I have been inspired by the massive amount of interesting stuff on the web in the last few days. I am not terribly capable of turning a blind eye to the information superhighway, despite my efforts, so I turn to sharing my information overload with whoever might be paying attention.

Last year the International Prize for Arabic Fiction was founded; it is being described as an Arabic Booker. The first winner is an Egyptian author, Bahaa Taher, who I will have to look up now. Of course, one of my new favorite blogs, by Laila Lalami (a Moroccan-born author), lets me in on a dynamic I wasn't aware of when she laments that the short-list for the prize was composed of only Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, and Egyptian authors. According to her, there is a long tradition of the Muslim countries in North-western Africa (the Maghreb: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania) being ignored when artistic achievements in the greater Arabic world are discussed. I know this was also something that came up in some of the art I saw in Singapore. I discussed the sense of needing to be recognized as great by the Western art world, but there was also a strain of Malaysian and Indonesian artists who felt as if their religious contributions were not recognized because they were not part of the Arab-Muslim world.

Also in Moroccan news, Morocco has just held its first Woman's Book Fair and Fouad Mourtada has been released and pardoned. He was the Moroccan computer engineer who was jailed for creating a fake Facebook profile impersonating a prince of the Moroccan royal family. In Egyptian news: college professors in Egypt are going on strike and the country is facing a serious bread shortage. Also, the American University in Cairo is doing some really interesting work printing stories and news from Iraqi refugees in Egypt.

I mentioned Rushdie's new novel, but I don't think I have linked to the fiction that is appearing in the New Yorker.

This news about a German who just discovered that one of the planes he shot down during World War II was piloted by Saint-Exupery, his favorite author at the time. The things we do to each other and the strangeness of the world does seem beyond belief sometimes.

This diary from the London Review of Books by an Israeli reporter who covers the Palestinian-Israeli conflict focuses on the way in which the language used in covering the conflict can both shape and reveal public perception in ways we may not be aware of.