Rivers for Reflection

Yesterday I attended a very moving St. Paul Chamber Orchestra performance of Neharot, Neharot by Israeli composer Betty Olivero for viola, accordion, percussion and two string ensembles. The viola soloist was Kim Kashkashian, who has recorded the composition. This haunting piece uses the elegies of women who had lost loved ones in the Israeli conflict with militias of the Lebanese Hezbollah in 2006 as it's touchstone.  The program notes explain,

The title of the composition Neharo't Neharo't, means “Rivers, Rivers” in Hebrew and refers to the rivers and floods of tears which are too often shed by mourning women in disastrous situations. On the other hand, the title contains also an element of hope: the root of the Hebrew word “nahar” (river) resembles the word “nehara,” meaning “ray of light.”

I found the music very appropriate to marking this Holy Week and the season of reflection we experience each April with Remembrance Days for both the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. How fitting too, that we are reading Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife this month at the same time the people of Sarajevo are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the siege their city. Take a few minutes to soak this in. Listen to Part 1 above. Here is Part 2.

Rights Readers Goes to the Opera

I discovered recently that the Lyric Opera of Chicago plans a 2015 world premier opera based on Ann Patchett's novel (about an opera singer), Bel Canto. Peruvian-born composer Jimmy Lopez has been assigned the score and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz will pen the libretto, with soprano Renee Fleming as creative consultant. Although the book seems an obvious choice for stage treatment, the Chicago Reader notes a formidable barrier,

The story, about a group of trapped hostages and their captors, all speaking different languages and communicating through an interpreter, is a dramatist's nightmare. Cruz says he "immediately connected" with the material of the novel, but is wrestling with the fact that "we have to be cautious or the translator will be the main character."

We'll keep an eye on this.

Meanwhile, this got me to wondering just how many books we have read that have subsequently been turned into operas. When you stop and think about it, there is a lot of drama in the struggle for human rights, with plenty of  bloody action, soulful martyrs, and just general outrageousness that opera requires.

Probably the most famous book-to-opera we've encountered would be Dead Man Walking, based on Helen Prejean's death row memoir, which has been successfully produced by a number of opera companies. Sister Helen wrote on her blog recently,

I was just in Tulsa, Oklahoma, giving talks and media interviews for the opera of Dead Man Walking, which opens on February 25, performed by the Tulsa Opera. I got to meet the entire cast, including the 12 or so children, whose piping young voices inject hope.

Immediately after I left, Kirstin Chavez, the mezzo who will portray me (her aria is “My journey…”) got on Facebook with Susan Graham and Joyce DiDonato who have been me in past operas. I heard the Sr Helen Trio had a lively chat, with the two vets offering robust encouragement to Kirstin.

I appreciate opera singers now that I realize how long they prepare, how hard they work, and the stress they feel.

Joyce DiDonato and the Houston Grand Opera will release a recording of a recording Dead Man Walking on April 24. Click here for an xcerpt from the production that includes the children Sister Helen mentions.

Another book we have read that has been transformed for the stage is Reinaldo Arenas' Before Night Falls. Orchestra Miami will present the opera this fall.  The world premier performance of the Jorge Martin score, by the Fort Worth Opera featuring baritone Wes Mason as the dissident Cuban writer, has also been recorded. Here's a sample:



Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran has been given a chamber opera staging.  If Nixon in China is worthy of an opera, Iran does seems a likely setting for a contemporary story. That's why I'm really curious about this Tony Kushner-Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis)-Kronos Quartet collaboration promised for the upcoming PEN World Voices Festival.

What else might be diva worthy? Both Sonia Nazario's Enrique's Journey and Junot Diaz' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao have received theatrical treatments. But I was thinking our most recent book, The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht would be a good candidate-- they can stage the Lion King right? So a tiger, a bear or a stray elephant can't be that hard. It's got a song-writing, gusla-playing character, multiple generations of tragedy, zany fantasy elements and oh, the 'tiger's wife' is a deaf-mute. Hmm. That could be tough, but I'm sure there are some creative minds out there up to the challenge.

