Literature for Free

Internet should help us getting in touch with other literatures, but we know it's not always like this. Anyway, exceptions are growing:

- This month issue from the Words Without Borders brings Modern Chinese Literature translated into English (and some Spanish and Romanian as well).

- The American Small Beer Press is publishing a collection of short stories by John Kessel for free download, under creative commons. You can do with it almost whathever you want, including reading. (Source: Boing Boing)

And for read all this PDFs you can use Skim (if you're a Mac user). I've already read some books with it. Yes, I bring my laptop to bed to read before going to sleep...

Por favor, me ensine... | Please, teach me...

Nas leituras que estou começando a fazer para a minha tese, conheci Rainer Ganahl, um artista austríaco radicado em NY. O trabalho dele sobre política e linguagem é muito bacana. Alguns dos projetos deles envolvem o aprendizado de uma língua, o registro do processo e uma instalação no final. Parece que ele já sabe 11 línguas (quisera eu ter tido essa idéia primeiro!). Os trabalhos dele com linguagem já tem um tempo, então isso pode ser notícia velha para alguns... Mas para mim, é novidade! ;-) Na foto ao lado, camisetas do artista com a frase "Por favor, me ensine (uma língua).", escritas na língua em questão.

In the readings that I'm starting to do for my thesis now, I get to know Rainer Ganahl, this Austrian artist who lives in NY. His work about language and politics it's very interesting. Some of his projects were about the process of learning a language. It seems that by now he knows 11 of them (I wish I have had this idea first!). His works about language are kind of old, so it can be old news for some people... But for me, it's new! ;-) In the picture, t-shirts by the artist with the phrase "Please, teach me (a language).", written in that language.