Aung San Suu Kyi is taking an historical trip through Europe where she will visit Switzerland, Norway, Britain, Ireland, and France. She is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in her native home of Myanmar and will be delivering her acceptance speech more than a decade after being awarded the prize. She has been under house arrest for almost a quarter of a century in Myanmar (Burma) because the government – a military junta that ruled the country – viewed her as dangerous to the stability of the country and its regime.

Her father was General Bogyoke Aung San, the founder of modern Burma. He was assassinated when Aung San Suu Kyi was only two years old.

While under house arrest Kyi was isolated from her supporters and her family. She claims that her sanity was maintained with the help of her piano and the BBC, which she listened to every day. Having the support of the world also helped. She stated, “it’s all of you, and people like you who have given me the strength to continue.” Her husband died in 1999 of cancer, eleven years after she left the United Kingdom. While in Britain, Kyi will have a family reunion with her sons Kim and Alexander Aris and her grandchildren.

Kyi returned to Myanmar from the United Kingdom in 1988 to look after her sick mother. While she was in the country, protests broke out and she has remained in the country under house arrest since. She was a political prisoner in Myanmar until late 2010 when the new government began to release political prisoners as part of its democratic reforms. She then ran for and won a seat in parliament in April. Previous to 2010 she refused to leave Myanmar – even when she received the Nobel Peace Prize and when her husband was dying of cancer in the United Kingdom – because she was afraid that the government would not let her back into the country.

Kyi officially accepted her Nobel Prize on June 16. In her acceptance speech she warned that world leaders should be cautious of “reckless optimism” in regards to the democratic reforms occurring in Myanmar. She argued, “unless justice is done, and seen to be done, we cannot believe in genuine reform…the progress that we hope to make with regard to democratization and reform depends so much on an understanding and acceptance of the importance of the rule of law.”

In addition to receiving her Nobel award Kyi will receive Amnesty International’s Human Rights award in Dublin from Bono.

This is the second time Kyi has left the country since being released from house arrest; she traveled to Thailand in May and vowed to help the Myanmar refugees there. Before she left for Europe she expressed her excitement to reporters stating, “each country will be different. I will know how backward [Burma] is when I reach the other countries…[I] would like to do my best for the interests of the people.”

Shortly before Kyi arrived in Europe the International Labor Organization (ILO) lifted restrictions on Myanmar for the progress the country has made in getting rid of forced labor. In 1999 The ILO banned Myanmar from meetings and assistance because the government would use forced labor for infrastructure projects. The Myanmar government signed an agreement with the ILO in March to end forced labor by 2015. The ILO issued a statement saying, “The International Labor Organization has lifted its restrictions on the full participation of Myanmar in its activities and decided to review the progress on the elimination of forced labor in the country next year.” This decision from the ILO could help to lift the remaining sanctions from the European Union nations according to the Chicago Tribune.

Currently Myanmar has seen violence in the western Rakhine state between the Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims. The Rohingya Muslims have been persecuted for many years by the government and majority groups within Myanmar. Many Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar and refugee camps in Bangladesh have asked Aung San Suu Kyi for help.

Mahammad Islam, a Rohingya Muslim refugee, has stated, “Aung San Suu Kyi hasn’t done or said anything for us, yet the Rohingyas including my parents, campaigned for her in the 1990 elections. Like most other Burmese people, she is silent about the rights of Rohingyas.” According to Islam she has yet to mention the conflict in the Rakhine state and the plight of the Rohingyas.

Aung San Suu Kyi is also featured in the documentary entitled “The Lady” which was released in 2011.

Image Courtesy of the UK Department for International Development

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Toni Morrison has long been heralded for her difficult yet beautiful books. Ever since she won the Nobel Prize, Morrison has become a household name most commonly associated with her early books, such as The Bluest Eye and Beloved, and is both loved and hated by high school students everywhere. Her latest book, Home, however, is a far cry from the lyrical works that earned her fame.

Set during the 50s, Home follows the story of Korean War veteran Frank Money as he embarks on a journey to reach his home in Georgia where his sister is supposedly at death’s door. Along the way, Morrison explores the lives of those who have left their mark on Frank and his sister, often going back and forth through time to do so.

An examination of racial relations, a theme that carries on throughout all of Morrison’s work, is still present. Absent, though, are the breathtaking narratives that strung together those themes so well.

Frank Money has seen friends die on the battlefield and innocent orphans shot, and when he returns to the United States, he finds himself in a world where just looking suspicious can result in jail time. These horrors are so commonplace and so undeveloped that they lose meaning within the book.  A plot summary might read something like a list of terrors with little else included.

Part of the reason for this is that Home is very sparsely written.  The novel begins, “They rose up like men. We saw them. Like men they stood,” and continues in such a fashion for the rest of the novel. Although this will certainly attract some readers, it is hardly like Morrison’s usual beautiful language. Although many characters have whole chapters dedicated to them, other than Frank Money, none are as fleshed out as they could be and many come off as cliché and boring figures, resulting in the reader feeling apathetic towards them.

Still, the book does have its good points. Some passages—mostly those concerning Frank Money and his past—are quite captivating.  Morrison depicts the veteran without any sugarcoating, showing exactly how the war has changed him. As he watches a drummer get carried away by his fellow band mates, still drumming the air as they take him away, Frank wonders, “Maybe, as with the drummer, rhythm would take charge. Maybe he too would be escorted away, flailing helplessly, imprisoned in his own strivings.”

Upon reflection, many will probably wonder just what the point of this flawed work is. At 150 pages, it is quick and to the point, and yet so many parts seem unnecessary. It is worth a read more because if you do not like it, you will be on the last page before you even realize it.

Image Courtesy of   Angela Radulescu

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Four of today´s most important writers in English language gather together in an extraordinary and not- to-be missed event taking place at Museu de História Natural e Ciência today at the Lisbon and Estoril Film Festival (LEFF) 2011.

J.M. Coetzee, Don Delillo, Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt will gather at the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival and read excerpts from their works to the festival public.

Distinguished with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, J.M. Coetzee is one of the most acclaimed English language writers and also one of the most respected internationally, the author of very famous books such as “Disgrace” or “Life and Times of Michael K”, with which he won the Booker Prize.

Don Delillo is a colossal figure from the current North American literary panorama, having already won the National Book Award and the Prize PEN/Faulkner. Works such as “Americana”, “Falling Man”, “Mao II”, “White Noise” and “Cosmopolis” are part of the world’s literary panorama.

One of the most brilliant fiction writers today, Paul Auster is responsible for bestsellers such as “The Brooklyn Follies” and “Leviathan”. In 2006 he won the prize Príncipe das Astúrias das Letras, the most prestigious award of Spanish literature.

Poet and romance writer widely praised by international critique, Siri Hustvedt is a remarkable personality of American literature, and her works have been translated to more than 30 languages.

According to the LEFF’s press release, Singer and composer Sophie Auster, the daughter of writers Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, will make her debut concert in Portugal through the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival. The concert of the New York artist will take place at the Lisbon famous club LUX today, at 23:30 local time.

Sophie Auster is currently preparing a new album, with a team that gathers some of the most acclaimed musicians of today, such as guitar player Adam Levy and drummer Andrew Borger – both former musicians of prize-winner singer Norah Jones.

Image courtesy: http://www.leffest.com/pt/fotos_ano

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