charlie hebdo
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Tsitsi Dangarembga
Tsitsi Dangarembga discusses her new novel, THIS MOURNABLE BODY.
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Lost in Translation, Lost in Context
PEN America generated quite a controversy when it decided to honor French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo. Six authors called for a boycott of the gala and circulated a petition slamming the organization. Other authors, like Salman Rushdie, criticized the critics.…
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Controversial Comics
Cartoonists tend to stick together because they have to; . . . their work is disproportionately singled out for suppression both abroad and in the U.S., while at the same time often regarded as not “serious” enough to deserve a…
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Rushdie Slams Withdrawn PEN Panelists
PEN America announced on Sunday their intention to honor Charlie Hebdo’s surviving staff with the Freedom of Expression Courage award at their May 5 Gala. The novelists Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner, and Taiye Selasi…
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Ideas Perish
In the past few weeks, two bloggers have been murdered in Bangladesh for writing critically about Islam. Reflecting on the deaths of Washiqur Rahman and Avijit Roy, George Packer argues in favor of intellectual freedom: The problem with free speech…
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The Importance of Being Satire
There is, in fact, a widespread view that humor abandons its true purpose when it ceases to punch upward from below, when it ceases to play David to the great Goliath of state or society, and instead punches down, targeting…
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Why Jihadists Love Postmodern Poetry
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire returns with a powerful take on fascism and violence and postmodernism.
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Laughing Again After Charlie Hebdo
While the firemen were carrying me on a wheeled office chair out of the conference room, I found myself floating over the bodies of my dead colleagues, Bernard, Tignous, Cabu, Georges, bodies that my rescuers were stepping over or around,…
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Tragedy’s Irony
Using W.H. Auden and his predecessor, Rabelais, Nina Martyris discusses in the Los Angeles Review of Books how irony is being implemented to confront the tragedy of Charlie Hebdo: So how should one respond? Anger and grief are appropriate enough. Even…
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Drawing While the Hand Trembles
When Egyptian cartoonists offer condolences to their Parisian counterparts, they are doing so with an appreciation of the daily risks of the art form — making a joke about the assassinations remains difficult or superficial. Foreign Policy looks at the…
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Nous devons être plus que Charlie (We Need to Be More than Charlie)
The only true way to defend free speech is to exercise it—not just talk about it.
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Authors Stand with Charlie Hebdo
As the world continues to mourn the 12 dead in Wednesday’s terrorist attack on the controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo, satirists, cartoonists, writers, and editors have come together with PEN America to stand against the attack and bolster the necessity of…