Inner City Press





In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYTAzerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .



These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis
,



Share |   

Follow on TWITTER

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

More: InnerCityPro

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



Belt and Roadkill Is Tale of UN Corruption By China With Dark Comedy, Series Launched

Literary Reflection, Book

NEW YORK CITY, Nov 12 – What is a novel? How long should it be? How corrupt is the United Nations? What is the line between real world injustice and fiction, black comedy?

A just published novella, "Belt and Roadkill," raises these questions.

The corruption of the UN, its documented domination by China as evidenced by two recent real-world bribery prosecutions in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York, are the soil or message of the text. But the meta questions about what is a novel(la) is raised by its form and length. (It is available, first on Kindle, here).

Earlier this month Parul Sehgal in The New Yorker bemoaned the democratization of literature, or content, by Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing. But who are the gatekeepers? Who should they be?

The author of Belt and Roadkill, years ago, was on the threshold of elite / elitist publishing, summoned to a venerable firm on Union Square in Manhattan and told that if only the actual names of Citigroup's predatory lenders could be dropped, it might be possible to move forward.

But aren't public figures open to satire, without danger of libel lawsuits?

Aren't those Predatory Benders who foreclose on thousands of homes just targets, like those at the UN who cover up hundreds of rapes by peacekeepers, and ten thousand Haitians killed by cholera, as only two examples?

 Belt and Roadkill does not mention Haiti, even once. It does, however, name-check Cameroon and Western Sahara, Huawei and the January 6, 2021 insurrection, breach or protest, whatever your politics.

Belt
                        and Roadkill, by Matthew Russell Lee (cover)

 Let a hundred flowers bloom, as Mao said before moving to cut them down. There will be more. 

[Belt and Roadkill: A Story of Dis-United Nations, by Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press is on Kindle, and paperback here.]

***


Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA

Mail: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540



Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2021 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com