Once-banned literature used to create imitation Parthenon where books were once burned.

Argentinian artist Marta Minujin used over a 170 different banned book titles to create a full-sized recreation of the Greek Parthenon at the site where Nazi Germany once burned books.

Using over 100,000 copies of those banned books--along with plastic and some steel--Minujin built the art installation in the city of Kassel, where the Nazis burned 2,000 books as part of their "Campaign Against the un-German Spirit" in 1933. At the time, mainly books by Jewish authors and individuals against fascism were lit ablaze.

Marta Minujin is clearly more productive than you or I am.

According to Metro UK, Minujin asked students at the Kassel University to comb over books to find titles that have been banned all-time. The students brought forth works that included the likes of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter collection, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

This Parthenon stuff is old hat for Minujin, though. She created a similar banned book Parthenon structure in 1983 in her native Argentina after the military dictatorship fell.



photo: EPA/Filip Singer
photo: Boris Roessler/AFP/Getty

Follow the Swedish money: Apparently betting on the Nobel Prize in Literature is a thing.

If it's been said once, it's been said a thousand times: You're not a degenerate gambler until you play the long odds and throw some cash on Margaret Atwood winning a Nobel.

With the announcement of 2014's Nobel Prizes coming up in October, apparently one can lay some money on the outcome of who the next Laureate in Literature will be. And it's not just a recent phenomenon either. As Alex Donahue, spokesperson for Ladbrokes--the UK's leading gambling site--tells The Guardian, "We've been taking bets for this year from the day of the announcement last year," when Alice Monroe was announced as the Nobel winner.

Favorites to win aren't just randomly assigned odds. As Donahue states, it's all about how the Swedes are betting, as they have their fingers on the pulse of momentum. "It's always worth following the Swedish money and at this stage the one they like is Ngugi wa Thiong'o," said Donahue, referring to the famous Kenyan writer who was arrested in 1976 on orders by the country's vice president for creating uncensored political messages. Ngugi would end up writing one of his future novels, Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ (Devil on the Cross), on prison toilet paper while spending a year behind bars.

Ngugi might have momentum with a betting line at 6/1, but he still doesn't have the best odds. Those go to Haruki Murakami at 5/1. Others in the realm of potential include Joyce Carol Oates at 12/1, Philip Roth at 16/1, Thomas Pynchon at 25/1, Don Delillo at 25/1, and Margaret Atwood at 33/1. The likes of Salman Rushdie, Cormac McCarthy, and even that plagiarizing literary sage Bob Dylan bring up the betting odds rear at 50/1.

Dylan's odds, according to Donahue, are based off two bets that came in from Sweden.

Hell, if that's all it takes, I'll find two Swedish guys named Bjorn and Henrik to lay $5 on me and call myself a Nobel contender.

The bounty on Salman Rushdie just went up by $500,000.

Salman Rushdie has had a bounty placed on his head since 1989, when the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeni issued a fatwa ordering Rushdie killed for a blasphemous interpretation of the prophet Muhammad.

Time passed. The Ayatollah died of old age, people moved on, and the fatwa sort of existed in a form of non-existence. Only the man who issued the fatwa can remove the fatwa, and with the Ayatollah long dead, ehhh...looks like that fatwa's going to remain for awhile, even if it's not pursued.

One Iranian, Hassan Sanei--who leads a religious organization, and inspired by uprisings sweeping the Middle East--is seeking to change this lethargy surrounding the fatwa on Rushdie. Senai has added $500,000 to the tally on Rushdie's head. This extra $500,000 brings the total bounty on Rushdie to $3.3 million.

Rushdie's response? "I'm not inclined to magnify this ugly bit of headline grabbing by paying it much attention," he told the Los Angeles Times, paying attention to the ugly bit of headline grabbing and magnifying it.



photo: Francine Orr, Los Angeles Times