne Zipp | September 25, 2008 edition

Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like home. Home sweet home. Randa Jarrar takes all the sappy, beloved clichés about “where you hang your hat” and blows them to smithereens in her energizing, caustically comic debut novel, A Map of Home.

First of all, Nidali, the narrator, would be hard-pressed to pick just one spot on a map. Born in Boston, she is raised in Kuwait and Egypt. Then in 1990, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait sends the teen and her family to Texas, where the American daughter of a Palestinian father and Greek-Egyptian mother is nonplussed to discover that her classmates regard her mixed heritage as the status quo.

In her family, home is a loaded word. “Baba said that moving was part of being Palestinian. ‘Our people carry the homeland in our souls,’ he would tell me at night as he tucked me in. ‘You can go wherever you want, but you’ll always have it in your heart.’ I’d think to myself: ‘That’s such a heavy thing to carry….’ It helped to know this when I was little, forced me to have compassion for Baba, who, obviously, had an extremely heavy soul to drag around inside such a skinny body.”

Baba is both Nidali’s staunchest cheerleader and her most vicious attacker. Take the time she enters a contest to memorize passages from the Koran. Baba, who’s intensely proud of his bright girl, is determined that she can beat all the boys. Like many a spelling-bee parent before him, he helps her in the evenings after work. However, the study aids include a wire hanger, with which he beats her when she forgets the words.

Both of Nidali’s parents are thwarted artists – her dad, who dreamed of being a poet, works as an architect, and her mother, a classically trained pianist, cannot bring herself to care about the housework and cooking that are supposed to be her lot. (“Eat poison,” she tells her daughter once when Nidali asks for a cheese sandwich.)

“Their fights were about stories, and their fights and stories were like myths, told and retold. In this way, Mama and Baba became my gods.” Tactics in her parents’ epic battles include her dad abandoning her mom in the desert and then forcing Nidali to stay up all night drawing and redrawing Palestine, “a map of home,” as he calls it.

Her father, whose sisters were forced to wed early, wants his own daughter to become a professor (and a spinster). “‘You’ll be a doctor of words, silly. Do you like words?’ I thought for a moment and then finally shrugged. ‘It depends on the word,’ I said and he laughed and said ‘Then you do.’ ”

By age 13, Nidali is getting detention to escape her accelerated classes and making out with both her first serious boyfriend and a female friend. Once in Texas, her rebellion takes on more anger and purpose as she determines that going to college out of state is the key to her sanity.

Jarrar’s tone is both comic and matter-of-fact – there’s no whining or sentimentality. And everything, even the war, is filtered through a deeply personal lens. There’s an unspoken understanding that most teens feel like the world is full of turmoil and that their parents are nuts. And there’s a frankness and courageous humor to Nidali that rarely falters. Even the flight from Kuwait has its share of absurdity: from her aunt’s much-loathed Firebird bursting into flames to the letter that Nidali composes to Saddam Hussein, explaining that his invasion has cost her boyfriend.

Jarrar also makes much of the culture clashes inherent in the immigrant experience. For example, while grocery shopping, Nidali and her mom happen upon an after-holiday sale. Her mother is overcome by their good fortune. “Oh, ze cake with ze frooooooooot,” she breathes. “The entire grocery store – its every customer, employee, bagger, butcher, stocker – is staring at us. Mama piles the fruitcakes into the cart and people are looking as though she’s loading up on hand grenades.”

It’s a shame that Jarrar didn’t tone down the profanity and the sensuality, because “A Map of Home” could have made a wonderful coming-of-age story for teens. As it stands, it’s decidedly R-rated, and with enough multilingual swearing to impress a rap artist.

Yvonne Zipp regularly reviews fiction for the Monitor

Judul asli: The Village Bride of Beverly Hills, Penulis: Kavita Daswani, Penerjemah: Gita Yuliani K. Penerbit: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Tebal: 336 halaman, Cetakan: I, Juni 2008, Beli di: Togamas, Bandung, Skor: 8

Priyanka Sohni merasa lebih berarti di tempat kerjanya, kantor majalah Hollywood Insider. Walaupun orang-orang sering keliru menyebut namanya, terkaget-kaget oleh busananya yang etnis, dan berbagai
masalah kecemburuan rekan kerja timbul kemudian, Priya senantiasa tak sabar berada di kantor setiap bangun pagi. Ia masih canggung membangun keluarga baru bersama suaminya, Sanjay, melalui perjodohan khas tradisi India dan menapaki masa adaptasi di Amerika, disebabkan harus seatap dengan orangtua dan adik perempuan sang suami.

