France is the focus of this year’s Korea International Summer Festival from July 20-31 and, as its organizer, the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ), is marking the 130th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. “France played a leading role in founding the ASSITEJ world headquarters and takes initiatives in developing performing arts for children and young people,” said spokeswoman Lim Ju-hee.The festival caters to children and you

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- The children who once dreamed of capturing real-life Pokemon starting in the 1990s are now the nostalgic millennials helping fuel the worldwide success of “Pokemon Go.”Take Bailey Richardson. Now 26, her grandest dream was once to set out in the world and capture and train the big-eyed, shrieking creatures known as Pokemon, originally numbering 151 in all.On a recent night, she was outside playing “Pokemon Go” when someone shouted that they had found Aerodactyl, a rare, p

“Someone Please Have Sex With Me” By Gina Wynbrandt2dcloud Comics & Graphic Novels (140 pages, $17.95)A girl and her Justin Bieber crush don’t exactly sound like the sort of material that darkly funny comics are made of. But Gina Wynbrandt’s first book takes seemingly innocuous girl culture and transforms it into something humorously abject.“Someone Please Have Sex With Me,” as her slim book is titled (2dcloud Comics & Graphic Novels; 140 pages, $17.95), gathers five stories about a hapless char

"The Big Book of Science Fiction" Edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer; Vintage (1,216 pages, $25)Surprisingly, the literary spirit that haunts Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's massive new anthology, "The Big Book of Science Fiction," isn't Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov or even H.G. Wells.It's Jorge Luis Borges, the creator of miniature fables of humans grappling with their double-edged longing for and terror of infinity and omniscience. He's represented by a signature story, name-checked in another on

If you imagine Nick Offerman is a real-life version of Ron Swanson, the mustachioed, macho character on “Parks and Recreation,” think again. Sure, he likes the outdoors, and yes, he has a wood shop in Los Angeles. But those things are connected to growing up in Illinois, not so far, really, from the American heartland portrayed by Mark Twain. And Offerman knows Twain; he’s a big reader.It makes sense, then, that Offerman has just recorded “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” for Audible, the audiobook

NEW YORK (AP) -- As a deaf and gay student in Ecuador, Cesar Baquerizo was bullied and a victim of societal prejudice.Now, after five years of writing, Pen Name Publishing has released his first novel in English, “A Safe Place With You.”The book talks about homosexuality in Ecuador in the ’80s, when it was illegal.“I want to move readers through my words, so they can put themselves in LGBT people’s shoes and feel like they are there, in the novel, with my characters,” Baquerizo, 30, told the AP

SYDNEY (AFP) - Riches from the Palace of Versailles including a harp belonging to Marie Antoinette will travel to Australia, the country‘s national gallery said Monday, as part of a display never seen outside France.More than 130 paintings, tapestries, pieces of furniture, statues and other objects from Versailles, one of France’s grand museums, will be on display in the Australian capital Canberra from December.“The Palace of Versailles has never before lent a collection like this, drawn from a

BAGHDAD (AFP) - UNESCO has named Iraqi marshlands once ravaged by dictator Saddam Hussein as a World Heritage Site, a bright spot for a country where jihadists have repeatedly sought to wipe out history.The area named “is made up of seven sites: three archaeological sites and four wetland marsh areas in southern Iraq,” UNESCO said.“The archaeological cities of Uruk and Ur and the Tell Eridu archaeological site form part of the remains of the Sumerian cities and settlements that developed in sout