The seminal Spanish novel and its author are difficult to pin down in translation and history
		
	 
	
		
		Women writers have often been treated badly but the first novel was written by one
		
	 
	
		
		Don Quixote was cancelled after only four performances. The M&G talked to the Joburg Ballet’s chief executive and artistic director about the implications
		
	 
	
		
		The Joburg Theatre is defying the conventions of classical ballet by not giving the lead roles to white men in Don Quixote
		
	 
	
		
		When last month’s Sichuan earthquake struck, Fan Meizhong was teaching a literature class at Guangya high school in the town of Dujiangyan. ”It’s an earthquake,” he shouted, before legging it out of the door.
		
	 
	
		
		It is almost 40 years since Roland Barthes announced the death of the author and called for the "birth of the reader" in that annus mirabilis of French history, 1968. For Barthes, it was the reader who should decide literary meaning. To a degree, authors were already playing this game before Barthes.
		
	 
	
		
			
				
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			 / 31 October 2007
			
		
		Singer-actor Robert Goulet, whose rich baritone voice made him an instant success when he played Lancelot in the original 1960 Broadway hit Camelot, died on Tuesday at age 73. The performer, who suffered from the lung disease pulmonary fibrosis, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre.
		
	 
	
		
			
				
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			 / 21 September 2007
			
		
		On a shoestring budget the Gem Bioscope has drawn thousands of people to its film screenings, art exhibitions, performances and concerts, writes Guy Oliver.