Diverse South African rugby, Russian translation, the value of writing narrative
Hello everyone, and thanks as always for subscribing to this Substack newsletter from Blue Ear Books. You can expect more good short writing from our authors, like Andrew Russell’s reflections on the career and life of FW de Klerk and “On ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’” by Jonestown survivor Eugene Smith. Here’s another from Andrew, on the (to South Africans and others of a certain age) astounding racial diversity of South Africa’s current national rugby team:
“Black? White? Who cares anymore?”
Another Blue Ear Books author, Jay Joshi, a physician writing a powerful book about his own experience of the opioid epidemic in the U.S., has written a thoughtful piece about the value of using narrative to make scientific and medical writing accessible:
“Narratives are intrinsic to communication”
In other Blue Ear Books news, I’m thrilled and proud - and astonished - to announce that Dennis Rea, one of our founding authors, has just seen his book Live at the Forbidden City: Musical Encounters in China and Taiwan translated into Russian, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of his friend Iouri Lnogradski and Jazzist magazine (which Dennis describes to me as “the Downbeat of Russia”). Dennis has promised to write something soon about the experience for this newsletter. Below is the Russian cover image, and the Russian edition is online here.
Finally, two housekeeping notes:
I recently wrote fresh text for our website’s new Global page, which sketches how Dennis’s book and others helped articulate the ethos of how, why, and which books we publish.
We’re launching paid subscription options for this newsletter, which you can upgrade to at any time. This newsletter will remain free, but there will be special reasons to consider giving modest financial support to this Substack and, thereby, to Blue Ear Books. You can see the options here, and I’ll be gently plugging them in future newsletters.
— Ethan Casey, Publisher, Blue Ear Books