Tag Archives: Nobel

November 29, 2024 · 6:41 PM

December 2024 Literary Calendar

Events in the month of December for writers and readers

Read a New Book Month

  • December 1 – National Christmas Lights Day; World AIDS Day
  • December 2 – International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
  • December 3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities
  • December 4 – Wildlife Conservation Day
  • December 5 – Walt Disney’s Birthday; International Volunteer Day; World Soil Day
  • December 6 – Ira Gershwin’s Birthday; Joyce Kilmer’s Birthday
  • December 7 – International Civil Aviation Day; National Letter Writing Day
  • December 9 – John Milton’s Birthday; Christmas Card Day; International Anti-Corruption Day; International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide; National Llama Day
  • December 10 – Emily Dickinson’s Birthday; Dewey Decimal System Day; Human Rights Day; International Animal Rights Day; Nobel Prize Day
  • December 11 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Birthday; International Mountain Day; UNICEF Birthday
  • December 12 – International Day of Neutrality; International Universal Health Coverage Day
  • December 13 – National Day of the Horse (U.S.)
  • December 14 – Nostradamus’ Birthday
  • December 15 – Bill of Rights Day (U.S.)
  • December 16 – Jane Austen’s Birthday; Ludwig van Beethoven’s Birthday; National Chocolate Covered Anything Day
  • December 17 – National Maple Syrup Day (U.S.); Wright Brothers Day (U.S.)
  • December 18 – International Migrants Day; National Twin Day (U.S.)
  • December 20 – International Human Solidarity Day
  • December 21 – Crossword Puzzle Day; Look on the Bright Side Day; National Short Story Day; Summer Solstice (Southern Hemisphere); Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere)
  • December 22 – National Short Person Day
  • December 23 – Robert Bly’s Birthday; Harriet Monroe’s Birthday; National Roots Day
  • December 24 – Mary Higgins Clark’s Birthday; Jolabokaflod (Iceland)
  • December 25 – Christmas Day; Hanukkah begins
  • December 26 – Boxing Day; Kwanzaa begins
  • December 27 – International Day of Epidemic Preparedness
  • December 28 – National Call a Friend Day; National Short Film Day
  • December 30 – National Bacon Day
  • December 31 – Henri Matisse’s Birthday; No Interruptions Day

Famous December Birthdays

Other December Events

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February 9, 2012 · 8:49 PM

German-Language Literature Gets an Upgrade

There’s never been a shortage of distinguished German-language writers: Heinrich Böll, Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse, Günter Grass, Elfriede Jelinek and Herta Müller – all winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. But in the United States, there’s a shortage of German-language readers, and very little German-language fiction gets translated into English. Spanish and French are taught more often than German in American schools – in part because of our proximity to Latin America, but also because of the growing numbers of U.S. immigrants from Spanish- and French-speaking countries. But the literary output of Germany, Austria and Switzerland has had a harder time crossing over. It’s ironic in that, while the U.S. is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, most Americans trace their ancestry to Germany than any other particular country. And although the Chinese were the first to invent the printing press, Germany’s Johannes Gutenberg was the first to invent movable type in Europe. The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 exposed the world to more of Eastern Europe’s literary greats, and increased Internet usage in the past decade has drawn writers and readers closer. But, German scribes still seem relegated to some antiquitous past. An annual festival in New York City, Festival Neue Literatur, has been trying to change that for the past three years.

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