Latest news with #Madeleine
Scotsman
19 hours ago
- Scotsman
Love & Other Poisons by Lesley McDowell review: 'enthralling'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... It was the most scandalous case in Victorian Scotland. Madeleine Smith, daughter of a successful Glasgow merchant – one with a country house too – was charged with murdering her lover, Emile L'Angelier, a French exile, ten years older than her and working as a clerk in a Glasgow office. There was no doubt that they were or had been lovers. Madeline, however, had been engaged to a young man approved of by her father. Emile had threatened to send Madeleine's love letters to her father, so there was clear evidence of motive. Lesley McDowell Moreover, Madeline had bought arsenic for medicinal purposes and her lover was killed by arsenic poisoning. But there was no evidence of how Madeline could have fed Emile the poison. The inability to prove this saved her. The Jury found the case 'not proven', that distinctive verdict open to Scots juries which in effect often means 'we're pretty sure you did it, but it hasn't been proved' or simply 'go away and don't do it again.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Lesley McDowell, in this fine novel, comes up with a plausible explanation of how the arsenic might have been introduced into Emile's body. She has no doubt that Madeline was guilty, yet feels for her. Madeleine is indeed the heroine here. In fact, the Glasgow scenes are only part of the story, and McDowell even denies herself the dramatic opportunities offered by the trial, restricting this to a few things said by the lawyers. She is at least as interested in what happened next, and indeed much later, for the novel opens with a brash young American forcing himself onto a nonagenarian Mrs Sheehy, claiming to be a friend of her granddaughter. The American, Harry, has come from Hollywood, where the silent movies are about to become talkies. He has identified the old woman as the infamous Madeleine – which she denies, not wishing her granddaughter and other younger members of her family to know her dark secret. Indeed, Madeleine has come a long way from Glasgow. For some years she moved successfully in London society, but in America her life has been more modest. Her past is to be forgotten, and she is now a respectable old lady. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The American bullies her nastily, however, and she is also disturbed by a murder trial in New York in which she sees an accused woman as a victim. It is part of McDowell's skill and understanding of human nature to make the very old Madeleine seem a sympathetic heroine, even though there is little doubt that a lifetime ago she murdered her French lover. It's an enthralling novel, a beautifully organised tale in which McDowell shifts the perspective with great skill. She has been living with this story for a long time, revealing that ten years ago she was planning to collaborate with that finely imaginative novelist Emma Tennant in a version of Madeleine's story. Tennant's death made this impossible, but the finished article is a book that Tennant would surely have admired. It is certainly thoroughly enjoyable – a remarkably intelligent and at times very moving fictionalisation of an extraordinary life.
SBS Australia
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Siang Lu just won Australia's most prestigious literary prize — more than 200 rejections later
Brisbane writer Siang Lu has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel Ghost Cities, after more than 200 publishers rejected the manuscript. The 39-year-old author said he was shocked to find out he had won the $60,000 prize after being shortlisted for the first time. "I just sat down and actually lost all feeling in my hands and legs, and I lost my voice," he said. "It was one of the first times in my life where I actually had to ask someone with complete seriousness, to just tell me that I wasn't dreaming." Australia's most prestigious literary award was announced at a ceremony in Sydney on Thursday night, at which Lu revealed that he finished the manuscript for Ghost Cities a decade ago in 2015, but it was rejected more than 200 times by publishers in Australia and overseas. Siang Lu accepted the $60,000 prize at an event in Sydney on Thursday night. Source: AAP / Jane Dempster "I used to print my rejections and Blu-Tack them on the glass pane between my office, and my bedroom. My youngest child, Madeleine, had just been born — she is nine now — and she would nap on that big bed while I worked and kept an eye on her," he said in his acceptance speech. "The rejections kept piling up. Eventually, they grew so numerous that I could no longer see through the glass, into the bedroom where my daughter slept." A 'landmark' in Australian literature Having finally been published by University of Queensland Press, the winning book has been described by critics as both intellectually ambitious and