Students discuss their favorite banned books
BY RENN ELKINS '20
Banned and challenged books are often full of controversial themes, plots and characters. But for every person opposed to a particular book, there’s someone else on whom the same work made a tremendous impact. Here are a few of the banned and challenged books that are closest to the hearts of Mount Holyoke students.
Review: The brave books of Saadat Hasan Manto
BY DUR-E-MAKNOON AHMED '20
In the spirit of Banned Books Week, Saadat Hasan Manto’s Urdu short stories deserve attention. In Pakistan, Manto is both respectable and notorious. A few of his short stories, like “Toba Tek Singh,” are part of some school curricula, but others are hardly ever even mentioned aloud. Approximately 60years after his death in 1955, he still continues to be one of the most controversial Indo-Pakistani writers of all time.
Today’s world looks increasingly like an imagined dystopian future
BY RENN ELKINS ’ 20
“The future looks a lot like the past,” declares Esther Little, an enigmatic, semi-mortal woman of astounding psychic power, in the latter half of David Mitchell’s “The Bone Clocks.” She warns that “power grids [will] start failing in the late 2030s,” and that this is the “inevitable result [...] of population growth and lies about oil reserves.”
Haroon Moghul speaks about new book at Eid Celebration
BY DUR-E-MAKNOON AHMED ’20
Author Haroon Moghul delivered a keynote speech and signed copies of his new book “How to Be Muslim: An American Story,” on the Sept. 15 Eid Celebration in Chapin auditorium. Moghul was received by a vibrant gathering of students from all of the five colleges. The Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, this time in collaboration with the Odyssey Bookshop, annually hosts a dinner and keynote speaker to mark the Muslim holiday Eid-al-Adha, which fell on Sept. 1 this year.
Claudia Rankine discusses Mount Holyoke common read
Children’s Literature Series hosts author Patricia MacLachlan
BY RENN ELKINS’20
On Thursday, April 6, the Mount Holyoke College English department hosted the penultimate speaker in its children’s literature speaker series, Patricia MacLachlan, author of an impressive arsenal of both picture books and children’s novels, including the Newbery winner “Sarah, Plain and Tall” and its sequels.
Newbery Award winner Grace Lin visits Mount Holyoke
BY RILEY GUERRERO ’20
Write what you know” is perhaps the most feared piece of advice given to young authors. However, it was exactly this that lead to the first book of what would eventually become Grace Lin’s impressive bibliography. Lin, who concluded the Childrens Literature Series presentations last week, graduated from art school with aspirations to be a children’s book illustrator, Lin submitted her portfolio to editors across the country for years, but received virtually no call-backs. This all changed with a fateful phone call from a small-time editor who enjoyed her work, but felt that the images already had their own stories. Perhaps these were stories that she should write herself, and if she ever did, he said he would be happy to take a look at them. Thus, “The Ugly Vegetables” was born, followed by picture books, early-reader novels, poetry collections, folktales and realistic fiction, all borne of two decades of work, research and drawings.
ONE FOR THE BOOKS: MHN recommends and reviews our favorites this year
Jane Yolen: a literary legend visits Mount Holyoke
Milo Yiannopoulos book deal dropped by Simon & Schuster
Childrens’ writer Mordicai Gerstein visits Mount Holyoke
“I have never dreamed of being a writer.”
These were the words that opened the compelling, inspiring and highly entertaining lecture delivered on Thursday, Feb. 16, by acclaimed children’s fiction writer Mordicai Gerstein. Gerstein’s visit was the first of a series hosted by Mount Holyoke College’s English department, which is set to feature several other authors of children’s literature in the coming weeks.
(Double)think before you speak: 1984’s reflection of modern politics
Doublethink, perhaps one of the most famous portmanteaus to come out of Orwell’s magnum opus “1984,” has taken on a far too literal meaning in 2017’s America. Regardless of one’s political opinions it is impossible to deny that the recent election and the incoming administration have been defined by fake news, denial of truths, silencing of alternative voices and the destruction of evidence.
Philip Pullman to release “His Dark Materials” companion series
After 17 years, the first book in a much-anticipated companion series to the “His Dark Materials” trilogy is set to be released in October 2017. The HDM trilogy has received international acclaim in the years since its release, as has its author, Philip Pullman. Pullman, a decorated author and current president of Britain’s Society of Authors, has long been known for his vocal humanism, political involvement and successful two-decade writing career, has until recently been nearly silent about the prospect of a companion series.
Why hating poetry is the best way to love it
BY DUR-E MAKNOON AHMED '20
My relationship with poetry has always been strange. I grew up reading my mom’s copies of Shakespeare and Robert Browning. As a child, I would watch my parents listen to nationalist poems set to music and debate with each other about meanings and significance of powerful couplets by the eminent Urdu poet Iqbal. In this environment, I subconsciously assumed that I had to love poetry.
“Harry Potter” and the never-ending universe expansion
BY RILEY GUERRERO '20
More than just a children’s story, the “Harry Potter” series became synonymous with childhood itself for many people around the world. I remember when I unwrapped the seventh book on Christmas nine years ago, my heart racing with anxiety over what I was sure was the final chapter and my last glimpse into the magical wizarding world.
Oh, how wrong I was.
November is NaNoWriMo
BY SARAH CAVAR '20
“Write a novel? In a month?”
When I first heard about the existence of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, this was my skeptical first thought. That, and, “What a tedious acronym.” However, for many people across the country, and around the world, NaNoWriMo is a kind of religion. The objective of this month-long event? Complete a 50,000 word-long novel in just thirty days — a goal that, to many people, seems bizarre and impossible.
New Oxford Shakespeare to credit Marlowe as coauthor
BY RENN ELKINS '20
On Oct. 23 and 24, an eye-catching headline blared across the pages of several renowned news sources, including the New York Times, the Guardian, and NPR: William Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe will be credited as coauthor of the three-part “Henry VI” cycle in the New Oxford Shakespeare publication of the Bard’s collected works.
Upcoming TV adaptation of “American Gods” shows promise: New show to hit screens in early 2017
BY RENN ELKINS ’20
It’s no secret within the realm of fantasy devotees that the upcoming television adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel “American Gods” is the most anticipated page-to-screen adaptation of darkly humored contemporary mythology since, well, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” With a production crew consisting of executive producers Michael Green (“Heroes,” “Kings”), Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal,” “Pushing Daisies”) and, of course, Gaiman himself, the anticipation is well-deserved — and, unlike in the case of 2010’s tragic butchering of Rick Riordan’s YA novel, the buildup is nearly guaranteed to culminate in a piece of television that actually does justice to its source material.
Stephen King’s “IT” returns to scare a new generation
BY RILEY GUERRERO '20
The newest “IT” movie, based on the novel by Stephen King, has recently begun filming. The film is set to come out in 2017, and though the initial reaction of any fan is to reject unnecessary changes by corporate media, we must consider, especially with this particular story, what should be changed for the newest iteration in theaters