Kakao to buy online novel app Radish for $440 million

SEOUL - Online fiction app Radish is being bought for $440 million by South Korean internet conglomerate Kakao, the two firms said Tuesday, making a multi-millionaire of its 30-year-old founder only five years after he set it up.

The deal is one of two acquisitions Kakao announced Tuesday totalling nearly $1 billion as it seeks to expand in English-language markets.

Pay-to-read platform Radish presents serialized storytelling in bite-sized instalments optimized for smartphones, with readers paying around 20 to 30 US cents to access the next episode immediately, or wait for an hour to read it for free.

Likened to a Netflix for novels, Radish recruited in-house soap-opera scriptwriters including several Emmy Award winners to "present the newest and brightest in entertaining, diverse serial fiction to readers", the company says.

There are currently more than 50 such original series, and the category accounted for more than 90 percent of the company's revenue of $20 million last year, it said. 

It also acts as a platform for independent writers, and says on its website that some make nearly $40,000 every three months.

Founder and CEO Lee Seung-yoon set up the company after graduating from Oxford in 2016 and attracted funding from investors including SoftBank Group's venture arm and Lowercase Capital.

The unit buying his firm, Kakao Entertainment, already produces original content of its own from web novels to TV series, movies and music, he said, adding the acquisition would realize his vision "on a much larger scale and in a fascinating way". 

Kakao said it had also separately acquired webtoons mobile platform Tapas, which presents bite-sized comics on the go and has published over 90,000 stories, for $510 million. 

Founded in 2012 by South Korean entrepreneur Chang Kim, the San Francisco-based company has become a "magnet for webtoon fans and content creators", Kakao said in a press release.

Some South Korean internet firms have struggled to expand their operations overseas and Kakao said the deals would help it to "expand its original content business in North America and other English-speaking regions." 

While at university, Radish CEO Lee became president of the Oxford Union debating society, a post which has previously been held by political leaders including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and late Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto.

Asked whether he was interested in going into politics one day, Lee told AFP: "No I am not."

Agence France-Presse

Millennial Fil-am writer Elaine Castillo releases debut novel

MANILA, Philippines – Writer Elaine Castillo headlined literary festivities in the metro over the weekend -- namely the Philippine International Literary Festival and World Book Day celebrations -- to promote her newly released debut novel, “America is Not the Heart” published by Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

“America is Not the Heart” is a powerful novel that centers on Hero de Vera, a woman who comes to the Bay Area for a fresh start, shunned by her parents and haunted by her political past in the Philippines. The novel spans three generations of women in one family, struggling to establish identity in between two cultures, stretched from the dirt roads of Northern Luzon and the bright lights of the American dream.


Castillo, 33, was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and received an MA in Creative Life and Writing from Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she was shortlisted for the Pat Kavanagh Award. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Gatewood Prize semi-finalist, three-time winner of the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize for prose, and one of the 29 writers in "Freeman’s Issue Four: The Future of New Writing." “America Is Not The Heart” is her first novel, and is set to be released in the UK under Atlantic Books this May.

Asked where she drew inspiration for her novel, Castillo notes that it’s mostly family history and the community she grew up in.

“I grew up in the ‘90s Bay Area scene so I’m familiar with the grain of it, the texture of it. Martial Law is a big part of my family history, so some of it was taken from stories that I’ve heard. My parents weren’t hugely talkative about Martial Law, in the kind of way immigrants live in the post-traumatic silence. So a mixture of what I could eke out from what people would say and not say, and a bit of research also,” Castillo says.

The title is a riff on Carlos Bulosan’s 1946 memoir “America is In the Heart,” which presents the experiences of the immigrant working class and their search for a better life in the US.

“Being Filipina, I like a pun. Essentially, growing up, ‘America Is In The Heart’ by Carlos Bulosan was the kind of foundational text for a Filipino-American. It’s read in ethnic studies, it’s required reading in American history. It was meaningful for me -- it was the first book I saw anyone from Pangasinan depicted. But whenever I saw the title, ‘America Is In The Heart,’ I would always have that little joke to myself that ‘America is NOT the heart,’ so eventually I went there, I knew I would write something with that title,” explains Castillo.

What is striking about “America Is Not the Heart” is how it’s unapologetically Filipino, peppered with expressions in Ilocano, Pangasinan, and Tagalog and nuances like wearing tsinelas, calling everyone Ate, faith healing -- with no italics, no footnotes, no glossary of terms, something Castillo is adamant about.

“I’m not writing ethnography. There’s plenty of books on middle class white life in Brooklyn – I don’t know what that’s like – and they don’t provide glossaries for me. I don’t really see why I should provide glossaries, and in doing so otherize my stake in American reality, which should be taken as such,” Castillo emphasizes.

