ROME (AFP) ― A virtually unknown novel by Charlie Chaplin ― the only book the silent film comic ever wrote ― is being made public for the first time.“Footlights,” which will be unveiled in London later Tuesday, was written by Chaplin in 1948 and later transformed into his film “Limelight,” in which a washed-out clown saves a dancer from suicide.The book is being published in English by the Cineteca di Bologna, an Italian film restoration institute which has been working with Chaplin biographer D

New anthology edited by Choi Yearn-hong introduces 120 poems written by Korean immigrants to the U.S.

A total of 10 Korean authors will be participating in the upcoming London Book Fair Korea Market Focus, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea said.The writers are Hwang Sok-young, Shin Kyung-sook, Kim Young-ha, Yi Mun-yol, Kim In-sook, Han Kang, Lee Seung-woo, Kim Hye-soon, Hwang Sun-mi and Yoon Tae-ho. Kim Hye-soon is a poet, while Hwang Sun-mi is a children’s writer and Yoon is a webtoon writer. The cultural program was jointly organized by the London Book Fair, the Literature Translat

The memoir “12 Years a Slave” was published in 1853, a year after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”Now Solomon Northup’s personal narrative is a bestseller ― 161 years after it first came out ― through a tie-in to the celebrated movie version of his memoir. And it is likely to get a big boost from the many Oscar nominations the film has received.The antebellum drama is one of several films this year that have given their namesake books a second life.For years the slim volume

In this reflection on six great alcoholic American writers ― John Cheever, Raymond Carver, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Berryman and Tennessee Williams ― Olivia Laing emerges as a kind of British Susan Orlean, combining nonfiction narrative, travel writing, literary criticism and a touch of memoir in a personable style. While it’s rare to quote blurbs in a book review (with good reason), Hilary Mantel, of “Wolf Hall” fame, says something on the book’s back cover that is worth repe

In the BloodBy Lisa Unger(Touchstone) Each of Lisa Unger’s visits to The Hollows delves deeper into the myriad residents of this quiet town about 160 kilometers from New York City. Here, in this idyllic-sounding town, there is a menace that latches onto those who live here and seeps into their lives.Unger continues her dark psychological approach in this third visit to The Hollows. The only recurring characters in Unger’s The Hollows novels are Jones Cooper, a detective, and his psychologist wif

My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of MindBy Scott Stossel(Alfred A. Knopf)“No sharp-witted judge knows how to interrogate, to examine the accused as anxiety does, which never lets him escape, neither by diversion nor by noise, neither at work nor at play, neither by day nor by night,” the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed. Many of you will know exactly what he means. (Trust me, I do: I’m a freelancer.) Some 40 million Americans suffer from the gnawing unease of

Renowned poet Ko Un has been selected as the 2014 winner of the Golden Wreath, one of the most prestigious awards for poets given by Struga Poetry Evenings, an international poetry festival held annually in Struga, Republic of Macedonia.The festival was first founded in 1962, and the Golden Wreath international award was established in 1966. The first recipient was Soviet poet Robert Ivanovich Rozhdestvensky (1932-1994), who is considered one of the pioneers of poetry in the former Soviet Union.

Ransom Riggs and Tahereh Mafi spend their days in Santa Monica, sitting side by side at a shared desk in identical chairs in their backyard office, wearing headphones, working at their laptops. Across a cool green expanse sits their Spanish-style house, hidden behind a vine-covered wall.“I really loved books about secret worlds, like ‘The Secret Garden’ and the ‘Bridge to Terabithia,’” says Riggs, whose young adult novel “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” was a bestseller in 2011. “St

For decades, finding Spanish-language books in the U.S. was like tilting at windmills.Booksellers stocked few titles in the language of Cervantes, and those they carried came at a hefty premium. A paperback copy of “Don Quijote” in the original Spanish could easily cost triple the price of a deluxe hard-bound translation in English ― if it could be found at all.Retailers blamed the expense of importing books printed in Spain and Latin America. And U.S. publishers lost faith in the market after b

Arik: The Life of Ariel SharonBy David Landau (Knopf) Its dust jacket hails “Arik,” published this month, as “the first in-depth, comprehensive biography of Ariel Sharon, the most dramatic and imposing Israeli political and military leader of the last 40 years.”Comprehensive it certainly is, and author David Landau’s timing is fortuitous. Sharon died Saturday at age 85. Born Feb. 26, 1928, in Kfar Malal in central Israel to parents of Russian Jewish descent, Ariel Sharon (originally, Scheinerman

How to Read a NovelistBy John Freeman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)The arts journalists can get a little weird around great novelists. We write for a living. So do they. But that shred of similarity can make us envy and idolize what they do. They’re like us, but bigger, better and more imaginative.I’ve always enjoyed reading John Freeman’s author profiles because he seems entirely comfortable with his corner of the firmament and place in the pecking order. His new collection, the cheekily titled “

Fear NothingBy Lisa Gardner(Dutton)Nobody writes about the psychological aspects of working in law enforcement better than Lisa Gardner. She can take potentially disturbing scenarios that are frighteningly real and make them compelling, which she does in her latest novel, “Fear Nothing.”An alternative title could be “Pain Management” because the story takes a hard look at what constitutes physical pain ― and how a person deals with it.Police Detective D.D. Warren is checking out a crime scene fo

The New Democrats and the Return to PowerBy Al From(Palgrave Macmillan)Al From’s “The New Democrats and the Return to Power” tells the important story of how a political party in trouble can reinvent itself and regain power.The book is particularly timely because the Republican Party’s leadership has set a goal of broadening its appeal after losing the last two presidential elections. And the Democrats will need to look closely at their political direction after President Barack Obama, with his

Korean-American author’s ‘On Such a Full Sea’ receives favorable reviews in the U.S.