As the extent of the humanitarian crisis facing the Rohingya people becomes clear, many people have harshly criticised the response of Aung San Suu Kyi. On Facebook, one of my friends even expressed shame at having campaigned for her.
I was an active campaigner for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release. I picketed the Myanmar Embassy on a few occasions (see my photos here) and even addressed a rally for Burmese dissidents in Trafalgar Square (from whence the banner image at the top of this blog). I also collaborated with the Burma Campaign on #64forSuu, a campaign to celebrate her 64th birthday, while she was still under house arrest. On her release in 2012, I was invited to attend an event with her and other dissidents (including Zarganar) at the Royal Festival Hall.
I regret none of this. Continue reading
Author: Robert (Page 43 of 327)
After my post about postcodes earlier this week, a couple of people asked me what a ‘lookup table’ was in that context. I thought I’d write something quick about their use in the context of spreadsheets, because they’re such a timesaver.
You can probably divide the world into people who have no idea about VLOOKUP tables in spreadsheets, and those who use them every day. Until recently I was firmly in the former category, but now I’m part of the latter group. Continue reading
A few years ago the Russian government introduced a set of ridiculous regulations on how art can be produced in the country. It prohibited swearing in films and TV shows, and mandated that books containing LGBTQ content be sold in plastic wrappers.
Insisting that such books are packaged like this introduces a stigma. It places LGBTQ literature into the same conceptual category as pornography which makes it less likely that readers will buy the books, or that readers will have the books bought for them.
Naturally, this affects book sales for Russian publishers, and some have taken extreme steps to avoid having their books placed in the stigmatised category. Last week, fantasy author Victoria Schwab revealed that her Russian publisher had bowdlerised the translation of her Shades of Magic series. Continue reading
President Trump seems determined fan the flames of the Charlottesville controversy (and tragedy). He was criticised for his failure to condemn the behaviour of far-right groups that led to the death of a counter-protestor, and this week he doubled-down on his initial “on many sides” statement that drew moral equivalence between racist groups and their opponents. Today he has been lamenting the fact that public statue of General Robert E. Lee are being removed, citing ‘history’. Continue reading
Yesterday I was delighted to take receipt of my author’s copy of the US edition of The Mammoth Book of the Mummy. It’s edited by Paula Guran and published by Prime Books.
Writing on This Is Horror, Jake Marley says that Guran has “curated an anthology that could do more for mummy fiction than anything in the past decade, and is sure to bind and capture the imaginations of readers”. He also had this to say about my novella, which is included in the anthology:
Nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award, Robert Sharp’s The Good Shabti takes readers from a slave’s experiences in the court of King Mentuhotep to a Crichton-esque sci-fi future where science is being used to give new life to the dead. Fascinating in story and tone, Sharp carries readers through two fascinating worlds to an unexpected and deeply satisfying conclusion.
Thanks Jake! Continue reading