Food is unintentionally central to this novel, with a host of Filipino dishes like dinuguan, pinakbet, daing na bangus, and the ubiquitous celebration staples: pancit and lumpia, Pinoy barbecue, and lechon.

“I had no idea I wrote about food this much, until afterwards. People come up to me, and say, ‘There’s food on every page, I was starving reading this book!’ I was like, ‘Oh, is it not normal to talk about food that much?’ I think this must be so saturated in my pores, like subconscious Filipino-ness, I had no idea that was not normal for everyone else,” Castillo laughs.

Tagged by Publishers Weekly as an “a brilliant and intensely moving immigrant tale,” Vogue as “a deeply personal, lavishly painted portrait of lives in revision,” and Kirkus Reviews as “beautifully written, emotionally complex, and deeply moving,” the reception to “America is in the Heart” is what Castillo describes as completely surreal.

“When I can manage to think about it, it’s just shattering. The kindness has been out of this world. I’ve had the luck of having really generous, incisive readers, and not every writer gets that, not every book that deserves it gets that, and I’m really grateful that there’s people who are willing to enter the world of the book and be receptive to the kind of space that it’s taking up,” she intones.

In Manila, Castillo has been busy in dialogue with other players in the literary scene, as well as meeting her readers.

“In a sense, I’m in the Philippines for the first time as an adult, and seeing Manila in my own terms is I think in a way life-altering. It gave me something that I really didn’t have before, and I got to meet amazing writers, thinkers, artists. Just the depth and the breadth of critical discourse here, the creative practice here is so diverse that it puts the literary discourses I’ve stemmed from to shame. I’m really just very, very grateful to be here. “

Castillo’s advice to Filipino writers is to celebrate identity. “If you’re a Filipino writer, or a writer of color within the larger mainstream American context, there’s that feeling of, ‘Oh do I have to deform myself to appeal to the mainstream public,’ and I would say reject that entirely. That is a poisonous idea, and it will poison your work. And ultimately that kind of idea says that the daily texture, the granular realities of your life and the lives you are drawing from are somehow not worthy of art, and I don’t think true. Don’t use italics, write in the vernacular. Stake the claim to your own particularness – writers have the right to that. There’s this idea that literature only sounds a certain way, and this is utter bullsh*t that needs to be pushed back against.”

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Harry Potter turns 20: Business empire with humble start

LONDON - After years of rejection letters, British author J.K. Rowling finally published the first volume of the Harry Potter saga 20 years ago, on June 26, 1997.

"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was the first of seven novels that spawned an empire comprising eight movies, a play, theme parks in the United States and Japan, a sightseeing tour in Scotland and a permanent exhibition at London's Warner Bros Studios.

Here is the background of a global phenomenon:

THE AUTHOR

Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born into a modest family in Chipping Sodbury, western England, on July 31, 1965.

She studied French and Classics at the University of Exeter before going to teach English in Portugal, where she began to chronicle the adventures of Harry Potter.

Rowling married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantesa in 1992, giving birth to their daughter Jessica in 1993. The couple divorced in 1995 and the author moved to Edinburgh, Scotland.

After finishing the novel, she joined forces with publisher Bloomsbury in August 1996.

Named Britain's best living writer in 2006, she has accrued a fortune of £650 million (743 million euros), according to the Sunday Times rich list published in May 2017.

She remarried in 2001, to Scottish doctor Neil Murray, and the couple have a boy and a girl.

THE STORY

Conjured up on a 1990 train journey between Manchester and London, the saga follows a young wizard named Harry Potter and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, led by headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

The main plot revolves around Harry's fight against Lord Voldemort, a dark lord of magic in search of immortality who murdered Potter's parents when he was still a baby.

SEVEN BOOKS

The entire saga comprises seven volumes, published between 1997 and 2007, with each taking place during a school year.

The story begins in the summer of 1991 when Harry Potter, not yet 11 years old, is accepted into Hogwarts.

EIGHT FILMS

The seven books were adapted into eight movies, with the last volume "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" divided into two feature films.

The first two films were directed by Chris Columbus, the third by Mexican Alfonso Cuaron, the fourth by Mike Newell and the last four by David Yates.

A PLAY

"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", a two-and-a-half-hour play staged in London since July 2016, follows the hero as an adult and father-of-three.

In the production, Potter struggles to cope with his past while his family legacy proves to be a burden on youngest son Albus Severus Potter, "the cursed child."

THE NUMBERS

In all, the seven volumes of the saga, translated into 79 languages ​​in 200 countries, have sold more than 450 million copies worldwide.

The first print run of "the Philosopher's Stone" produced 1,000 copies -- all now highly-sought after collectors items - and earned Rowling a £1,500 contract.

