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Hindustan Times
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Spice of life: Lord Wavell, a viceroy with the heart of a poet
For many in India, Lord Wavell shall be remembered as one of the last long-serving viceroys, having served at the helm from 1943-47 and as a man who held onto his colonial mindset till the very end, alienating not only Indian politicians but also his masters sitting in London. It would be apt to remember Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell this May, as the month brought him both his birth (May 5, 1883) as well as his death (May 24, 1950). Lord Wavell might not have been a success in the political office of viceroy but he was a great military man and what may surprise many, an even more successful writer and poet, having authored six books. Lord Wavell had a passion for poetry since childhood. He could memorise long poems with ease. He was often showed off by his parents to relatives and friends to recite reams of poetry. Apart from fighting the Boer War, two World Wars, attaining the highest rank of Field Marshal, earning an earldom and serving as viceroy of India, he was known to devote a lot of time to his duties as president of the Poetry Society, the Royal Society of Literature, the Kipling Society and Browning Society. His military aide, Peter Fleming (travel writer and brother of Ian Fleming, the man who created the character of James Bond), once asked him to compile his favourite poems for publishing. Initially hesitant, Lord Wavell took on the task and compiled the volume of 255 poems almost totally from memory. The result was Other Men's Flowers, published in 1944. Priced at 10 shillings and six pence, the book sold out immediately and remains in print even Times commended his book and welcomed him as 'the latest recruit to the ranks of anthologists'. To mend fences with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who was incarcerated in Ahmednagar Fort, he sent an inscribed copy of his book along with a personal letter. Pandit Nehru was delighted and described the book as 'a good one'. He dedicated this book to his son, who shared his love for poetry. Unfortunately, the poetry-loving son died a brave soldier battling the Mau Mau in Kenya after having lost his left arm in the Second World War. After four years of war when he visited the Madonna of the Cherries, he wrote a sonnet to all things beautiful that help us forget the dreariness of war. 'For all the loveliness, the warmth, that light, / Blessed Madonna, I go back to fight,' wrote Lord Wavell as the last lines of his sonnet (Page510, Other Men's Flowers), emphasising the fact that sometimes war has to be fought to safeguard the beautiful things in life. gurnoorgrewal572@ The writer is a Chandigarh-based freelance contributor.
Korea Herald
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Poet Kim Hye-soon elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Acclaimed South Korean poet Kim Hye-soon has been elected as an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Kim was named among eight new members in the Literature section of the Academy's Humanities and Arts division, part of this year's incoming class of 248 new members. The 69-year-old poet is the first Korean writer to be elected to the Academy's literature section. Korean American novelist Lee Chang-rae and poet Choi Don-mee were previously inducted as members in 2021 and 2023 respectively. Kim joins a cohort of American writers selected this year, including the poet Kwame Dawes; playwright Katori Hall; novelists Claire Messud, Caryl Phillips, Amy Tan and Jacqueline Woodson; and human rights activist and author Rebecca Solnit. Born in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province in 1955, Kim debuted as a poet in 1979. She is widely celebrated both in Korea and abroad. In 2019, she became the first Asian woman to win Canada's Griffin Poetry Prize for "The Autobiography of Death" (2016), translated by Korean American poet Choi Don-mee. She also received the Swedish Cicada Prize in 2021, and in 2024, became the first Korean writer to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for her collection "Phantom Pain Wings," also translated by Choi. In 2022, she was recognized as "International Writer" by the Royal Society of Literature in London. Since 1780, the AAAS has honored excellence and convened leaders from across disciplines to examine new ideas, address issues of importance and work together 'to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people.' The first members elected to the Academy in 1781 included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. 'These new members' accomplishments speak volumes about the human capacity for discovery, creativity, leadership and persistence. They are a stellar testament to the power of knowledge to broaden our horizons and deepen our understanding,' said Academy President Laurie L. Patton in a press release. While the majority of members are American, the Academy also selects a number of international honorary members each year. Of the 248 members elected in 2025, 23 — including Kim — are from outside the United States. Kim is the only Korean among them.