zany, and by the Miles Franklin judges as a "genuine landmark" in Australian literature. "Siang Lu's Ghost Cities is at once a grand farce and a haunting meditation on diaspora. Sitting within a tradition in Australian writing that explores failed expatriation and cultural fraud, Lu's novel is also something strikingly new," the judges said. "Shimmering with satire and wisdom, and with an absurdist bravura, Ghost Cities is a genuine landmark in Australian literature." Lu says his win changes things dramatically — not only financially, but in terms of recognition for the quality of his work. Ghost Cities was inspired by megacities built in China during the nation's real estate boom, many of which have been left uninhabited and falling into ruin. The manuscript for Ghost Cities was completed in 2015, but rejected more than 200 times by publishers in Australia and overseas. Source: AAP / Jane Dempster It weaves together multiple stories — including that of a young man who is fired from his job as a translator at the Chinese consulate in Sydney, when it is discovered he is monolingual and has been relying on Google Translate. There's also a chess automaton with a secret, and an ancient emperor who creates a thousand replicas of himself. Since his novel hit the shelves in 2024, Lu has found what he describes as a perverse joy in chatting to his readers, as they try to guess what Ghost Cities is actually saying. The answer is less complex than readers might imagine: "It is trying to be funny," he promises. Siang Lu's debut novel was 2022's The Whitewash, while his online tracking project The Beige Index — described as "the Bechdel Test for race" in the film industry — has found an audience worldwide. The 2025 shortlist was dominated by writers of colour, including veteran Brian Castro, who has made the shortlist four times, and two-time winner Michelle de Kretser. The six authors shortlisted for the Miles Franklin also receive $5,000 from the Copyright Agency's Cultural Fund.
Shafaq News
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Activist ship Handala sails from Italy to Gaza
Shafaq News – Rome On Sunday, the international activist ship Handala set sail from the Italian port of Gallipoli en route to the Gaza Strip, in a symbolic attempt to break the Israeli blockade. After departing from Syracuse, Sicily, on July 13 and stopping in Gallipoli, the ship carries international volunteers, including activists, medics, lawyers, and parliamentarians. Organizers describe the mission as peaceful and emphasize that it aims to highlight the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. European Parliament member Emma Fourreau told Al Jazeera that the mission reflects growing international outrage, accusing the European Parliament of complicity in the siege and destruction of Gaza. 'Netanyahu and his government are responsible for the suffering in Gaza,' she added. The ship is named after Handala, an iconic cartoon character created by the Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969. Handala is consistently depicted as a barefoot, ragged boy with his back to the viewer and his hands clasped behind him, a posture he maintains because he famously vowed not to show his face until Palestine is free. This distinctive stance symbolizes his refusal to acknowledge a world that has turned its back on the Palestinian people. The initiative is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a network of pro-Palestinian organizations that has launched several maritime missions over the past decade in defiance of Israeli naval restrictions. Prior to the Handala, the coalition launched at least two other vessels toward Gaza this year: the Conscience in May, which reportedly suffered a drone attack off Malta and was forced to abort its mission, and the Madeleine in June, which was intercepted in international waters by Israeli forces. The Madeleine, which carried humanitarian supplies and prominent activists including Greta Thunberg, had its crew detained and deported.
NZ Herald
13-07-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
AI start-up Speak eyes $4t market with personalised shopping tech
Madeleine and Ankit Patel, co-founders of Speak, a retail AI start-up hoping to build the infrastructure layer for retailers to power hyper-personalised shopping experiences. Madeleine Patel, co-founder of Speak, talks to Tom Raynel about changing the core of the business mid-development, and her hopes for the future of artificial intelligence and customer interaction. Each Monday, we interview a small business owner, which is now a regular feature of NZME's editorial campaign On The Up,
CTV News
12-07-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Fauquier-Strickland mayor joins CTV Your Morning to talk financial hardships
Northern Ontario Watch CTV Your Morning host Anne-Marie Mediwake talks with Fauquier-Strickland Mayor Madeleine about the town's financial hardships and potentially ceasing operations next month.
