1952 WORLD LITERARY FESTIVAL
Global examples of Literature to be showcased, read, and awarded prizes
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Every year at the end of September, the World Literary Festival is held in a City famous for its contribution to the written arts, and seeks to promote both a multi-cultural appreciation of literature and the beauty of imagination and prose, but also give much deserved recognition to works both new and old. Traditionally, each nation is allowed to nominate one work in every field, whilst independent and private authors are welcome to come and talk and present their works and discuss themes and famous works, with a seperate prize awarded to independent novelists.
For our purposes, each player is encouraged to submit a description of a work for all or as many of the following categories as they like: Best Novel, Best work of Non-Fiction, Best Poem, Best Play and Best Short Story. Additionally, they may also nominate up to three "Independent Writers" for competition in Best Independent Work. This can be anything, but typically it is something that the writer felt would not be appreciated in their home country. Three Judges (Who are 3 People who I will randomly determine from the submitters using a dice roller) will be invited to submit their vote for "best" of all. They will be allowed to confer and encouraged to come to a consensus. In the event of a tie, I have the deciding vote.
You don't have to -write- any of the above works, but simply provide between 100 and 300 words of description on the work. You can write the Poem if you -reaally- want to, or include snippets of the work to demonstrate.
Below as an example are Havenshire's submissions:
Best Novel:
Light is Labour by Geoffrey Holt
A deep literary piece about the struggles of a blind man in a pre-socialist world on an uncollectivised farm. The blind man is befriended by a kindly voice of uncertain gender, which guides him to do work for its own sake, to appreciate life through his fingers and his ears. The voice guides the blind man to find success on his farm as an individual, but still the blind man is alone, and the villagefolk mock him for his fumbling efforts. Then the Revolution comes, and the blind man must deal with the terror of violence heard but unseen around him. Eventually, Red Cap millita come to his farm, and demand everything from him for the sake of the revolution. He refuses, since his labour is his own, and none have helped him, save the voice that guided him. They beat him mercilessly, but still he refuses to relent. The voice intervenes again, and the millita flee from its sound.
The man soon hears other voices, and feels himself being lifted up. Suddenly light dawns on him, and he can see that he is no longer alone.
Considered a deeply subversive work, many have interpreted the novel as a covert religious work. Others see it in more prosaic term, as an allegory for how the proletariat is blind in its struggles for individual success, but once guided from above to endure the pain of the violence of revolution, it will awaken and labour anew in the light of co-operative effort.
Best Work of Non-Fiction:
The Supremacy of Air Power, by Alan Walters
A tightly written and suprisingly exciting overview of the development of aerial power in the last thirty years, the book explores with much reference to many different kind of aircraft and even helicopters the concepts of strategic bombing, dive-bombing, the use of fighters defensively and offensively, the role of paratroopers as a tactical rather than a strategic tool, and argues strongly for the future of helicopters in the role of "aerial cavalry", best used to deliver small, lightly armed elite forces to difficult terrain positions, as a much superior tactical tool to paratroopers. The work also controversially asserts that a nation can be beaten in weeks through the mass application of strategic bombing to civillian rather than millitary targets, as no regime subject to such merciless slaughter can long hold power amongst its citizens when it cannot prevent such destruction.
Considered a favourite work amongst the People's Air Force in Havenshire.
Best Poem:
Calling of a New World by Susan Powers
A short, bitter poem that is very strong on its irony, seeming to praise the wonders of modern technology and science for their great efficency at tasks like "reducing the unwanted and unloved" into bloody, useless pulp. A strident and emotive work many consider a damning indictment of capitalism, which subscribes to the Goldsteinian theory that Oligarchical Collectivism is simply the expenditure of labour for the destruction of material and people to perpetuate the power of an "enlightened elite." The Poem is taught in Havenshire schools, and many a schoolchild has written an essay on industry and power with quotations such as "awesome in majesty are the gleaming murder mills, whose spotless walls conceal the solution to half a million ills, producing cornucopia to fill the earth, made in part or whole by the bounty of death"
Best Play:
Rosenthal and Goldstein are Dead by Charles House
A minimalist surrealist production, which has only five actors who alternate between two settings, a morgue and a coffee shop. The play explores in esoteric terms the utter insignificance of the ideas and ideals of Rosenthal and Goldstein, who are treated as two distant accquaintances of the main characters, who seem incapable of grasping the reality of the death of their missing companions, necessitating repeated trips to the morgue to check that they are still dead and still mouldering. In the course of their coffee shop talks they repeat over and over to themselves ideas Rosenthal and Goldstein were fond of, as if by repetition they can keep the ideas true. This is taken to metaphorical and absurdist levels, by the removal from the stage of any prop or item that coincides with anything that Rosenthal or Goldstein are said to have liked or commented on. At the end of the play the stage is completely bare, and the two nameless main characters climb into the morgue with the two dead bodies.
Although much has been written about this bizarre and apparently heavy-handed condemnation of two obscure philosophers, others see it as simply a post-modern critique on absurdism itself, and a satire on the excess and absurdity of trying to be absurd and yet still hold deeper meaning.
Best Short Story:
The Grumblytook, by Roland Dahmer
A children's story about a fantastic creature that everyone is afraid of but can never seem to describe the same way twice. When the Mouse finally meets a creature that seems to resemble all the contradictory accounts of the Grumblytook, he finds it is in fact afraid of -him-, and runs away. Considered a classic, and has often been cited as a strong moral imperative towards facing one's fears.
Havenshire has not submitted any Independent Writers this year.