A bookish look at the World Bank President nominees

Who would have thought that there would be so many Rights Readers angles to the appointment of a World Bank President? At first I thought the hook was a movement to draft Nobel Prize Winner and guru of microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, (Banker To The Poor). But, he politely demurred. But then I read that the Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is seeking the position. Her son, Uzodinma Iweala, is the author of a novel we read, Beasts of No Nation. The Economist has strongly endorsed her candidacy,

Ms Okonjo-Iweala is an orthodox economist, which many will hold against her. But if there is one thing the world has discovered about poverty reduction in the past 15 years, it is that development is not something rich countries do to poor ones. It is something poor countries manage for themselves, mainly by the sort of policies that Ms Okonjo-Iweala has pursued with some success in Nigeria.

And then there is President Barack Obama's nominee, Jim Yong Kim. Mr. Kim, currently the President of Dartmouth College, is a co-founder of Partners in Health along with Paul Farmer. We learned about their innovations in global public health when we read Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains. If you have the time, this lecture on global health from a couple years ago is a nice introduction to Jim Kim, or check out this Bill Moyers interview to find out, among other things, what insights his unusual background in medicine and anthropology might bring to the culture of the World Bank,

BILL MOYERS: You are trained as an anthropologist too, as well as in medicine. What do you think the eye of an anthropologist sees, that a physician on his or her own might not see?

DR. JIM YONG KIM: Well, I think that in medicine, what we're trained to do is to look for patterns, to build order out of great complexity, out of very subtle signs and symptoms, and then have a plan where you can act. Anthropologists are a little bit different, we don't often act on what we do. So I'm sort of in the middle now. I do the ethnography, to try to get a sense of what the culture is. 

You know, if you want to know what anthropologists do, one of my great professors, Sally Falk Moore once said, it's very simple. You walk into a room and you say, "Who are these people and what do they want?" So if you're constantly asking that question, over time, you build up a sense of how a particular social system works. That's always what we've done. Paul Farmer's also an anthropologist, we've done this together for many, many years.

What is it that we need to do to actually change policy around HIV treatment or drug resistant TB treatment? And that anthropological piece of it, linked to a physician's approach to solving a problem and putting a solution on the table, taking people through difficult times-- That's been a very good combination for me.

Both Mr. Kim and Ms. Okonjo-Iweala would be ground-breaking appointments. It should be exciting to see where the World Bank goes from here.

Catching up with Clea Koff

This month we are reading The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, a novel that takes us to the Balkans, and in the company of a young woman and her grandfather, both physicians, and a lot of inventive folktale-like storytelling, into the physical and psychological wounds of several generations of conflict.  There's even some digging for bones, and that reminded me of an earlier nonfiction Rights Readers selection from some years back, The Bone Woman, a memoir by Clea Koff. Koff is a forensic anthropologist who was part of the team investigating war crimes in both Rwanda and the Balkans. Here's an interview from last summer where she explains the kind of evidence a forensic team working for the International Criminal Tribune for the Former Yugoslavia might bring to bear on the ongoing trials of war criminals such as Ratko Mladic. For readers of The Tiger's Wife who'd like to know the reality behind the book, The Bone Woman would be a good place to start.

Of course, I was interested in finding out what Koff has been up to recently and was surprised to learn that she is the author of two mysteries, Freezing and the forthcoming Passing about a pair of L.A-based forensic investigators solving missing persons identification cases. Sounds promising! Mystery fans! Let me know if you think one of these would be a good option for our August mystery month selection some time...

For July: Running the Books by Avi Steinberg

We have selected Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian by Avi Steinberg for July,

Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from yeshiva to Harvard, he has only a senior thesis essay on Bugs Bunny to show for his effort. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, he remains stuck at a crossroads, unable to meet the lofty expectations of his Orthodox Jewish upbringing. And his romantic existence as a freelance obituary writer just isn’t cutting it. Seeking direction—and dental insurance—Steinberg takes a job as a librarian in a tough Boston prison.

