
‘After the reading, the poets hold each other’: what happens when Ukraine’s largest literary festival comes under Russian attack

László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel prize in literature 2025
The Nobel prize in literature for 2025 has been awarded to the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, the Swedish Academy has announced.
The academy cited the 71-year-old’s “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”.
Krasznahorkai is known for his dystopian, melancholic novels, which have won numerous prizes, including the 2019 National Book award for translated literature and the 2015 International Booker prize. Several of his works, including his novels Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, have been adapted into feature films.
“I am deeply glad that I have received the Nobel prize – above all because this award proves that literature exists in itself, beyond various non-literary expectations, and that it is still being read,” said Krasznahorkai. “And for those who read it, it offers a certain hope that beauty, nobility, and the sublime still exist for their own sake. It may offer hope even to those in whom life itself only barely flickers.”
The novelist Colm Tóibín described Krasznahorkai as “a unique literary visionary who has opened up a huge amount of rich space in the contemporary novel showing what can be done”.
Palestinians celebrate as prisoners are released by Israel under Gaza ceasefire deal
Cheers erupted among Palestinians on Monday as Israel released nearly 2,000 prisoners under a Gaza ceasefire agreement that saw them exchanged for Israeli hostages freed by Hamas.
Large crowds greeted the freed prisoners in Beitunia in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Khan Younis in Gaza, flashing V-for-victory signs as they descended from International Committee of the Red Cross buses. In Beitunia, they were given traditional keffiyeh scarves as a show of nationalist pride. Some were lifted onto people’s shoulders. Others sank into chairs, exhausted.
“It was an indescribable journey of suffering — hunger, unfair treatment, oppression, torture and curses — more than anything you could imagine,” said Kamal Abu Shanab, a 51-year-old Fatah member from the West Bank town of Tulkarem.
His face was gaunt. He said he lost 139 pounds (59 kilograms) in prison.
We don’t recognize him. He’s not the person we knew. Our uncle doesn’t look like our uncle,” said his niece, Farah Abu Shanab.
Those freed include around 1,700 of the several thousand Palestinians that Israeli troops seized from Gaza during the 2-year war and have held without charge.
Also among those released were 250 Palestinians sentenced to prison terms, most of them convicted for deadly attacks on Israelis dating back decades as well as others convicted on lesser charges, according to Israel’s Justice Ministry. Of those, Israel exiled 154, sending them to neighboring Egypt, where officials said they will be sent to third countries.
The rest were returning to homes in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
Dr. Mark Brauner: The American Reckoning
Someday Israeli leaders will stand in The Hague for what they have done in Gaza, and they will deserve to. But if we are honest, we know US leaders belong there too.
I have met people who gave me grace in Iran, in Mexico, in Haiti, in Gaza, in Cambodia, in Vietnam. People who understood the difference between ordinary citizens and the governments that rule them. People who offered me kindness when they had every reason not to. That grace stays with me.
As a US citizen and physician, I have lived my life trying to hold onto a sense of responsibility. But what I see now, in Gaza, in Haiti, in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, is the full weight of what psychologists call diffusion of responsibility. It is the shrug that says: Someone else will answer for this, someone else will carry the shame.
The United States cannot keep living in that shrug. We armed, funded, and protected Israel as it has carried out the genocide of the Palestinian people. We have supplied not only weapons but coordination, intelligence, and political cover. We let the American Israel Public Affairs Committee function as the arm of a foreign government, not as a lobbying group. We looked away from the checkpoints, the administrative cruelty, the killing of children. This is our legacy.
But Gaza is not an aberration. It is a mirror held up to the long history of our interventions. We overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, in 1953, not because he was a tyrant but because he dared to nationalize oil. We turned that nation toward dictatorship and decades of repression, then had the arrogance to call it democracy. In Central America, we toppled leaders and propped up death squads. In Chile, we helped usher in the bloody reign of Augusto Pinochet, betraying yet another democratic choice in favor of authoritarian brutality.
We speak of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s murderous ways as if they are foreign to us. They are not. We have assassinated leaders. We have sanctioned extrajudicial killings, calling them “targeted strikes.” We have funded militias and trained torturers. We still carry Guantánamo on our conscience. We are not better than Putin. We are his rival and his mirror.
TVNL Comment: This is a MUST READ and MUST SHARE. It is something we never talk about, and don't want to face. Please read it all the way through. It is the legacy we refuse to accept.
British parts found in Russian drones, Zelensky says
British microcomputers were among more than 100,000 foreign-made parts contained in Russian missiles and drones used in Sunday's deadly strikes on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
The Ukrainian president called for further "effective" sanctions after saying parts originating in allied countries including Germany, Japan and the US have been identified in Russian weapons.
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said it had recently undertaken efforts to crack down on UK firms whose products have continued to make their way into Russia's military supply chain.
"We take reports of goods from UK companies being found in Russian weaponry incredibly seriously," a government spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the government had "banned the export of thousands of goods to Russia including every battlefield item Ukraine has brought to our attention," adding that they have imposed "the most severe package of sanctions".
Afghanistan says it has killed 58 Pakistani soldiers in overnight border operations
Afghanistan said Sunday it killed 58 Pakistani soldiers in overnight border operations, in response to what it called repeated violations of its territory and airspace.
Earlier in the week, Afghan authorities accused Pakistan of bombing the capital, Kabul, and a market in the country's east. Pakistan did not claim responsibility for the assault.
The Taliban government's chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said Afghan forces have captured 25 Pakistani army posts, 58 soldiers have been killed, and 30 others wounded.
"The situation on all official borders and de facto lines of Afghanistan is under complete control, and illegal activities have been largely prevented," Mujahid told a press conference in Kabul. There was no immediate confirmation from Pakistan about casualties.
Three Qatari officials killed in car crash in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh
Three Qatari officials have been killed in a car crash near the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to the Qatari Embassy in Cairo.
In a statement on Sunday, the diplomatic mission said that all three men worked for the Amiri Diwan, the administrative office of Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The embassy described the incident as a “tragic traffic accident” and said the three men were killed while performing their duties.
The accident also resulted in injuries to two others, it added.
Both of the injured officials are receiving medical care at a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh.
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