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Hi All,
Welcome to the third issue of the Cultural Reads Newsletter.
A bi-weekly book, music, and movie recommendation from different countries all around the world.
As you can see, I now officially have a logo—a huge shout-out to Martha from Colombia for helping me out with the design!
In this week’s newsletter: Australia, Mali, and Italy.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, Ali Farka Toure is one of the top 100 guitarists of all time. He was the first to successfully combine various genres into what is now known as Desert Blues and won three Grammys.
My favorite album is his collaboration with Blues Guitar player Rye Cooder with the two hits Ai Du and Bonde. If you’re keen to learn more about Malian artists, check out the full blog post.
La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty in English) is probably my favorite movie of all time. The story is that of a 65-year-old man called Jep, who moved to Rome in his 20s to become the king of the nightlife. Now, 4 decades later, he is still surrounded by parties but starts to wonder whether he is actually happy.
What makes this movie (and even the trailer) so beautiful is the music, the grande scenes in Rome, and of course, the Italian language.
In 2018, I attended a training Red Cross Emergency Response Unit training in Belgium. One evening, when we had some time off, we started talking about our favorite books. To my surprise, an Australian, Luxembourger, and Parisian all had the same favorite: Shantaram.
Shantaram is the #1 backpackers read in India, not because it gives you an insight into Indian culture, but because it’s adventurous. This semi-fiction autobiography was written by an Australian prisoner who escaped and fled to Mumbai to join the Indian Mafia.
I found out during the event that the Australian guy’s dad had arrested the author, which was enough reason for me to give it a try. I loved it, but let me warn you, it’s one of those books you either love or hate.
Blog Post Nigeria My new blog post is out!
If you are interested in learning about Nigerian literature, check out these 3 famous authors by clicking on this link.
