Book Review: Global Literary Journalism: Exploring the Journalistic Imagination, edited by Richard Lance Keeble and John Tulloch

Abstract

Global Literary Journalism: Exploring Journalistic Imagination. Vol. 2. Richard Lance Keeble and John Tulloch, eds. New York, New York: Peter Lang, 2014. 306 pp. $169.95 hbk.Literary journalism is often characterized by its narrative techniques, such as scenes, dialogues, and first-person perspective, but narrative techniques are used for a purpose, and that purpose may well be uncover human significance of experience in all its intricate complexity and detail, according to John Tulloch, former Head of Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at University of Westminster, UK.Writing about British reporter Geoffrey Moorhouse (1931-2009), Tulloch also stresses that what he means by literary journalism is not so-called human interest story that is easily created and replaced. Instead, it is characterized by a slow, observant, patient, considered search for an of meaning of human experience, in time, with a sensibility to individuality of place and culture and a sense for rootedness and interconnectedness.This second volume about global literary journalism is markedly different from first (2012), whose front cover pictured a senior citizen scanning a morning newspaper on a busy street in New Delhi. In second volume, we have metaphorically left busy Main Street and taken refuge in a quiet university archive. Most of 18 analyses of literary journalism from various continents focus on life of interesting journalists who entertained newspaper and magazine readers from 1800 to 2000, where newspapers played a more important role than they do today. Because each chapter is well researched, it is primarily a book for nerdish journalism professors interested in times gone by.Amusing is description of writer R. K. Narayan's visit to University of Missouri in spring of 1969 because it recalls naivete about other cultures that existed before Internet. As a visiting writer at campus, Narayan (1906-2001) soon realized that students expected all Indians to be spiritually preoccupied and demanded Indian mysticism from him. He played along for a while, but he eventually told students, the young person in my country would sooner learn how to organize a business or manufacture an atom bomb or an automobile than how to stand on one's head. With a few paragraphs, Narayan's biographer N. Ram revives my own memories of similar intercultural experiences in 1960s and 1970s when many intellectuals were driven by a desire for international understanding and globalization that was still in its infancy. Narayan published account of his visit in Reluctant Guru (1974).Comparisons between past and present are interesting, and Lisbon professor Isabel Soares makes an attempt in her chapter about Portuguese journalist Eca de Queiros (1845-1900). The British government seemingly managed to convince public that military intervention in Egypt in 1882 was needed on humanitarian ground, whereas in reality reason was economic; they wanted to ensure Suez route to India. …