The movies have netted $7.2 billion (6.4 billion euros) worldwide, the books $7.7 billion, and merchandise $7.3 billion dollars, according to data from www.statisticbrain.com dating from September 2016.

TOURIST ATTRACTION

The Harry Potter studios in Leavesden, north of London, invites fans to immerse themselves in Potter-world at a permanent exhibition, welcoming 6,000 visitors a day.

There are also theme parks created by Universal Studio in Orlando, Florida, Hollywood and Osaka, Japan.

VisitScotland, the Scotland Tourist Board, has set up a four-day guided tour from Edinburgh to the Highlands via the Glenfinnan or Edinburgh Viaduct, which feature in the saga.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Toronto film fest pulls 'London Fields' amid ownership spat

The Toronto International Film Festival has pulled the Friday night premiere of "London Fields" after director Matthew Cullen filed a lawsuit claiming the noir film's producers had added "incendiary imagery" without his approval.

The film, based on a Martin Amis novel of same name, stars Billy Bob Thornton and was due to be shown on Friday night and then Saturday and Sunday afternoons. All have been canceled.

"With uncertainty surrounding the creative vision of the version of the film scheduled to be screened on September 18th, we feel it is only appropriate that we remove this film" from the festival's lineup, TIFF said in a statement.

Cullen filed the lawsuit late on Tuesday claiming that producer Chris Hanley and associates had "secretly prepared their own version of the film" to lace it with violent imagery, according to the New York Times.

The lawsuit said the added material included "incendiary imagery evoking 9/11 jumpers edited against pornography," the Times said.

"In its present form, the narrative is intercut with images of a predatory drone, nuclear blasts, a person tumbling from a World Trade Center tower, and what appears to be a gathering in Mecca," the Times said after an earlier screening for media and industry.

The Toronto festival earlier had to cancel screenings of the Aretha Franklin documentary "Amazing Grace" after the singer filed an injunction against its producers.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Chris Reese)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Fans mob book signing of latest 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

NEW YORK - They camped out overnight, arrived in trains caught at dawn and devoured the first pages on the sidewalk.

Crazed fans mobbed a New York bookstore Thursday to snap up the latest "Fifty Shades of Grey" novel.

High school girls, mothers with toddlers and buxom housewives queued down Fifth Avenue and round the block to get their hands on "Grey" and have it signed by unassuming British author, E.L. James.

It is the fourth novel in the astonishing phenomenon that is "Fifty Shades" -- a trilogy of erotic novels selling more than 125 million copies, adapted into a $569 million grossing Hollywood movie and credited with creating a new genre of adult literature.

Sisters Kimberly Caraballo, 20, and Kira Guadalupe, 19, said they were the first in line, spending the night on an uncomfortable metal bench, and dining on McDonald's.

"We're big fans," Kimberly told AFP. Kira said their family thought they were "crazy people" and admitted it had been an uncomfortable night.

"Next time, we'll bring a tent!" she said.

The college students said they couldn't wait to read the novel, told this time from the perspective of bondage-king and billionaire Christian Grey, instead of his young, meek lover Anastasia Steele.

The 559-page paperback, "Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian," hit bookstores on her fictional character's birthday, and could be pre-ordered and downloaded on Kindle at midnight.

Such was the frenzy surrounding the announcement of the book's release, it was propelled to an Amazon best-seller.

Early reviews panned the book: "As arousing as the diary of a sex offender" wrote The Telegraph.

"I'm a creep," headlined The Economist.

Die-hard fans, however, couldn't care less about what critics thought.

Mother of four Amber Garrow parked her children with her mother, and took the first train from Connecticut at dawn to meet 52-year-old James in the flesh an astonishing fourth time.

"It's fantasy," she told AFP. "It takes me out of my own life. That's what fiction's for!"

- Mommy issues -

She downloaded the ebook at midnight and Thursday read the first 40 pages of the hard copy, sitting in a fold-out chair outside Barnes and Noble, shielded from a faint summer drizzle.

"A lot of us have re-read it and re-read it, and you think he thinks something different every time. I love getting both sides and hearing about his rough side," said Garrow.

Angela Cetrangola said "Fifty Shades" had transformed her into an avid reader, so hooked on the genre that she contributes to "Sizzling Pages" -- a blog that reviews racy romance novels.

"It's unlike anything I've read before," she said, accompanied by her twin 15-year-old daughters, who she insists are too young to read the books.

James, a married mother of two from suburban London, dedicated the book to readers "who asked... and asked... and asked for this. Thank you for all that you've done for me. You rock my world every day."

Wearing a tight-fitting green dress and black stilettos, a bespectacled James beamed and chatted to fans, as she autographed copies with a flourish of biro.