The Guardian
03-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘Meta has stolen books': authors to protest in London against AI trained using ‘shadow library'
Authors and other publishing industry professionals will stage a demonstration outside Meta's London office today in protest of the organisation's use of copyrighted books to train artificial intelligence. Novelists Kate Mosse and Tracy Chevalier as well as poet and former Royal Society of Literature chair Daljit Nagra will be among those in attendance outside the company's King's Cross office. Protesters will meet at Granary Square at 1.30pm and a letter to Meta from the Society of Authors (SoA) will be hand-delivered at 1.45pm. It will also be sent to Meta headquarters in the US. Earlier this year, a US court filing alleged that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg approved the company's use of a notorious 'shadow library', LibGen, which contains more than 7.5 million books. Last month, the Atlantic republished a searchable database of the titles contained in LibGen, through which many authors discovered their works may have been used to train Meta's AI models. SoA chair Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin characterised Meta's actions as 'illegal, shocking, and utterly devastating for writers'. 'A book can take a year or longer to write. Meta has stolen books so that their AI can reproduce creative content, potentially putting these same authors out of business,' she added. A spokesperson from Meta said: 'We respect third-party intellectual property rights and believe our use of information to train AI models is consistent with existing law.' Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion A group of prominent authors including Mosse, Richard Osman, Kazuo Ishiguro and Val McDermid recently signed an SoA letter addressed to culture secretary Lisa Nandy, asking for Meta executives to be summoned to parliament. The statement was published on as a petition which has since garnered 7,000 signatures. 'I was horrified to see that my novels were on the LibGen database and I'm disgusted by the government's silence on the matter,' said novelist AJ West, who is leading today's protest. 'To have my beautiful books ripped off like this without my permission and without a penny of compensation then fed to the AI monster feels like I've been mugged.' A court filing made in January by a group of authors suing Meta for copyright infringement in the US – which includes Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jacqueline Woodson, Andrew Sean Greer, Junot Díaz and the comedian Sarah Silverman – claimed that company executives, including Zuckerberg, were aware that LibGen is a database believed to contain pirated material when they allowed its use. Authors are 'rightly up in arms', said SoA chief executive Anna Ganley. 'The fact that these online libraries of pirated books continue to exist is bad enough, but when global companies use them to unlawfully access and exploit authors' copyright-protected works, it is a double blow for authors.' Demonstrators are encouraged to make placards, and the SoA has suggested several protest hashtags: #MetaBookThieves, #DoTheWriteThing and #MakeItFair.
Yahoo
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Catherine Peters, author who wrote acclaimed biographies of Dickens, Byron and Wilkie Collins
Catherine Peters, who has died aged 94, had a lauded academic career that only began when she was 50; The King of Inventors (2016), is the standard life of Wilkie Collins, and she also wrote much-praised books on Thackeray (1987), Byron (2000) and Charles Dickens (2009). She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1992, and that year was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography Prize, as well as being runner-up for the Southern Arts Literature Award. All this was accomplished despite a sometimes miserable and traumatic childhood and unhappy first marriage. Catherine Lisette Peters was born in London on September 30 1930, one of two children of AD Peters, the literary agent whose formidable list included JB Priestley, CS Lewis and Evelyn Waugh. He had been born to Danish parents in Schleswig-Holstein as August Detlef Peters, which was changed to Augustus Dudley when he was adopted, aged three, by an aunt in London. Catherine's mother was Helen MacGregor. The marriage ended in divorce, and Catherine and her brother stayed with their mother. In 1932 Helen married a client of AD Peters, Anthony Berkeley Cox – author, under a clutch of noms de plume, of popular novels, chiefly crime fiction, including his best-known, Malice Aforethought. This marriage ended in the late 1940s. Catherine was two when her mother married her stepfather, and was in her teens when the marriage broke up. Cox