The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep: The Friday Quiz: Burn This

I'm not going to lie to you. This week has been defined by swelter and cattarrh, by writhing babies and stubborn little girls, by the knowledge that in electrically rendering our apartment cool enough for wombat habitation, we're joining in the Global War on Tundra, and by the video-musical plague of The Wiggles. An examination of how the Wombat Burrow became infected with Wiggles (specifically this strain) is the sort of painful inquiry likely to lead to even more suffering, so we'll simply have to accept it as part of the cosmic retribution for our many moral failures. Karma is, as many a coffee-shop tip jar reminds us, a boomerang.

Ahem. On to today's head-slapper, submitted by generous sometime Wombat reader Rachel Barney. Yes, that Rachel Barney, the author of Names and Nature in Plato's Cratylus. It's just as we've always maintained -- even people who know how to pronounce "Cratylus" take a healthy interest in the Quiz, when they're not playing online 3-D go or chuckling over the "LinguaBloopers" column on the back page of the latest Popular Philology.

He began his career as a criminal ~~lawer~~ lawyer and teacher of criminology; he went on to become an editor of an outspoken newspaper (whose name in translation might be rendered as "Speech"), and later rose to the post of regional minister of justice. After fleeing his native country, he worked as a newspaper editor elsewhere. Attending a conference, he interfered in the attempted killing of one of the other attendees, and was himself killed; the shooter's target was unharmed. The eldest of his five children later became globally famous.

Who was he?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a copy of former quiz subject John Tesh's 2002 CD the Power of Love. Honest. I have it right here, and I might even be cruel enough to send it to the winner. Go on. Try me. No Googling or consulting the Popular Philology archives. One guess per comment, but pile on those comments, by all means.

Comments

lawyer.

Sorry if I'm in a bad mood; I stood in line for over an hour for a roller coaster called Whizzer yesterday. Three times.

I have no idea. Perry White.

Posted by: boxjam | August 4, 2006 11:52 AM

Fidel Castro's dad.

Posted by: boxjam | August 4, 2006 12:25 PM

Typo fixed. And, nope.

Oh, and he shares first and last name with his famous offspring.

Posted by: BT | August 4, 2006 12:55 PM

It's the Tesh, isn't it. I blame this on John Tesh!

DAMN YOU, TESH! DAMN YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: BT | August 4, 2006 03:13 PM

Kofi Annan Sr.

Posted by: boxjam | August 4, 2006 03:50 PM

Nope. OK, here's a hint: the son was noted for his literary achievements. And, incidentally he did not have a "Jr." after his name.

Posted by: BT | August 4, 2006 04:12 PM

You want a quiz, AC boy? Here's a quiz.
Or two.

Was it maybe Joseph Conrad?

Posted by: bootsy3000 | August 4, 2006 06:38 PM

sounds like a Hitchcock plot

Salman Rushdie?

Posted by: art | August 4, 2006 07:36 PM

I was going to say Costa-Gavras but you know he's not a literary dude....

And then somehow I've got Kingsley Amis in my brain (some kind of father-son thing there?) but having not read a scrap of his work...

Posted by: art | August 4, 2006 07:40 PM

V. S. Naipaul?
(I don't even know who that is, really)

Posted by: art | August 4, 2006 07:41 PM

Vaclav Havel.

Posted by: boxjam | August 4, 2006 07:54 PM

Vladimir Lenin

Posted by: Jonathan | August 5, 2006 12:05 AM

Milan Kundera?

Posted by: art | August 7, 2006 02:58 AM

Zizek? (You know who I mean)

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez?

Posted by: boxjam | August 7, 2006 09:26 AM

Lech Walesa

Posted by: Jonathan | August 7, 2006 11:14 AM

Jonathan was in some ways terribly close (and in another way sort of perfectly, almost transcendentally far away). But Rachel appears to have stumped the band. The answer? Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, father of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, novelist, memoirist, lepidopterist, chess master, and namesake of an asteroid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7232_Nabokov

Thanks, Rachel!

Posted by: BT | August 7, 2006 11:25 AM

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Of course, it being Monday, I have an easy tie breaker.

Posted by: Jonathan | August 7, 2006 11:35 AM

The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

The Wombat File is a Delaying Tactic that May Save Your Life

The Friday Quiz: Burn This

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