The runaway success of the novels has been credited with creating a new genre of adult literature, spicing up sex lives and fueling a boom in sales of bondage gear and sex toys.

High school pupil Aliyah Bargas, from Miami, said she had been reading "Fifty Shades" since she was 14.

"I feel like I'm meeting a celebrity," she said. Calling herself an aspiring author who wants to work in publishing.

"I'm the number one fan!" she said.

One 18-year-old man, drafted in as extra security to safeguard the event, said the hype convinced him to buy a copy, hoping it would become a valuable collector's item over time.

"Grey is somebody who has mommy issues," he said.

"It shows that Mr Perfect isn't always perfect. He's young, fit and rich, he's a sight for sore eyes but (his flaws) make it relatable."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

How Murakami's latest novel sold 1-M in 7 days

TOKYO - Haruki Murakami's latest novel, "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage," has achieved a phenomenal success in Japan's lackluster publishing market, selling over 1 million copies in just the first seven days after its release on April 12.

Behind the triumph was a marketing tactic of restricting information about the book ahead of its release, which came three years after his previous book. This has apparently created a huge sense of anticipation among potential readers.

Some observers also say the novel's theme overlaps with the sense of loss widely felt among the Japanese after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.

Led by "Norwegian Wood," which sold about 11.16 million copies including paperbacks, all Murakami's major works have crossed the 1 million copy threshold.

Japan's book market has been in a deep slump with only one title having sold over 1 million copies last year -- "Kiku Chikara" (the power of listening) by essayist and TV personality Sawako Agawa.

In the past few years, only a few other titles accomplished the feat, including Naoki Hyakuta's "Kaizoku to Yobareta Otoko" (the man who was called a pirate) which won this year's Honya Taisho award chosen by bookstores.

Bungeishunju Ltd., the publisher of Murakami's latest work, initially did not disclose any information about the much-awaited novel. It slowly began to reveal tidbits, including the title and the themes of the novel, starting in mid-February. The tactic apparently stimulated readers' curiosity.

"We limited the information because we wanted people to read the work without prejudice. We learned from the tactic taken by Shinchosha Publishing Co. when it released '1Q84'," said Kotaro Kashiwabara, head of book promotion at Bungeishunju, referring to Murakami's previous novel released in April 2010.

Fans apparently responded to such "deprivation." Kunio Nakamura, who runs the Shinjuku cafe Rokujigen where ardent Murakami fans congregate, said he tried to imagine the contents of the novel when only its title was known prior to the release.

"There is an element of a game here, and the whole phenomenon surrounding the book felt like entertainment," Nakamura said.

Just after midnight April 12 when the sales embargo was lifted, some people were seen reading copies on a street outside the Tsutaya bookstore in the Daikanyama area of Tokyo. The Twitter social networking service was buzzing with fans' thoughts on the long-awaited story.

The novel has brought business to bookstores in northeastern Japan affected by the March 2011 disaster as well. Naoko Nishikiori, store manager of the Bookboy main branch in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, seemed delighted, saying that "many people came to the store to buy the book." The store fully reopened in February after its former building was washed away by tsunami.

But some small bookstores had trouble keeping their shelves stocked with the new book. A store manager at one such store in Tokyo said, "The book was sold out by the evening of the release date, but it was hard to get information on future shipments."

Megumi Ushikubo, a writer who specializes in marketing, commented on why people want to read the new release as quickly as possible. "If they get a new book by Mr. Murakami, who is also popular outside Japan, they can boast to their worldwide audience on Facebook the fact that they have already read it." She added, "It looks like many young people read it in order to have something in common to talk about with others."

The protagonist Tsukuru Tazaki is a 36-year-old working in a railway company. He was deeply hurt psychologically when he was rejected by four of his close friends during high school 16 years ago. In order to find out the reasons for his rejection, Tazaki travels to places including his hometown Nagoya in Japan and Finland with the hope of giving his life a fresh start.

"My impression (of the novel) was like it was post-'Norwegian Wood' and it was easy to read. It's great that the author did not make it a complicated piece of work but wrote it for a wide audience," said the cafe owner Nakamura. "It is also fitting for a time when everyone is feeling the subconscious sense of loss after the northeastern Japan disaster."

Literary critic Yoshinori Shimizu, who lives in the city of Nagoya which appears in the novel, said he was surprised how realistically the author depicted local people.

"Although it does not directly touch on the disaster, the 16-year time lapse in the story overlaps with the time gap between the Great Hanshin Earthquake (in 1995) and the northeastern disaster," Shimizu said.

"As a nuclear waste disposal site is being built in Finland, the author may have projected the issue of radioactive contamination on the sense of loss held by the protagonist who has lost his hometown," Shimizu said.

Many residents around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been forced to evacuate and remain unable to return home.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com