The prison library counter, his new post, attracts con men, minor prophets, ghosts, and an assortment of quirky regulars searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. There’s an anxious pimp who solicits Steinberg’s help in writing a memoir. A passionate gangster who dreams of hosting a cooking show titled Thug Sizzle. A disgruntled officer who instigates a major feud over a Post-it note. A doomed ex-stripper who asks Steinberg to orchestrate a reunion with her estranged son, himself an inmate. Over time, Steinberg is drawn into the accidental community of outcasts that has formed among his bookshelves — a drama he recounts with heartbreak and humor. But when the struggles of the prison library — between life and death, love and loyalty — become personal, Steinberg is forced to take sides.

Running the Books is a trenchant exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world while trying not to get fired in the process. 

For June: Children and Fire by Ursula Hegi

We have selected Ursula Hegi's novel Children and Fire for June:

Though more than fifteen years have passed since Ursula Hegi’s Stones from the River captivated critics and readers alike, it retains its popularity, is on academic reading lists, and continues to be adopted by book groups.

Also set in Burgdorf, Germany, Hegi’s Children and Fire tells the story of a single day that will forever transform the lives of the townspeople. At the core of this remarkable novel is the question of how one teacher—gifted and joyful, passionate and inventive—can become seduced by propaganda during the early months of Hitler’s regime and encourage her ten-year-old students to join the “Hitler-Jugend” with its hikes and songs and bonfires. Membership, she believes, will be a step toward better schools, better apprenticeships.

How can a woman we admire choose a direction we don’t admire? So much has changed for the teacher, Thekla Jansen, and the people of Burgdorf in the year since the parliament building burned. Thekla’s lover, Emil Hesping, is sure the Nazis did it to frame the communists. But Thekla believes what she hears on the radio, that the communists set the fire, and she’s willing to relinquish some of her freedoms to keep her teaching position. She has always taken her moral courage for granted, but when each silent agreement chips away at that courage, she knows she must reclaim it.

Hegi funnels pivotal moments in history through the experiences of individual characters: Thekla’s mother, who works as a housekeeper for a Jewish family; her employers, Michel and Ilse Abramowitz; Thekla’s mentally ill father; Trudi Montag and her father, Leo Montag; Fräulein Siderova, midwife to the dying; and the students who adore their young teacher. As Ursula Hegi writes along that edge where sorrow and bliss meet, she shows us how one society—educated, cultural, compassionate—can slip into a reality that’s fabricated by propaganda and controlled by fear, how a surge of national unity can be manipulated into the dehumanization of a perceived enemy and the justification of torture and murder.
Gorgeously rendered and emotionally taut, Children and Fire confirms Ursula Hegi’s position as one of the most distinguished writers of her generation.

Our March Author: Malalai Joya

This month we are reading A Woman Among Warlords by Malalai Joya. Joya served in the Afghan parliament until she was banned in 2007 for denouncing the presence of warlords and war criminals in that legislative body.  She continues to speak out for the rights of Afghan women and the cause of democracy. The author has her own multilingual website.  Do check that out for the latest news and comment and give a moment to the archive which contains more video clips like the one below from her appearance before the Loya Jirga of December 2003 which propelled her into international prominence.



A couple of older interviews are available online from New Statesman and PBS Now:

NOW: What is it like to fight for women's rights in your country?

To fight for women's rights in a besieged and benighted country like Afghanistan is accepting a big risk with many challenges. It is like going against water current. But it is a proud and shining struggle and through it we can teach the dark-minded misogynist elements that women are capable to change the world when they move into action. 

 Here she is being interviewed by Sonali Kolhatkar on Uprising.



There are several other lengthy videos of her book tour appearances here in the states. Take your pick-- Harvard with Noam Chomsky, Villanova (also available for download via iTunes), Uptake in Minneapolis.

Speaking of our friend Sonali, be sure to check out the Afghan Women's Mission website. It has been a while since we collaborated with this organization, which sponsored Malalai Joya's book tour last year, so this is a great opportunity to get reacquainted.

Catch up with Amnesty's work on Afghanistan here and be sure to take action on behalf of Afghan women.