Bangalore the new IndiaMiss New IndiaBy Bharati Mukherjee(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)Anjali Bose has a dazzling smile, near-fluency in American-accented English, and a gnawing hunger for life outside her rural Indian town of Gauripur, where the dilapidated Pinky Mahal bears witness to stalled progress and her stolidly middle-class parents are forcing her into an arranged marriage.Anjali, who prefer

Books May 20, 2011

Healing and transcendence in warThe Rainy SpellBy Yun Heung-gil(Jimoondang, 5,000 won)First published in 1978, Yun Heung-gil’s “The Rainy Spell” is still regarded as one of the finest short stories dealing with the Korean War (1950-1953) experience. The novel tells a story of a Korean family that has two of its members placed in the opposing camps during the war. It is told from the perspective of

Books May 20, 2011

Jennifer Egan was not built for the spotlight. “When I was a teenager, one of my sources of angst was that I felt like I was not an actor, I was always a spectator,” she said by phone from New York. “Later, I realized that that’s just who I am. That’s actually my job.”Lately, Egan has been much more than a spectator in her own life. Her novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” a fractured narrative ab

Books May 20, 2011

Describing Steve Earle’s “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” as a story about a skid row junkie abortionist haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams may work as a dust jacket blurb. But it doesn’t begin to reveal the depth of the singer-songwriter’s debut novel.Earle, 56, is a political activist, actor and Grammy-winning musician who helped revitalize country music in the mid-’80s and is a leade

Books May 20, 2011

CANNES, France ― This year’s Cannes Film Festival is filled with big-budget movies like “Puss in Boots” and “Kung Fu Panda 2,” but on Thursday evening, the focus was on the realm of independent film. Cannes judge Uma Thurman and actress Rosario Dawson were honored for their contributions to indie film. Also lauded were “Sleeping Beauty” director Jane Campion and the film’s producer, Jessica Brentn

Film May 13, 2011

Canadian director brings film about artists with Down syndrome to Women’s Film FestivalCanadian animation director Shira Avni makes films that are “in between genres.”“Animated documentaries don’t fit into doc festivals, nor do they fit into anime festivals,” Avni told The Korea Herald in Seoul last week. “But they get invited to both.”Her 2009 animated documentary, “Trying Your Own Shoes,” which

Film April 18, 2011

Norwegian Wood Opening April 21Drama. Directed by Tran Anh Hung. Upon hearing The Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood,” a Japanese businessman reminisces about the intense romance of his university days in Tokyo, set against the turbulent student riots of the late 1960s. Toru Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), an aloof university student at the time, had lost Kizuki -- his best friend in high school -- after

Film April 15, 2011

Horror movie fans haven’t had much to scream about lately, but that may be about to change.With “Scream 4,” which opens Friday, director Wes Craven pumps fresh blood into his landmark horror franchise set in the not-so-sleepy town of Woodsboro, Calif.Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, veterans of the three previous “Scream” movies, return along with original writer Kevin Williamson,

Film April 15, 2011

In the new thriller “Source Code,” Michelle Monaghan plays a Chicago woman described by the Jake Gyllenhaal character as “beautiful,” “decent” and “honest.” Beauty comes cheap in the movies. Hollywood boasts an eternally full quota of attractive nuisances, the nuisance part (separate from the beauty part) being the expressive limitations of those who achieve stardom without really having much star

Film April 15, 2011

A charming look at the elementsPeriodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, From Arsenic to ZincBy Hugh Aldersey-Williams(Ecco, $25)Some people collect coins or baseball cards. Others collect stamps or Pez dispensers. Hugh Aldersey-Williams collects the building blocks of the universe.Aldersey-Williams has been trying to collect pure samples of every element known to humankind -- from the c

Books April 15, 2011

Sandy Harris has long enjoyed laid-back conversations about literature with the other members of her book club. Lately, though, technology is complicating the routine: “We’re definitely divided into the Kindle people and the not Kindle people,” Harris says, alluding to Amazon’s popular digital reading device.Welcome to the changing landscape of book clubs, those ubiquitous living-room forums where

Performance April 15, 2011

Abby Sunderland is sitting barefoot aboard her brother’s boat in Marina del Rey on a recent morning, her blond hair fluttering in the light breeze. The only physical evidence of the five months she traveled by herself at sea before her sailboat rolled over, ripping off her mast and soaking everything on board, is a simple rope bracelet.The knotted white band on her left wrist was a gift from one o

Books April 15, 2011

Director of the Seoul International Forum for Literature speaks about the role of literature in multi-platform worldKorean authors should move on from nationalist writing and learn about the current trends in world literature, Kim Seong-kon, director of the third Seoul International Forum for Literature, said.“What the global audience is interested in can be quite different (from what Korean autho

Books April 11, 2011

Shortly after she received an Oscar nomination at the tender age of 13, “Atonement” star Saoirse Ronan needed a new movie. Despite a drama background, she was intrigued by the title character in “Hanna,” an ethereally beautiful teen who also happens to be a ruthless assassin. But the project was stuck in development at Focus Features; filmmakers like Danny Boyle had come and gone.Ronan had a simpl

Film April 8, 2011

In Love and the War (Korea)Opening April 28 Drama. Comedy. Directed by Park Geon-yong. Just about two months ahead of the Korean War, a young communist military officer (Kim Joo-hyeok) and his soldiers arrive in a secluded country town in Chungcheong Province. Amid the intense political turmoil, the town, Seokjeong-ri, is peaceful. It is so remote that its people don’t even take the war rumor seri

Film April 8, 2011