Along with such classics as In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote had a history of work left uncompleted and unpublished. Another Day in Paradise is one such short story, which was discovered by Andrew F Gulli, managing editor of Strand Magazine, and was published in Issue 70 of the magazine this week.
Strand has published rare works by Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and others in the past. Gulli found the Capote story in the Library of Congress, inside an “old red and gold-scrolled Florentine notebook”, he writes on the Strand editorial page. The handwritten manuscript, written in pencil, was at times so hard to make out that Gulli needed a transcriber to help prepare it for publication.
Capote was in his mid-20s and a rising star when he moved from New York City to Taormina, Sicily, in 1950 and settled in a scenic villa named Fontana Vecchia, once occupied by DH Lawrence.
Acclaimed for his debut novel Other Voices, Other Rooms and for his eerie short story Miriam, Capote would describe the move to Europe as a needed escape from the American literary scene, which he likened to living inside a light bulb, and an ideal setting to get work done: He wrote the novel The Grass Harp in Sicily and worked on numerous short stories.
“I am so happy to be writing stories again – they are my great love,” he wrote to a friend.
Another Day In Paradise was one such vignette that Capote wrote at a time of relative contentment. A narrative of disillusion and entrapment, it tells the tale of middle-aged American heiress Iris Greentree who used her inheritance – a small one because her mother didn't trust her with money – to buy a villa in Sicily. She is later betrayed by Signor Carlo Petruzzi, a local man who persuaded to invest her money.
“The past had trained her to envision an affair from a futureless angle; at the most, she hoped such episodes would end in friendship. It was so humiliating that Carlo should have turned out not to be a friend. She’d trusted him to the extent of her capital: Let him sell her the land, allowed him to build the villa, supply, at pirate prices, the native paraphernalia that furnished it,” Capote wrote.
“He was an emotional crook and, beyond that, a common gangster who’d pocketed at least half the money supposedly spent on Belle Vista. All this she could forgive him – could, but didn’t. The unforgivable aspect of the ghastly man’s behaviour was that it had destroyed the meaning of these lines in her journal: 'I belong. At last, somewhere.'”
Much of Capote's fiction was set in New York or in the American South, but Another Day in Paradise has the easy pace, decorative language and cutting – sometimes cruel – humour of his best known work, and the themes of loneliness, fear and regret.
Thomas Fahy, author of Understanding Truman Capote, says that the author likely related to Iris Greentree's sense of displacement and alienation.
“He was constantly moving around as a child, from New Orleans to Alabama to New York to Connecticut,” Fahy says. “You could see how his life became very lonely and isolated.”
Fahy says that Capote’s time in Sicily, where he remained for just over a year, left him with the kind of feelings many authors have when away from their native countries – a heightened sense of distance from home that likely helped inspire Another Day in Paradise, and a heightened clarity, which he drew upon for The Grass Harp and its memories of his years in Monroeville, Alabama.
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AI traffic lights to ease congestion at seven points to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Street
The seven points are:
Shakhbout bin Sultan Street
Dhafeer Street
Hadbat Al Ghubainah Street (outbound)
Salama bint Butti Street
Al Dhafra Street
Rabdan Street
Umm Yifina Street exit (inbound)
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
UAE Premiership
Results
Dubai Exiles 24-28 Jebel Ali Dragons
Abu Dhabi Harlequins 43-27 Dubai Hurricanes
Fixture
Friday, March 29, Abu Dhabi Harlequins v Jebel Ali Dragons, The Sevens, Dubai
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Married Malala
Malala Yousafzai is enjoying married life, her father said.
The 24-year-old married Pakistan cricket executive Asser Malik last year in a small ceremony in the UK.
Ziauddin Yousafzai told The National his daughter was ‘very happy’ with her husband.
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
Dubai Rugby Sevens, December 5 -7
World Sevens Series Pools
A – Fiji, France, Argentina, Japan
B – United States, Australia, Scotland, Ireland
C – New Zealand, Samoa, Canada, Wales
D – South Africa, England, Spain, Kenya
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The specs: 2018 Audi Q5/SQ5
Price, base: Dh183,900 / Dh249,000
Engine: 2.0L, turbocharged in-line four-cylinder / 3.0L, turbocharged V6
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic / Eight-speed automatic
Power: 252hp @ 5,000rpm / 354hp @ 5,400rpm
Torque: 370Nm @ 1,600rpm / 500Nm @ 1,370rpm
Fuel economy: combined 7.2L / 100km / 8.3L / 100km
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
RESULT
Argentina 0 Croatia 3
Croatia: Rebic (53'), Modric (80'), Rakitic (90' 1)
Recent winners
2002 Giselle Khoury (Colombia)
2004 Nathalie Nasralla (France)
2005 Catherine Abboud (Oceania)
2007 Grace Bijjani (Mexico)
2008 Carina El-Keddissi (Brazil)
2009 Sara Mansour (Brazil)
2010 Daniella Rahme (Australia)
2011 Maria Farah (Canada)
2012 Cynthia Moukarzel (Kuwait)
2013 Layla Yarak (Australia)
2014 Lia Saad (UAE)
2015 Cynthia Farah (Australia)
2016 Yosmely Massaad (Venezuela)
2017 Dima Safi (Ivory Coast)
2018 Rachel Younan (Australia)
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Kalra's feat
- Becomes fifth batsman to score century in U19 final
- Becomes second Indian to score century in U19 final after Unmukt Chand in 2012
- Scored 122 in youth Test on tour of England
- Bought by Delhi Daredevils for base price of two million Indian rupees (Dh115,000) in 2018 IPL auction
How to help
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Stats at a glance:
Cost: 1.05 billion pounds (Dh 4.8 billion)
Number in service: 6
Complement 191 (space for up to 285)
Top speed: over 32 knots
Range: Over 7,000 nautical miles
Length 152.4 m
Displacement: 8,700 tonnes
Beam: 21.2 m
Draught: 7.4 m
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
