I Mean, I *LOVE* Yu Hua's Brothers

From the Library of Congress (via The Elegant Variation):

On April 23, 2009, a federal district court in the southern Russian province of Dagestan issued an unprecedented ruling, ordering a journalist of a local newspaper to pay compensation in an amount equal to US$1,000 to a writer who did not like a review of his book published in the newspaper. The plaintiff, an author whose work of fiction was reviewed in the publication’s book review section, sued the reviewer, claiming that the author and his family had experienced severe mental suffering and that his professional reputation was damaged as a result of the review. The writer stated that after reading the book review, he experienced chest pains, headache, and elevated blood pressure. He demanded to be compensated in the amount of US$150,000. Both parties were dissatisfied with the court ruling and expressed their intention to appeal.

Maybe publishers can get on this as well. . . . Start suing papers for crappy reviews, or even suing them for not reviewing the book! My health (and our financial stability, I might add) has been severely hampered by all the reviews I’m counting on that have yet to appear . . .