Prestasi Priya meroket. Tanpa disangka-sangka, kemampuannya bergaul dan membuat lawan bicara merasa nyaman melejitkannya ke posisi wartawan yang ia impikan. Priya harus menyembunyikan semua itu dari
keluarga mertuanya, termasuk Sanjay yang dalam segala hal senantiasa meminta pendapat dan izin orangtua. Priya menekan perasaan karena bahkan urusan pakaian pun diatur mertuanya, kendati ia telah
menandaskan tidak akan berbusana serba terbuka yang mempermalukan mereka.

Memiliki ‘identitas ganda’ sangat melelahkan. Priya tak dapat menceritakan hal ini pada orangtua dan kakak-kakaknya di Delhi, sebab mendengar ia harus turut mencari nafkah saja sudah membuat ayahnya
gusar. Di lain pihak, karirnya terus berkembang dan Sanjay tidak kunjung menunjukkan cinta kasih yang ia harapkan.

Novel ini lebih menyentuh dibandingkan For Matrimonial Purpose, meski sama-sama sarat oleh budaya India. Kekukuhan Priya menjaga sikap, upayanya membagi waktu antara menjadi istri dan menantu yang baik sekaligus meraih cita-citanya, ditambah lagi kerinduan akan sahabat yang dapat menjadi pendengar merupakan poin istimewa. Lain dengan hubungan Anju dalam FMP dengan ‘orang asing’ yang hancur dalam
seketika, di sini Kavita Daswani menampilkan potret perkawinan beda bangsa yang berhasil antara Karishma, sepupu Priya, dengan terapis Steve.

Saya larut dalam keasyikan plot kala menuturkan kemajuan demi kemajuan yang dicapai Priya, sedangkan di rumah bahkan suami dan adik iparnya sama sekali tidak menawarkan bantuan untuk meringankan tugas.
Pesan-pesan Kaki, nenek Priya yang bermukim di Delhi, menyemarakkan novel yang sesekali menciptakan gelak tawa ini. Misalnya, bahwa orang yang menjelek-jelekkan mertua akan bereinkarnasi menjadi cacing dalam kehidupan selanjutnya. Kisah tragis Radha yang hampir menikah disajikan tak kalah mengharu-biru.

Alihbahasa yang luwes oleh Gita Yuliani K., penerjemah novel-novel Chitra Banerjee, menambah elok kisah Priya dan Sanjay ini.
Salam, Rini Nurul Badariah

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The upheaval shaking Wall Street will hurt privileged enclaves as well as working-class neighborhoods from coast to coast. Find out which will fare the worst.

Flickr: floralgal

Darien, Conn.

How many former Lehman Brothers bankers or AIG executives are likely to be buying a Park Avenue apartment or a home in Darien, Conn., this year? Most likely answer: not many at all.

As anyone who works on Wall Street, invests in the stock market, or just reads the newspapers knows, the past few weeks for the financials sector have been as ugly as Frankenstein’s sister. People have seen their net worth eviscerated, if not obliterated completely.

But Wall Street’s woes are going to have a direct impact on communities around the U.S.—and not just because the proposed $700 billion bailout will result in higher taxes for most Americans. The pain will spread beyond the banks themselves to their back-office and IT operations, accountants, lawyers, and other professional service employees who depend on work from finance companies. It will also reach regional banks across the country. Credit-card companies and firms that deal with auto loans are also vulnerable as the credit market tightens. Even insurance companies, which have remained relatively strong, could be hurt if the economy worsens and workers drop existing policies and decide not to take on new ones. From CEOs to security guards, the financial, insurance, and real estate sectors employ approximately 9.8 million people in the U.S. alone, nearly 7% of the entire American workforce, and their spending potential is even greater.

New York‘s Ripple Effect

Moreover, many of these jobs often tend to cluster around certain towns; bankers in one community and tech support in another. And while Manhattan is at the center of the turmoil, the fallout will be nationwide. Already the financial sector alone has lost 10,000 jobs through July, or about 2% of finance jobs. Moody’s Economy.com projects that New York City and its suburbs will lose 65,000 finance jobs by the middle of 2010, or 11% of the total.

