A novel by Filipino author Miguel Syjuco, that touches on 150 years of often turbulent Philippines history, has won a major Asian literary prize, organisers said.

Syjuco`s `Ilustrado` was awarded the second annual Man Asian Literary Prize, which is open to novels from the region that have not yet been published in English.

A novel by Filipino author Miguel Syjuco, that touches on 150 years of often turbulent Philippines history, has won a major Asian literary prize, organisers said.

Syjuco`s `Ilustrado` was awarded the second annual Man Asian Literary Prize, which is open to novels from the region that have not yet been published in English.

Bavaria`s state library will hand over 75 books belonging to German author Thomas Mann that were stolen by the Nazis to an archive in Switzerland, the library announced Wednesday.

The volumes are translations of Mann`s works in a variety of languages from the first three decades of the 20th century, a statement from the southern German library said.

Bavaria`s state library will hand over 75 books belonging to German author Thomas Mann that were stolen by the Nazis to an archive in Switzerland, the library announced Wednesday.

The volumes are translations of Mann`s works in a variety of languages from the first three decades of the 20th century, a statement from the southern German library said.

Bavaria`s state library will hand over 75 books belonging to German author Thomas Mann that were stolen by the Nazis to an archive in Switzerland, the library announced Wednesday.

The volumes are translations of Mann`s works in a variety of languages from the first three decades of the 20th century, a statement from the southern German library said.

Bavaria`s state library will hand over 75 books belonging to German author Thomas Mann that were stolen by the Nazis to an archive in Switzerland, the library announced Wednesday.

The volumes are translations of Mann`s works in a variety of languages from the first three decades of the 20th century, a statement from the southern German library said.

Bavaria`s state library will hand over 75 books belonging to German author Thomas Mann that were stolen by the Nazis to an archive in Switzerland, the library announced Wednesday.

The volumes are translations of Mann`s works in a variety of languages from the first three decades of the 20th century, a statement from the southern German library said.

`We want to be writers but they turn us into prophets,` said Mexican author Carlos Fuentes, one of the Spanish-speaking world`s best-known living novelists, whose latest book explores Mexico`s growing violence.

Vietnamese-born writer Nam Le won the 60,000-pound (95,000-dollar, 75,000-euro) Dylan Thomas Prize on Monday for his debut collection of short stories, The Boat.

The common grave where Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, murdered at the outbreak of Spain`s 1936-39 civil war, is thought to be buried will be opened in private at the request of his family, a court ruled Thursday.

Four Nobel literature laureates are among 11 internationally-knowned authors who on Monday came to the defence of Czech writer Milan Kundera, accused of being a police informer under communist rule.

`A defamation campaign is under way, aimed at tarnishing the reputation of Milan Kundera,` said the writers in a joint statement released by Kundera`s French publisher Gallimard.

Studs Terkel, the Pulitzer-prize winning US author, activist and radio personality who created a vast oral history of 20th century American society, died Friday at his Chicago home, the radio station where he spent the bulk of his career said.

He was 96.

For 45 years, Terkel interviewed the famous, the infamous and the obscure for the fine arts radio station WFMT in Chicago.

LOS ANGELES, Oct 27, 2008 (AFP) - Acclaimed US writer Tony Hillerman, whose 18 detective novels eloquently introduced Native American and particularly Navajo culture to millions of readers, has died, local media reported.

Hillerman, who lived in the state of New Mexico in the rugged American Southwest where many of his best-sellers took place, was 83 years old.

STOCKHOLM, Oct 25, 2008 (AFP) - Nobel-winning French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio picked up another award on Saturday in Sweden for his work drawn from his vast world travels, jury members said.

ADDIS ABABA, Oct 24, 2008 (AFP) - Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiang'o, along with Nigerian Ben Okri and Angolan writer Ondjaki won an inaugural African literature prize here on Friday.

The ceremony for the first-ever Grinzane For Africa Prize was held on the sidelines of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa.

Canadian author Margaret Atwood said Wednesday that while it was not her `mission` to highlight social problems, a fairy-tale world would be tedious for readers.

A novel exploring India`s obsession with celebrity is one of five books shortlisted for a major Asian literary prize, organisers said Wednesday.

`The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay` by Mumbai-based author Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi is among the titles shortlisted for the second Man Asian Literary Prize, which is open to novels that have not been published in English.

The first `comprehensive` biography of Nobel prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian author of `Love in the Time of Cholera,` went on sale in London on Monday, publishers Bloomsbury said.

