STOCKHOLM (AFP) ― In a year with no clear favourites, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami appears to be the front-runner to win the Nobel Prize for Literature this week.Murakami, known across the globe for works such as “Norwegian Wood” and “1Q84,” heads the list at bookmaker Ladbrokes with 5/2 odds.Also near the top of the Ladbrokes list is Canadian Alice Munro with odds of 4/1, and American Joyce Carol Oates with 8/1 odds.Murakami has impressed the critics and won a mass readership with his intr

NEW YORK (AP) ― Tom Clancy, whose high-tech, Cold War thrillers such as “The Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games” made him the most widely read and influential military novelist of his time, has died. He was 66.Penguin Group (USA) announced that Clancy had died Tuesday in Baltimore. The publisher did not provide a cause of death.Tall and thin, with round, sunken eyes that were often hidden by sunglasses, Clancy had said his dream had been simply to publish a book, hopefully a good one, so t

Jhumpa Lahiri, who at 46 has already won a Pulitzer Prize (for her first book, the 1999 story collection “Interpreter of Maladies”), and was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (for her new novel, “The Lowland”), does a number of things obviously well: Not one for literary gymnastics, she is a precisionist, a realist, not an ironist. She does not bend genre, slum among dystopias or gauge the state of the nation. A stern admirer of Thomas Hardy, Alice Munro and Mavis Gallant ― all of wh

Margaret Atwood, a master at creating clever names, is always on the lookout for more. Settling into a cafe chair on a gorgeous August morning in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, she points out a sandwich kiosk called Wichcraft.“I like that one,” she says. Gracious of her, since it pales in comparison with monikers of the fantastic creatures populating “MaddAddam,” the just-published conclusion to Atwood’s trilogy about a small band of humans ― and gentle humanoids ― trying to survive after a man-made p

Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories From the Trailblazers of Domestic SuspenseEdited by Sarah Weinman (Penguin)They are the forgotten women of mystery fiction ― female authors who blazed trails in the genre but whose work, for the most part, generally has been overlooked.But thanks to the insightful collection of short stories and short bios in “Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives,” these authors are being remembered.Sarah Weinman’s meticulous research and thoughtful approach illustrates wh

Gaddafi’s Harem: The story of a Young Woman and the Abuses of Power in LibyaBy Annick Cojean (Grove Press) The first half of this deeply disturbing book is one woman’s account of how Moammar Gadhafi forced her, when she was barely 15, to become his sex slave, keeping her and other victims imprisoned for years. He summoned them to his bedchamber day and night, where he drugged them, beat them, raped them and sodomized them.The woman, Soraya, said that Gadhafi chose his victims by strolling throug

Paju Book City, home to some 300 local publishing houses in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, is throwing its annual book-themed festival, focusing on Asian literature and authors this year. Dubbed “Paju Booksori,” the festival celebrates its third edition this year. The event, which opened Saturday, includes lectures, performances and exhibitions, featuring authors and publishers from home and abroad.One of the festival’s exhibitions features the life and works of Yi I (1536-1584), one of the most promi

Comic book author reminisces on 50 years of illustrations

Throughout the last 33 years, Rhie Won-bok’s educational series “Far Countries, Near Countries” offered young Korean readers a glimpse into the culture and history of other countries. Yet the series’ volume on Korea is also a great introduction for people with no background knowledge on the country. Based on Rhie’s thorough research and keen observations, the book presents an insightful and sometimes hilarious analysis of Korean culture, society and its people. “I’ve received a number of invites

Author Choe In-ho, a literary legend whose works have been made into numerous movies and TV drama series, died of cancer on Wednesday, about seven months after the publication of his latest collection of essays, “Choe In-ho’s Life.” He was 68.Born in 1945 in Seoul, Choe is one of the very few Korean authors who started their writing careers as a teenager, along with Hwang Sok-yong. He made his literary debut at age 18, while attending Seoul High School, by winning a writing competition hosted by

In 2009, Samantha Geimer was watching the daytime talk show “The View” from her then-home in Hawaii when the panel took up the topic of her encounter at age 13 with director Roman Polanski. Polanski had just been arrested in Switzerland, more than three decades after the day in 1977 that changed both their lives.“It wasn’t rape-rape,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said, setting off a firestorm of criticism. In fact, it was “rape-rape” by nearly any definition except the charge to which Polanski pleade

Nicholson Baker never meant to write a sequel to “The Anthologist.” And yet, he explains by phone from his home in Maine, the narrator of that 2010 novel, a poet named Paul Chowder, kept demanding to be heard.“It was more a refusal,” Baker notes, “a refusal on Paul’s part to be overlooked. I was writing a different book, in my own voice, and I kept slipping into his voice. At a certain point, I just gave in.”Baker’s new novel, “Traveling Sprinkler” (Blue Rider), picks up Paul’s story a few years