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My interview with Klárka Berg, coordinator of international projects at Be International, a Czech civic association established in 2009, focuses on the interesting choice of mascot, which caught my attention when I worked with Klárka on a "Youth in Action" project in Azerbaijan. "Be International" organizes public forums, conferences, seminars and supports activism in the field of youth participation, creating a multicultural forum which contributes to the development of a tolerant and responsible global society.

What makes a classic and, more importantly, can one apply these variables to the books that are published today?

The former is consistently debated. Of course, there are extensive discussions on the matter, but there is a consensus about time needing to play a factor. On the other hand there is disagreement about whether it's the experts' or everyday readers' opinions which matter for a book's longevity.

What follows are some factors for what makes a classic:

Relative of a Sewol Ferry victim (Photo: AP)

(아래, 한국어로 읽으시오)

This year marks the 20th anniversary since South Africa's first democratic elections, which in 1994 drove the final nail into the coffin of Apartheid. To commemorate this event and measure the depth of racial healing between blacks and whites in "The New South Africa," longtime Mantle correspondent Michael J. Jordan launched a documentary-film project, The Clubhouse: A Post-Apartheid Story.

As Chris Baldick pointed out in his introduction to The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, Gothic fiction is concerned with "the tyranny of the past" and its continuing influence on the present. Historically, this meant the tyranny of the Catholic Church (Gothic fiction started as a British, Protestant phenomenon): evil monks or vicious Italian noblemen amassing their power through superstition and intimidation.