Around the World: Launch Edition

By Aliaa El Sandouby, Andrew McGregor, Candice Hoyes, Lea Aschkenas, Marco Musillo, Tomas HachardOctober 27, 2013

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This week, the Los Angeles Review of Books launches a new section. "Around the World" will explore and profile thinkers, writers, artists and activists in countries all over the world, whose work transcends national borders and boundaries, whether it be in painting, music, poetry or fiction, journalism, public service or advocacy in the public interest. Media in the United States, especially as the progressive defunding of overseas bureaus has led to less coverage of the world around us, have become more, rather than less provincial. We hope to do our little bit to reverse that trend.

Every article, interview and essay in this section is intended to create a point of correspondence between LARB readers here and worldwide, with an emphasis on the multilingualism that so often drives vanguard achievements in culture, politics and the literary arts. As the writers solicited to publish for this section often hail from countries and communities outside of the United States, we will publish bilingual editions of their articles whenever possible.

Everyone Has a Place: Soprano Candice Hoyes interviews Wynton Marsalis on the Abyssinian Mass, gospel music and its significance worldwide.

Aliaa El Sandouby documents her experience attending the massive protests that led to the ouster of Mohammed Morsy in Egypt.

Marco Musillo delivers a photoessay of his visit to the international art exhibition La Biennale di Venezia.

Lea Aschkenas interviews Lucy Mulloy about her debut feature film Una Noche, the story of three teenagers migrating from Cuba to the United States via a makeshift raft.

Tomas Hachard reviews the work of Argentinian novelist César Aira.

Andrew McGregor interviews Qabaata Boru on keeping the news alive from outside Ethiopia.

LARB Contributors

Aliaa El Sandouby was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. She left Egypt in 2001 to pursue a doctorate in Islamic Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has been on the faculty at Helwan University in Cairo since 2008. She lives with her husband and four children in Southern California and travels regularly to Cairo.

Andrew McGregor is a journalist, frequent TEDx speaker, filmmaker, inventor, writer, chessboxer, Highland games athlete, and entrepreneur. He has founded or co-founded several not-for-profits and social-enterprise companies and has managed humanitarian programs in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is the curator of MindshareLA and has a master’s degree from the University of Southern California.

International soprano Candice Hoyes debuts in 2014 at the National Slovenian Opera in the title role of Piccinni's La Cecchina, a reprisal of her Italian debut. Recent debuts include Hungary's Szeged Open Air Festival and Nevada Opera. Candice trained at Lorin Maazel's Castleton Festival and the Caramoor Festival. She graduated from Harvard University cum laude in Sociology, Columbia Law School and Westminster Choir College.

Lea Aschkenas is the author of Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island (Seal Press, 2006). She lives in Northern California where she works as a public librarian and teaches poetry-writing with California Poets in the Schools. Visit her at www.leaaschkenas.com.

Marco Musillo is an art historian, photographer, and curator who studies early modern and modern Italian and Chinese art, critical theory, and spectatorship. He received his Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia and will spend Fall 2013 at the Getty Research Institute. Musillo’s photographic explorations focus on shifting perspectives: how to capture and describe visual transformations taking shape in cultural, artistic, and political spaces of display.

Tomas Hachard is an Editorial Assistant for Guernica Magazine. He has written about art, politics, and himself for NPR, The Morning News, and The Millions, among others. Follow him on Twitter: @thachard.