The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| To Kill A Mockingbird author, Alabama museum in legal battle over book Posted: 18 Oct 2013 12:48 AM PDT The lawsuit filed last week by the book's Pulitzer prize-winning author, 87, claims the Monroe County Heritage Museum of illegally profiting from the book. It contends the museum earned more than US$500,000 (RM1.58 million) in 2011 by selling goods including aprons, kitchen towels, clothing and coasters emblazoned with the book's title. Even the museum's website is named for To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel about small town racism and injustice. The 1960 book has sold more than 30 million copies and has been translated into more than 25 languages. The 25-year-old museum, located in Monroeville, Alabama, draws thousands of fans each year and includes an old courthouse that served as a model for the courtroom in the movie version of the novel that earned Gregory Peck the Academy Award for Best Actor. The author has said that the novel's fictional town, Maycomb, and its courthouse were based on Monroeville. "Every single statement in the lawsuit is either false, meritless, or both," the museum's attorney, Matthew Goforth, said. The museum earned only US$28,500 (RM89,950) from its merchandise sales last year, Goforth said, adding that "every penny of that is being used to further the museum's mission of educating the public and preserving the area's history". "I find it curious that her handlers suddenly want to profit by suing the museum for essentially preserving and promoting what Ms. Lee helped accomplish for this community," said Goforth. "The museum is squarely within its rights to carry out its mission as it always has," he added. An attorney for Lee declined to comment. Past disputes The lawsuit in Alabama district court cites a history of challenges between the author and the museum. For example, the museum once created Calpurnia's Cook Book, named for one of the book's characters. After Lee protested, the book was withdrawn. When the author sought to register a trademark for the book's title to be used on clothing, the museum opposed it, the lawsuit states, accusing the museum of bad faith and withholding information. The museum had no intention of denying a share of the museum's profits to the author if that is what she wants from the museum, Goforth said, and was only doing what was necessary to protect its trademark rights in the merchandise it has been selling for many years. Goforth argued that Monroe County's history cannot be understood without an understanding of the impact of To Kill A Mockingbird. "Those pieces were based on Monroe County and are part of its history," said Goforth. If Lee's lawsuit prevailed, the museum would be put out of business, ending its mission to educate local residents and visitors. "I don't think that's what Harper Lee would want," he said. The lawsuit argues that despite the museum's declared historical mission, "its actual work does not touch upon history. Rather, its primary mission is to trade upon the fictional story, settings and characters that Harper Lee created". In the book, a small-town lawyer, Atticus Finch, defends an African-American man unfairly accused of rape during the 1930s Jim Crow era, complete with courtroom drama. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and demands that the museum surrender all of its items with the book's title and the author's name and for them to be destroyed. Lee, who has suffered a stroke, is in declining health and lives in an assisted living facility in Monroeville, according to the lawsuit. In September, Lee settled a lawsuit against her former literary agent over an alleged scheme to trick her into signing away the copyright to her novel. No details of the agreement were made public. – Reuters, October 18, 2013. |
| Tibetan poet gives voice to dead protesters in new book Posted: 17 Oct 2013 10:28 PM PDT These and dozens of others are the subject of a new booklet written by Tsering Woeser (pic), a famous Tibetan poet, essayist and fierce critic of the Chinese government's rule over the sprawling Himalayan region. Immolations in Tibet: The shame of the world -- which so far is only being published in French and released in Paris yesterday – is illustrated by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. In it, Woeser – who lives under surveillance in Beijing but has an extensive network of contacts in Tibetan areas – tries to get to the root of why at least 120 Tibetans have set themselves alight in recent years, most in China but some outside the country. Many, but not all, have died. "Hunger strikes are a method of protest universally accepted and respected, whilst self-immolation is often ignored, because such suffering goes beyond the limits of what most people can conceive, even in their imagination," she writes. "Self-immolation is the most hard-hitting thing that these isolated protesters can do while still respecting principles of non-violence." The first recorded self-immolation in China was in February 2009, but Tibetan areas have seen an explosion in this violent form of protest since March 2011 when a monk set himself on fire at the revered Kirti monastery and died, sparking riots. Beijing has always strongly condemned the acts and blames them on exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, saying he uses them to further a separatist agenda. It maintains that Chinese rule has brought development and riches to the plateau. But Tibetans say the self-immolations are a response to increasing curbs on their religious and political freedoms, particularly since deadly 2008 riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa that spread to neighbouring areas. In the booklet, Woeser describes Tibetan regions as a "giant prison criss-crossed with armed soldiers and armoured vehicles". The reasons behind the protests, she adds, are diverse – authorities arresting people for watching videos of the Dalai Lama's teachings, nomads forced off their pasture land to make way for mines and dams, surveillance cameras in monasteries, and many more. "They think we're scared of military repression, they're wrong" said Tenzin Phuntsok, one of the victims whose last words were cited in the booklet. And while monks and nuns were the first to set themselves on fire, a growing number of laypeople have started using this desperate, last-ditch form of protest. She cites "two schoolgirls, three students, three workers, four retailers, one carpenter, a blogger, a tangka (traditional Tibetan painting) artist, a taxi driver, a retired Communist Party official". One 25-year-old farmer called Wangchen Norbu, Woeser says, went specifically to a photo studio to have his picture taken before he self-immolated. Woeser, whose father was an army officer from China's majority Han ethnic group and whose mother was a Tibetan Communist official, is widely known among Tibetans for her blog – translated into English on www.highpeakspureearth.com – as well as poems and essays. As a result, she is under intense police scrutiny but unlike some other activists has so far avoided arrest and is still relatively free to move around the country. But Woeser, who is in her late 40s, admits that a booklet published abroad could get her into trouble with Chinese authorities. "For a long time, I have felt like I'm at the edge of a precipice, and I could fall at any time," she said by email from her hometown of Lhasa, where she has been staying since June. "And writing this kind of book... is definitely dangerous. But I don't yet know how dangerous. "I'm closely watched every day, 24 hours a day," she added, pointing out that three to four cars full of plainclothes policemen are parked in front of her compound daily, a camera sits on her flat's roof, and security officers follow her every steps. "As for when I'm in Beijing, just this year I've been put under house arrest three times, which put together lasted more than a month." – AFP, October 18, 2013. |
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