Economists are projecting that Manhattan real estate prices will finally sink under the pressure of financial-sector layoffs and shrinking Wall Street bonuses. Wall Street accounts for about 12% of jobs in the city of New York, and a quarter of salaries.

“New York is the stone in the puddle that ripples across the country,” said Scott Simmons, vice-president and founding partner of Crist/Kolder Associates, an executive recruiting firm in Chicago.

Smaller Cities Could Feel It More

West Des Moines, Iowa

In other words, smaller financial centers and their suburbs could also see trouble ahead. BusinessWeek.com worked with PolicyMap.com, a Philadelphia-based online data and demographics site, to rank the communities with the largest percentage of residents working in finance, real estate, insurance, and leasing. Topping the list is Darien, Conn., an affluent New York suburb where the median salary is $168,000 and 27% of residents work in those industries. Bloomington, Ill., home of State Farm Insurance, came in second, followed by Hoboken, N.J., which is across the Hudson River from Wall Street.

But the impact of a downturn could be more serious in smaller cities that are less diversified. Wilmington, Del., where many of the nation’s credit-card companies are headquartered; Charlotte, N.C., home of Bank of America and Wachovia; and Sioux Falls, S.D., where many back-office jobs are located, each have about 15% of residents working in finance, real estate, and insurance.

Jeremy Nowak, president of The Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit group in Philadelphia that operates PolicyMap.com, and a board member of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, said the towns on the list aren’t necessarily in trouble yet. Much depends on the health of the local employers and the mix of businesses. Not all banks, for example, are doing badly, he said. And the insurance industry is, so far, relatively healthy, despite the troubles besieging industry giant American Insurance Group.

“These are places to watch,” Nowak said. “This will be the starting point for investigation, and not the answer.”

Hitting Connecticut Commuters

John Tirinzonie, Connecticut’s state labor economist, wasn’t surprised to see that Darien topped the list. The Wall Street crisis puts stress on commuters in affluent Fairfield County, which includes Darien, Westport, New Canaan, Stamford, and Greenwich (home of former Lehman CEO Dick Fuld), he said. It remains unclear how the merger of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch will impact the thousands of employees who work at both banks in Hartford.

Westport, Conn.

What seems clear is that the financial turmoil is already hurting the local economy. Connecticut’s unemployment rate jumped from 5.8% in July to 6.5% in August, he said.

“The problem is when you start to have people making good money who are commuting to New York and lose their job, they’re going to be in a very competitive market now with people in the same position. If they’re able to get a job … it may not be the same level and income they’re used to. And that affects the state in terms of tax revenue.”

New Jersey: Benefit Through Relocations?

In New Jersey, home prices in the wealthy towns of Madison, Summit, Chatham, and Millburn, which have direct train service to midtown Manhattan, had been holding up better than much of the state, said Rutgers University economist James Hughes. But that could now start to change.

One possible benefit for New Jersey: Manhattan companies that are coming to the end of their leases might consider moving to New Jersey where office rents are much lower, he said.

“You’re going to see a smaller Wall Street,” Hughes said. “Salaries will be less generous, bonus payments will be less. It’s going to ripple through the residential market.”

Manhattan Real Estate: Some Trouble Spots

The New York suburbs in Westchester, New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut could get hit harder than Manhattan itself, which has a relatively tight supply of housing. Jonathan Miller, chief executive of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc. said the market for Manhattan units selling for more than $8 million is less vulnerable because many of the buyers come from overseas and are wealthy enough to survive an economic downturn, he said. Miller said the market for homes of $3 million to $8 million could get hurt more because many of the buyers work on Wall Street.

“The abruptness of all that has happened has caused many people to step back and wait and see whatever bad news will come along next,” Miller said.

Summit, N.J.

Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said he expects prices to remain flat. He also said that many Wall Street employees who were laid off will be hired by new boutique investment banks that might be formed by executives from the former investment houses, and plenty of talent will be needed to implement the $700 billion bailout plan.

The Manhattan co-op market is tight. Spinola said the condo market might have more supply problems because builders, rushing to meet a June 30 tax abatement deadline, filed for about 17,000 new construction permits, he said.

“In two and a half years when these projects are done and open, will the market be back to buy them?,” Spinola said. “I think the answer is ‘yes.’”