Global examples of Literature to be showcased, read, and awarded prizes
[
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Every year at the end of September, the World Literary Festival is held in a City famous for its contribution to the written arts, and seeks to promote both a multi-cultural appreciation of literature and the beauty of imagination and prose, but also give much deserved recognition to works both new and old. Traditionally, each nation is allowed to nominate one work in every field, whilst independent and private authors are welcome to come and talk and present their works and discuss themes and famous works, with a seperate prize awarded to independent novelists.
For our purposes, each player is encouraged to submit a description of a work for all or as many of the following categories as they like: Best Novel, Best work of Non-Fiction, Best Poem, Best Play and Best Short Story. Additionally, they may also nominate up to three "Independent Writers" for competition in Best Independent Work. This can be anything, but typically it is something that the writer felt would not be appreciated in their home country. Three Judges (Who are 3 People who I will randomly determine from the submitters using a dice roller) will be invited to submit their vote for "best" of all. They will be allowed to confer and encouraged to come to a consensus. In the event of a tie, I have the deciding vote.
You don't have to -write- any of the above works, but simply provide between 100 and 300 words of description on the work. You can write the Poem if you -reaally- want to, or include snippets of the work to demonstrate.
Below as an example are Havenshire's submissions:
Best Novel:
Light is Labour by Geoffrey Holt
A deep literary piece about the struggles of a blind man in a pre-socialist world on an uncollectivised farm. The blind man is befriended by a kindly voice of uncertain gender, which guides him to do work for its own sake, to appreciate life through his fingers and his ears. The voice guides the blind man to find success on his farm as an individual, but still the blind man is alone, and the villagefolk mock him for his fumbling efforts. Then the Revolution comes, and the blind man must deal with the terror of violence heard but unseen around him. Eventually, Red Cap millita come to his farm, and demand everything from him for the sake of the revolution. He refuses, since his labour is his own, and none have helped him, save the voice that guided him. They beat him mercilessly, but still he refuses to relent. The voice intervenes again, and the millita flee from its sound.
The man soon hears other voices, and feels himself being lifted up. Suddenly light dawns on him, and he can see that he is no longer alone.
Considered a deeply subversive work, many have interpreted the novel as a covert religious work. Others see it in more prosaic term, as an allegory for how the proletariat is blind in its struggles for individual success, but once guided from above to endure the pain of the violence of revolution, it will awaken and labour anew in the light of co-operative effort.
Best Work of Non-Fiction:
The Supremacy of Air Power, by Alan Walters
A tightly written and suprisingly exciting overview of the development of aerial power in the last thirty years, the book explores with much reference to many different kind of aircraft and even helicopters the concepts of strategic bombing, dive-bombing, the use of fighters defensively and offensively, the role of paratroopers as a tactical rather than a strategic tool, and argues strongly for the future of helicopters in the role of "aerial cavalry", best used to deliver small, lightly armed elite forces to difficult terrain positions, as a much superior tactical tool to paratroopers. The work also controversially asserts that a nation can be beaten in weeks through the mass application of strategic bombing to civillian rather than millitary targets, as no regime subject to such merciless slaughter can long hold power amongst its citizens when it cannot prevent such destruction.
Considered a favourite work amongst the People's Air Force in Havenshire.
Best Poem:
Calling of a New World by Susan Powers
A short, bitter poem that is very strong on its irony, seeming to praise the wonders of modern technology and science for their great efficency at tasks like "reducing the unwanted and unloved" into bloody, useless pulp. A strident and emotive work many consider a damning indictment of capitalism, which subscribes to the Goldsteinian theory that Oligarchical Collectivism is simply the expenditure of labour for the destruction of material and people to perpetuate the power of an "enlightened elite." The Poem is taught in Havenshire schools, and many a schoolchild has written an essay on industry and power with quotations such as "awesome in majesty are the gleaming murder mills, whose spotless walls conceal the solution to half a million ills, producing cornucopia to fill the earth, made in part or whole by the bounty of death"
Best Play:
Rosenthal and Goldstein are Dead by Charles House
A minimalist surrealist production, which has only five actors who alternate between two settings, a morgue and a coffee shop. The play explores in esoteric terms the utter insignificance of the ideas and ideals of Rosenthal and Goldstein, who are treated as two distant accquaintances of the main characters, who seem incapable of grasping the reality of the death of their missing companions, necessitating repeated trips to the morgue to check that they are still dead and still mouldering. In the course of their coffee shop talks they repeat over and over to themselves ideas Rosenthal and Goldstein were fond of, as if by repetition they can keep the ideas true. This is taken to metaphorical and absurdist levels, by the removal from the stage of any prop or item that coincides with anything that Rosenthal or Goldstein are said to have liked or commented on. At the end of the play the stage is completely bare, and the two nameless main characters climb into the morgue with the two dead bodies.
Although much has been written about this bizarre and apparently heavy-handed condemnation of two obscure philosophers, others see it as simply a post-modern critique on absurdism itself, and a satire on the excess and absurdity of trying to be absurd and yet still hold deeper meaning.
Best Short Story:
The Grumblytook, by Roland Dahmer
A children's story about a fantastic creature that everyone is afraid of but can never seem to describe the same way twice. When the Mouse finally meets a creature that seems to resemble all the contradictory accounts of the Grumblytook, he finds it is in fact afraid of -him-, and runs away. Considered a classic, and has often been cited as a strong moral imperative towards facing one's fears.
Havenshire has not submitted any Independent Writers this year.
