Part of the not-so-global community

I'm afraid you'll have to click on the link to Jasmin's Heart to find today's post. It's been moved temporarily.

The site is run by one Jasko Caus, a well travelled artist and the author of two books of poetry, who hails from Bihać a town in the north-western part of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

I met him through Entrecard and have been following his blog for quite a few weeks. The blog often features his artwork along with literary articles and examples of writing from an area of the world most of us would struggle to find on a map. I have particularly enjoyed his series of essays on James Joyce.

On one of the various art sites where you can find his work his 'artist's statement' is: Never try to kill any talent you have by watching too much TV. A noble sentiment but then maybe they don't get House, Boston Legal, CSI, Criminal Minds, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Numb3rs and Shark in Bosnia-Herzegovina yet. Or maybe they do.

We talk about the World Wide Web as a global village but I do find that the greater amount of visitors to my site are from either the UK or the USA. I used to have a regular visitor from Australia but he's gone AWOL. I checked my visitor log and I actually get clickers from 86 different countries – thanks to Entecard no doubt – but I still don't feel as much a part of a global community as one might expect. I'm well aware that language is a barrier but not so much these days.

I have to say it would be nice to become more familiar with different writers. I was so delighted with that book by the Norwegian Erlend Loe that I ran across a few weeks back and I've got a novel by the Finnish novelist Tove Jansson sitting on my pile to read but what about the wannabes out there who could do with a bit of support and exposure?

Anyway, have a look at Jasko's site and, when you've finished with my contribution, stick around and see what else he has to say. And if you know of any decent literary-oriented-non-Anglo-American sites do let me know.