NWNY members share cultural recommendations from around the world

Multicultural ideas on what to watch, listen and read in the final unofficial weekend of summer

Summer is winding down, and a long weekend is around the corner. This year, instead of reviewing the summer book releases about the immigrant experience, we decided to turn to members of the NWNY community, asking them to share cultural recommendations that reflect their heritage.

The result is an affectionate compilation of personal favorites from around the world, which will take you to a remote Chinese town, to 19th century Rio de Janeiro and to Tsarist Russia, among many others. Here’s inspiration for the final unofficial weekend of summer. Enjoy the journey – all books are available for free through the New York Public Library, while links are provided to movies and music. 

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
Writer Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s to teach English in a remote town on the Yangtze River. What he experienced though surpassed anything he could have imagined. In this book, Hessler observes major events including the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial construction of a dam that profoundly affected people in the village. “A unique insight about life in China”, says Tianrui, a graduate from LEAD and Storytelling with The Moth, who is originally from China.

Amerika Square
Filmmaker Yannis Sakaridis presents a clever satirical view of the Greek migrant crisis by exploring both xenophobic and sympathetic sentiments of Greeks towards foreigners escaping the war and hardships that engulfed their native lands. “Excellent recent film about the immigrant crisis in Athens, very powerful!”, observes Irene, a NWNY volunteer who was born in South Africa from Greek parents.

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
A mixed-race grandson of ex-slaves, Brazilian Machado de Assis is the country’s most famous writer, celebrated by luminaries like Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsberg, John Updike, and Salman Rushdie. In his highly Inventive masterpiece, the 1881 novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, the ghost of a decadent aristocrat decides to write his memoir. This new English translation by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux is the first to include comprehensive notes giving historical and cultural context as well as excerpts from previous versions of the novel never before published in English. “I’m looking forward to reading it again, observing how this new translation brings the work of one the greatest authors in the Americas to audiences in the United States”, says Bruna, NWNY program associate, who is originally from Brazil. 

Near to the Wild Heart 
Clarice Lispector’s inventive debut novel was written in a stream-of-consciousness style that Brazilian critics associated with James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Marcel Proust. Instead of a conventional plot, the book recounts flashes from the life of Joana, from her present, as a young woman, to her early childhood, focusing on her interior life and changing emotional states. Joana, described by an aunt as a “strange creature … with neither friends nor God,” seems to unsettle everyone, bearing an uncanny resemblance to her creator. Lispector was born in transit, just two months before her family’s arrival in Brazil from Ukraine. Although the Lispectors spoke Yiddish at home, Clarice grew up as an assimilated Brazilian. “French critic and writer Hélène Cixous used to describe her saying: ‘If Kafka had been a woman’. I would say that Clarice Lispector is a towering figure in her own right, she is just not translated into English as often”, observes Bruna.

Selected poems by Wisława Szymborska
Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996, Polish Wisława Szymborska wrote poetry and essays that addressed existential questions, illuminating the human experience, the transitoriness of the now and everyday life. Her work is characterized by a simplified, “personal” language, a striking combination of spirituality, ingenuity, and empathy. “You have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything,” she once said in an interview. Good places to start appreciating her style is this selection by New Yorker magazine, where she published sixteen poems between 1992 and 2006, and the Nobel prize selection. “Here goes Polish representation. I really admire her work, along with composer Michal Lorenc and film director Krzysztof Kieślowski. I think that through their work they built and continue to build many bridges”, says Marzena, a member of the NWNY community. 

1944
One of the most famous contemporary Ukrainian singers is Jamala. Her song “1944” won 1st place at the 2016 Eurovision contest, in which 43 participants from 43 different European countries participated. The Eurovision victory made her famous in Ukraine and beyond.“Literature, poetry and music are an integral part of the Ukrainian culture. Ukraine is a singing nation: songs and music are the soul of the Ukrainian people. In fact, most Ukrainian people have nice voices and simply love to sing”, says Olga, a graduate from LEAD who is originally from Ukraine. 

The Museum of Abandoned Secrets
The novel covers nearly 60 years of Ukraine’s recent turbulent history, from the Stalin era through WWII, the guerilla warfare leading to independence, and the 2004 Orange Revolution. The story revolves around the mysterious lives of three Ukrainian women. “Ukrainian literature is still a ‘terra incognita’ for many people worldwide. There are several reasons for that: most people outside of Ukraine simply do not speak the language, and not that many Ukrainian books are translated into English”, shares Olga. This volume, however, has a good translation to English, and  it was also well received by the non-Ukrainian readers.

El alma en los labios
Originally a poem by Ecuadorian poet Medardo Ángel Silva Rodas, it became famous as a song by a famous Ecuadorian singer Julio Jaramillo, the biggest icon of the “pasillos” — the most representative music of Ecuador, it was originated as an expression of joy at the time of independence in the first decades of the 19th century as an adaptation of the Austrian waltz. “Rodas’s poems were very melancholic, and Julio Jaramillo is extremely special to me. It was the singer that my mother used to listen to when I was a child. My mother’s favorite song by Jaramillo was “Nuestro Juramento” , which is basically a love poem”, observes Sara. 

War and Peace
“In any country there is a book or more that shows the culture and character of its people. To understand the mysterious Russian soul I would suggest reading “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy”, says Anna, a LEAD graduate who volunteers at NWNY. The volume, one of the greatest novels ever written, documents the French invasion of Russia  and its unfoldings on Russian society through the lens of five aristocratic families — the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins, and the Drubetskoys. Braveness, irrationality, dedication,  naiveness and sensitivity, and selfishness at once -—that’s all included in Russian DNA. This book is more than just a story about families; it is a masterpiece about the human nature, about the generations before us and after us.

With reporting by Maria Pyaterneva