"THE SUNFLOWER CRIES" IS BEST BOOK OF 2005

The Saidercrayan Academy of Literature and Poetry (SALP) has distinguished Jonathan Urkle's "The Sunflower Cries" with the Henry Nesswick Award. The distinction, traditionally confered at the national Day of the Arts, honours the best book published by a Saidercrayan in the passed year.
"The Sunflower Cries" has prevailed against Linda O'Fredric's anti-racist "The Golden River" and recently naturalized Hou Su Kim's "Inside Earth", telling the true story of a miner who survives a mine disaster.
"The Sunflower Cries", Urkle's fourth book, portrays Paul Smith, a 43 year-old teacher who can´t overcome the death of his wife Joan who dies in a plane crash. In the end, he commits suicide while holding a sunflower, his wife´s favourite flower. The jury lauded that Urkle "treats his topic very sensitively. The lines are full comprehension and an experience of life which you wouldn´t have expected to find within a book of a 31 year-old author. The author succeeds in making the reader identify with a suicidal, depressive person and writes about death in a way which is far away from the kitsch or the sensationalism many other novels about death have."
Urkle, son of a lawyer and a psychologist, was very surprised about the distinction. In his speech, he announced that he "will continue to write about issues our modern society likes to forget, about the sad sides of our world. I´ve written a book about rape ["Julia's Last Happy Day"], one about a casual ["The Road with the Yellow House"], one about mobbing ["We Don´t Like You"] and now one about death. But there are many more sad things outside there who deserve to be dealt with. In the interest of all those who have to suffer every day, we mustn´t ignore those sad realities." He has already begun to write his next book - about a group of teenagers addicted to drugs. Obviously, our best author of 2005 keeps his word.

idunews

SAIDERCRAY JOINS INTERNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC UNION

Today, the Republic of Saidercray has left Haven of Better Tomorrow in order to join the International Democratic Union. After signing the contract that has made Saidercray become a member of its new region, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mrs. Melanie Wathers (47), has explained the reasons.

"As you know, the I.D.U. is a larger region than Haven. Furthermore, it seems to be organized in a more professional way, and to be more open to different political opinions. I know that Haven´s ideals are very close to ours, so we would still fit into this region very well. But I think that dialogue is much more necessary than monologue, and therefore we want to move to a region where the opinions aren´t that close together.
On the one hand, we think that Saidercray has a message that´s worth being told to others. On the other hand, we think that also other states have such messages and I´m sure we´ll sometimes see that some of the things they think are better than some of the things we are thinking at the moment. Pluralism is good for us aswell as for other states, because pluralism allows discussions and allows learning from each other. We believe the Union to be more pluralistic than Haven, and that´s why we have gone there.
I invite our country to tell its message and to hear the messages of our fellow nations, also and especially if they have another opinion than we have. I invite our country to see this new episode as a new chance to improve the world by dialogues and realizations resulting out of them."