Czech writer Vaclav Havel, a former president and communist era dissident, called Monday for caution over allegations that his compatriot and fellow author Milan Kundera had been a police informer.

`I think that didn`t happen and could not have happened in such a stupid way,` Havel wrote in the weekly magazine Respekt.

Sebastien Foucan`s death-defying skills have seen him fight James Bond and dance with Madonna, but the founder of freerunning insists the present moment is all that counts.

`Of course Turkish women are stronger than men,` says Perihan Magden with a laugh. Like her, many Turkish women writers provoke the wrath of officials with uncompromising works.

`I`m the national bitch anyway in Turkey. I think they just want me to shut up,` she told AFP at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee and Japan`s Haruki Murakami were Friday named on the longlist for the richest prize for fiction in Australia, officials said.

Recent Booker prize contender Michelle de Kretser and well-known Australian authors David Malouf and Janet Turner Hospital were also on the list for the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award worth 110,000 dollars (76,244 US).

After solemnly reading a German poem, Zafer Senocak jokes with two readers in Turkish, an example of writers at ease with double identities in a country seeking to refine policies of integration.

`I learned German by playing,` the celebrated writer of novels, essays and poems told AFP.

PRAGUE, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - An official Czech institute published Monday a police report on an incident in 1950 in which Czech-born writer Milan Kundera informed on an US-backed agent to police.

His action led to the arrest of Miroslav Dvoracek, a former pilot and agent of the US-sponsored Czechoslovak intelligence, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

PRAGUE, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - Czech-born writer Milan Kundera, a French citizen since 1981, denied denouncing a Czech deserter to the communist police in 1950, as alleged by historians on Monday.

PRAGUE, Oct 13, 2008 (AFP) - Czech-born writer Milan Kundera denied Monday accusations that he denounced a Czech deserter to the communist police in 1950.

'I am absolutely taken aback by something that I'd never expect, that I didn't even know about yesterday, and that never happened. I didn't know the man at all,' Kundera told the CTK news agency.

LONDON, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - British author Salmond Rushdie branded US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a 'joke' Sunday and said naming her as Republican John McCain's running mate was a 'colossal misjudgement'.

Rushdie, a vocal supporter of Democratic White House candidate Barack Obama, told Ireland's TV3 channel that Palin was extreme and incompetent.

LONDON, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - British author Salman Rushdie branded US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a 'joke' Sunday and said naming her as Republican John McCain's running mate was a 'colossal misjudgement'.

Rushdie, a vocal supporter of Democratic White House candidate Barack Obama, told Ireland's TV3 channel that Palin was extreme and incompetent.

STOCKHOLM, Oct 9, 2008 (AFP) - The Swedish Academy will announce the winner of the Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, amid critics' charges that anti-American bias was blocking literary figures such as Philip Roth from clinching the award.

French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio is the name on everyone's
lips in Stockholm's literary circles in the run-up to this year's Nobel
Literature Prize as the annual guessing game reaches a climax.

STOCKHOLM, Oct 3, 2008 (AFP) - French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio is the name on everyone's lips in Stockholm literary circles ahead of this year's Nobel Literature Prize award.

LONDON, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - British author Salman Rushdie has no regrets about writing 'The Satanic Verses', he said in comments published Wednesday, 20 years after the release of the book which earned him an Islamic death threat.

BIRMINGHAM, England, Sept 29, 2008 (AFP) - Best-selling author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer's disease, warned Monday that Britain faced a 'tsunami' of dementia sufferers and pleaded for more funding into research.

Pratchett told the party conference of the opposition Conservatives that there would be over one million Alzheimer's sufferers in the country by 2025.

LONDON, Sept 20, 2008 (AFP) - Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has donated one million pounds (1.3 million euros, 1.8 million dollars) to Britain's governing Labour Party, it announced Saturday.

LONDON, Sept 19, 2008 (AFP) - Harry Potter author JK Rowling will be honoured Friday by the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, her adopted home where she created the world famous boy wizard.

LONDON, Sept 17, 2008 (AFP) - An Irish author has been commissioned to write a new instalment of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', the cult science fiction comedy which became a worldwide hit, publishers said Wednesday.

NEW DELHI, September 14, 2008 (AFP) - The makers of Bollywood film 'Hari Puttar', which is facing a lawsuit from Hollywood studio Warner Bros, said Sunday its release had been delayed.

The Hollywood studio, which owns the rights to the Harry Potter movies, has taken the Indian producers to court over the film's title, saying it sounds similar to the name of their young wizard hero.