Memoirs: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

"Reading Lolita in Tehran" is a multy-layered memoir written by an Iranian professor of English and American literature. The author, Azar Nafisi, was educated in the United States, and taught in Iran from 1979 until 1995.
The first strand of the narrative tells of how, after resigning from her teaching position due to its many restrictions, Nafisi conducted a clandestine literature seminar in her home each week, attended by seven of her best and brightest female students.

Through their discussions of such classic Western novels as "Lolita", "The Great Gatsby", "Daisy Miller" and "Pride and Prejudice" (all of which had to be photocopied because the books were outlawed), the young women learn about each other and themselves, and most importantly, how to exercise some degree of freedom in a totalitarian state.

In addition, Nafisi weaves her own life story around the history of Iran during the tumultuous period of the revolution, the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the war with Iraq. Nafisi also reveals how her life could be inextricably linked with the books she is reading. For example, she wonders if the 19th century novels she read during her pregnancy could have affected her daughter's personality.

Grain Magazine's 24th Annual Short Grain Writing Contest

"Grain" is the most exciting literary magazine on the Canadian and international scene...the one that everyone wants to be published in! Recent issues have featured the work of such literary luminaries as Xi Chuan, Tim Lilburn, Guy Maddin, Miriam Toews, Zsuzsi Gartner, and Eleanor Wachtel. And you could join them in the pages of Grain!

This year's contest judges, Lawrence Hill and rob mclennan, are literary stars in their own right...with impeccable taste!



DEADLINE: APRIL 2, 2012 (POSTMARKED)
$4,500 in prizes to be won! Each entrant receives a FREE subscription to Grain Magazine!
Two categories to enter:
Poetry: (to a max of 100 lines) Poetry of any style including PROSE POEM up to 100 lines.
Fiction: (to a max of 2,500 words) Short fiction in any form including POST CARD STORY, to a maximum of 2500 words.
3 prizes will be awarded in each category:
1st Prize: $1,000
2nd Prize: $750
3rd Prize: $500
And the Judges are...
POETRY: rob mclennan
Author of over 20 trade books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, including Glengarry (2011) and wild horses (2010).
FICTION: Lawrence Hill
Author of The Book of Negroes and winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book.

Poetry: The Snow-storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Snow-storm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courtier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen squaring evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
The central figure among the Transcendentalist group of philosophers, Emerson considered himself to be first and foremost a poet, albeit one whose best work was done "for the most part in prose". His essays on nature and art have influenced writers from Whitman and Thoreau to Frost and Stevens.

Modern fiction: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

This masterpiece of postmodern fiction brought that extraordinary contemporary writing of Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian Nobel laureate in literature, to the wider world. It is an intensely personal work, drawing upon the politics, history, culture, myth, magic and ghosts that form the back ground and Marquez's life growing up in Colombia.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is history of Macondo, a fictional small town in none unspecified area of South America, from its beginnings, to its ultimate obliteration, when the last member of the seventh generation of the founding Buendía family finally translates the parchment that predicted the towns circular history.

Tolkien ignored by 1961 Nobel jury

Newly released documents have revealed that novelist JRR Tolkien was passed over for the Nobel literature prize in 1961, after his storytelling in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was described as second rate. Declassified after 50 years, the papers show that Tolkien was nominated for the award by fellow author CS  Lewis but that the Nobel prize jury had said of his work:

"The result has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality."

The documents also reveal that British writer Graham Greene - who never won the Nobel prize - finished in second place behind Yugoslav writer Ivo Andric.