Book Review: ‘Transfer’ from Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye is one of the most spirited voices in American poetry. The author, editor, and translator of more than 30 volumes, she is best known for her poetry collections Fuel (1998) and You and Yours (2005), and her award-winning anthology of international poems for young people This Same Sky (1992). In her affirming introduction for that book, she writes, “Whenever someone suggests ‘how ...

AUDIO: How Peter Ackroyd hid his sexuality

Writer and historian Peter Ackroyd has explained why he decided to conceal his homosexuality from his family.

Contour lines

In this week's podcast, we explore the relationship between landscape and literature in the UK. The British Library's Writing Britain exhibition opens today, and we take a tour round the books and artworks with curators Jamie Andrews and Tanya Kirk, moving from the moors of the Brontës to JG Ballard's suburbia. We chart the growth of the urban landscape as well, beautifully characterised in ...

Vanessa D. Fisher: The Flame of Beauty: Reflections on a Poet's Journey

Poetry has been my quiet and humble redeemer, and it has also taught me that there is nothing that art can't hold, no matter how dark.

China celebrates Tagore, releases his works in Chinese

Beijing, May 17 -- Professor Bai Kai Yuan has translated 17000 lines of Rabindranth Tagore's poems, essays and novels in Chinese. It's probably a first but the translation was never about the number of words or lines: it was because of his love for Tagore and because "he is so jaunopriyo (popular) in China," Bai said in Bengali.On Thursday, another first was added to his impressive repertoire: a ...