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By Ahmed Latif
The first time I read Mary Shelley's gothic masterpiece I was on Winter Break in my second year at university. I was familiar with the story - everyone is - and thought it would behove me to get some readings done for my English Literature Survey course while on Christmas Holiday. By Ahmed Latif
The Great Gatsby, the 1925 novel by the master F. Scott Fitzgerald may be required reading for many high schoolers today. It may widely be considered one of the greatest novels ever written. It may widely be celebrated, critiqued, parodied, and modernized. But ultimately it is, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, a gem that was unappreciated during its own time. By Ahmed Latif
I am a person who enjoys the dichotomy that comes from reading the works of very talented ideological opposites or rivals or stylistic antonyms. I enjoy Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, Averroes and Al-Ghazali, Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García Márquez, John Dos Passos and Martin Andersen Nexø or Maxim Gorky. I enjoy all of their works not equally but on the same level. But there is no one like Eduardo Galeano; he has no rival because who could match him? To me Eduardo Galeano, who sadly died a few days ago, was more deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature than the last four winners combined. With all due respect to Tomas Tranströmer, Mo Yan, Alice Munro, and Patrick Modiano they did not have the eclectic depth I revered in Galeano’s writing. The passing of such a legend is a tremendous loss to all of society as it was with Nelson Mandela. By Ahmed Latif
David Kldiashvili was a Georgian writer of the late 19th century and the early 20th century. His works enshrined the delicate satire and the depressing degeneration of a society in flux. Samanishvili's Step-Mother, published in 1897, is soaked in despair and unbearable laughter. His prose was joyous even in tragedy. He depicted the corrupt elites and the constant struggles of the peasant class. It was this reality that led to the Bolshevik Revolution and it was these depictions that garnered him acclaim later from the Soviet Union. By Ahmed Latif
Anna Karenina is a literary masterpiece written by Russian master-writer Leo Tolstoy. It first appeared in instalments from 1873 to 1877 in the magazine The Russian Messenger. However, due to political disagreements between the magazine editors and Tolstoy, the complete Anna Karenina did not appear until 1878 in novel form. Critics and readers alike regard it as one of the finest novels ever written. It is a work so refined and perfected that another Russian master-writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, called it a flawless work of art. By Ahmed Latif
The events of the Civil Rights Movement unfolded in Selma, Alabama in 1965, but the passing of the Voting Rights Act later that year does not equate the achievement of social justice. Unrest following police brutality and the systematic violent discrimination against minorities are as commonplace today as they were in the 1960s. The answer that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X highlighted to this social problem is societal engagement. It is seen in Ava DuVernay’s 2014 Civil Rights film Selma, but it is not a shockingly new answer. Engaging the public in a conversation of what kind of society we want to be requires more than the storm of righteous indignation and bouts of apathy we see in social media presently. By Ahmed Latif
As an avid reader of The New Yorker it is no wonder that I am also a fan of James Thurber. His wit is always relevant regardless of the era. He writes to satirize human nature. His 1939 short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, is a thesis on the imagination and the functional instigation of boredom brought on by the modern urban lifestyle. The mundane life of the titular Walter Mitty is emancipated by the very human realm of the daydream. Mitty is aloof and silent; but he is also driven mad by the crushing blandness of his life. He finds salvation through imagining his destruction in incredible adventures. These wild adventures do not add spice to his stubborn life, but they are the in fact the only spice of his life. By Ahmed Latif
It was a sunny day but there was nothing beautiful about it. Harold called me out to Cartwright Station just on the edge of the city, in the part of the suburbs we’re supposed to call quaint. I arrived and found this heaping mess of misery thrown into my lap; thrown by Miss Fortune herself, what a dame! By Ahmed Latif
Cement, the 1925 Russian novel by Soviet writer Fyodor Gladkov is a powerful amalgamation of raw emotion and disconsolate intelligence. It brings to light the human cost of an ideological revolution. The story tells of a young Red Army soldier returning to his home following the Bolshevik revolution against the Tsar’s White Army loyalists. Gleb finds that life has changed in every way and not necessarily for the better. He must deal with his new job at a cement factory, his post-traumatic stress disorder, a crumbling social order, and the changes the revolution brought to his relationships with his wife, daughter, and friends. By Ahmed Latif
During tough times, readers and audiences often seek an escape from the banality of life. The turn of the twentieth century was unequivocally a disconcerting time of transition for Europe. It is in this context that Franz Kafka captured the complex surrealism and absurd loneliness of urban life. His writing functioned as a condemnation and a vindication of an era that provided no simplistic answers to pressing social questions. Anarchist overtones, Marxist critiques, and deliberate existentialism; all of it dark and none of it clear-cut. By Ahmed Latif
As playful as the morning, witty and wistful, I saw your ghost twirling in the day moon’s light. I lazily conjured a cozy little dream for us two. I plucked my harp to songs of Leningrad in the spring. Your ghost and my spirit danced on the terrace. We spiralled and spun Like concentric circles drunk on straight lines. There is nothing to regret, The pain will leave such beautiful scars. By Ahmed Latif
The Seven-Arm Octopus or Haliphron atlanticus is one of the world’s largest species of octopus. This mysterious giant of the deep possesses a hidden eighth arm. It only becomes visible when the octopus finds a suitable mate. The eighth arm uncoils from under the right eye and reaches out for the mate… By Ahmed Latif
A residual of a memory clings like sunrise on a dirty street. If you could hear the horns howl, you wouldn’t mind it. But it’s all too dangerous, colouring outside the lines we never drew. Clichés and inevitable turns of the screw mock everything haphazardly. I hate sprained ankles because of their lack of coherence. Trying to function as an urban soul is a challenge to linguistic metrics. |
