Literature From The "Axis of Evil" - Critical Reviews

Critical Reviews

For The Daily Telegraph, Ceri Radford wrote:

"The book is aimed at an American audience, drawing attention to the sad demise of literature in translation which counted for less than 0.5 per cent of available books in the US in 2003 and the fact that publishers need a license to bring out a work by an "enemy nation" author. As a means of redressing this, I reckon this book should be on the reading list of every school in the US and Britain. As well as poetry, universal themes such as coming-of-age are poignant and easy to appreciate - whether in the Iranian Houshang Moradi-Kermani's story about a bright young pupil tackling his philistine teacher, or the Syrian Hanna Mina's tale of a poor boy earning his first wage by stencilling letters on sacks of grain. There was a greater cultural barrier with the heavily stylised, propagandistic offerings from North Korea. A story by Lim Hwa-won describes how, pretty much as a direct result of imperialistic foreign influence, a beautiful young Russian woman ends up a one-legged prostitute. As a westerner, it's hard to take it seriously. But as a means of understanding the pervasive oppression of the North Korean regime, it's an intriguing insight. All of the extracts testify to struggle of one sort or another writing under oppressive regimes, coming to terms with exile, or indirectly just trying to provide a clear translation of a work from an alien culture. It's now worth struggling to make sure this kind of book is widely read."

Chandrahas Choudhury of The Indian Express also provided a positive review:

"In a world where groups, nations, and — we are sometimes told, and are tempted to believe — even entire religions are locked in irresoluble conflict, it is sometimes easier to dissolve our sense of the individual and place instead a collective stamp over peoples and territories. Literature from the “Axis of Evil” seeks to combat this tendency in a way that only literature, which privileges individual experience and presents specific yet sharable human dilemmas, can."