sexually abused her (as she later told her eldest son, the writer Matthew Barton). Adding to this wretchedness, she lost her elder brother, Richard, who was killed in 1945 in Burma behind Japanese lines. In January 1952, aged only 21, with the blonde good looks of a film starlet, Catherine married the saturnine, handsome John Glyn Barton, a solicitor, who would be prospective Liberal candidate for South Paddington in 1963 – and serial womaniser. They had four children, Matthew (poet and writer), Robert (biological anthropologist), Will (the actor, Will Barton), and Thomas, who died aged nine in a drowning accident. Their mother, effectively a single parent, had taken them in 1966 on holiday to the west of Ireland, 'cramming us all into her tiny Mini car with luggage strapped precariously to the roof-rack, driving all the way from London to the ferry in Wales,' wrote Robert. It was there that Thomas drowned. The reprobate husband turned up but took only two of the boys with him, leaving Catherine to deal with practical matters, the shock and the grief. 'He was a rogue,' said Will, 'and left us to pursue chaos. Women were his Achilles heel.' They divorced in 1965. Catherine bore all this stoically – the one bright spot being Fleet House in the Vale of Health, Hampstead, a Victorian villa where they moved in the mid-1950s. It was located in the middle of the Heath, so it was more like being in idyllic countryside than in London. There were lots of parties and long family walks: 'We children ran feral on the Heath making dens and climbing trees,' recalled Robert, and in summer Catherine was a regular at the ladies' swimming pond; their neighbours included the pianist Alfred Brendel. While bringing up her three sons, Catherine worked for her father's agency, and as a publishers' reader for Jonathan Cape from the late 1960s to about 1973. In October 1970 Catherine married Anthony Storr, the writer and Jungian psychoanalyst who had a passion for music, which Catherine shared. His marriage history was a source of confusion, as the first wife, whom he divorced the same year, was also called Catherine Storr, and also a client of AD Peters. The first Catherine Storr was the bestselling author of children's books such as Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf (1955). This is why Catherine Storr the literary scholar always published as Catherine Peters. (Following their divorce in 1970 Catherine, the first wife, married the economist Lord Balogh and styled herself Lady Balogh.) Anthony Storr gave up his private psychiatric practice in 1974 and they moved to Oxford, where he was consultant psychotherapist for the Oxford Area Health Authority, a lecturer in psychiatry and member of the Senior Common Room of Wadham College; he later joined Green College. He published a dozen or more books and made frequent appearances on radio and television. At this point, in 1977, with the children now grown, Catherine went as a mature student to read English language and literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and graduated in 1980 with the best First of her year. She then taught English literature at Somerville from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. After her retirement, in her mid-sixties she taught evening classes at Oxford's Department of Continuing Education. In a 1996 interview in The Independent she said that her pupils tended to stay the course. 'What happens is usually we get a great crowd at the first meeting. Those who don't think it's going to live up to their expectations drift away, but there is a hard core which stays and completes the two terms, which is 20 evenings. Not only that, they come back year after year. There are a lot of retired people who say it is the only thing that keeps them going. They say it ought to be on the National Health.' Catherine Storr also wrote poetry all her life, some of which was published in small collections, and was a regular reviewer for several papers and magazines. She and Anthony entertained a good deal at their house in Oxford. She was a good and imaginative cook, the wine was poured generously, and the guests were drawn from the most interesting company Oxford had to offer, along with many from the London media and the music world. After Anthony's death in 2001, Catherine moved to a modern flat, where her next-door neighbour was an old chum, Desmond Morris. Her three sons gave her much pleasure. In her last years, suffering from mild dementia, she moved to a care home, which appeared to give her a new enjoyment of life. Life dealt her some rotten hands along with some tremendous gifts; she played them without complaining, and made the most of her talents. Catherine Peters, born September 30 1930, died January 12 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
