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Alice in Wonderland: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions #0)
By Lewis Carroll. 2023
“Offering accurate texts, stimulating contexts, and a generous selection of essays to help readers make their way through Wonderland and…
Lewis Carroll’s other nonsense worlds, this remains the definitive critical edition of stories that remain as fresh and surprising now as they were when originally published more than 150 years ago.” —Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, University of Oxford “This new edition includes a rich array of Lewis Carroll’s marvelous writings, including personal letters and other important background material. A really splendid edition for teaching.” —Deborah Lutz, University of Louisville “Donald Gray’s fourth edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland collects a fresh assortment of critical essays that will shed new light on the Alice books and The Hunting of the Snark. Organized around different periods in Charles Dodgson’s life, the backgrounds will enable students, scholars, and readers to place these beloved texts in their proper contexts. A crisp new edition.” —Ronjaunee Chatterjee, Queen’s University This Norton Critical Edition includes: The texts and original illustrations from the 1897 editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as well as the 1878 edition of The Hunting of the Snark. Revised and updated footnotes, headnotes, and introductory materials by Donald J. Gray. Selections from Carroll’s diaries, letters, and other source materials examining three distinct periods in Carroll’s life and career. Fourteen critical interpretations—eight new to the Fourth Edition—ranging from contemporary perspectives to modern assessments. A selected bibliography. This purchase offers access to the digital ebook only.The Sixteen Satires
By Juvenal. 1998
Perhaps more than any other writer, Juvenal (c. AD 55-138) captures the splendour, the squalor and the sheer energy of…
everyday Roman life. In The Sixteen Satires he evokes a fascinating world of whores, fortune-tellers, boozy politicians, slick lawyers, shameless sycophants, ageing flirts and downtrodden teachers. A member of the traditional land-owning class that was rapidly seeing power slip into the hands of outsiders, Juvenal also creates savage portraits of decadent aristocrats - male and female - seeking excitement among the lower orders of actors and gladiators, and of the jumped-up sons of newly-rich former slaves. Constantly comparing the corruption of his own generation with its stern and upright forebears, Juvenal's powers of irony and invective make his work a stunningly satirical and bitter denunciation of the degeneracy of Roman societyThe Pancatantra
By Visnu Sarma, Visnu Sarma. 1993
First recorded 1500 years ago, but taking its origins from a far earlier oral tradition, the Pancatantra is ascribed by…
legend to the celebrated, half-mythical teacher Visnu Sarma. Asked by a great king to awaken the dulled intelligence of his three idle sons, the aging Sarma is said to have composed the great work as a series of entertaining and edifying fables narrated by a wide range of humans and animals, and together intended to provide the young princes with vital guidance for life. Since first leaving India before AD 570, the Pancatantra has been widely translated and has influenced a cast number of works in India, the Arab world and Europe, including the Arabian Nights, the Canterbury Tales and the Fables of La Fontaine. Enduring and profound, it is among the earliest and most popular of all books of fables.The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950
By Carmen Callil, Colm Toibin. 2011
For Colm Toíbín and Carmen Callil there is no difference between literary and commercial writing - there is only the…
good novel: engrossing, inspirational, compelling. In their selection of the best 200 novels written since 1950, the editors make a case for the best and the best-loved works and argue why each should be considered a modern classic. Enlightening, often unexpected and always engaging this tour through the world of fiction is full of surprises, forgotten masterpieces and a valuable guide to what to read next. Authors in the collection include Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Daphne du Maurier, Patrick Hamilton, Carson McCullers, J. D. Salinger, Bernard Malamud; Flannery O'Connor, Mulk Raj Anand, Raymond Chandler, L. P. Hartley, Amos Tutuola, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Samuel Beckett, Patricia Highsmith, Chinua Achebe, Isak Dineson, Alan Sillitoe, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Grace Paley, Harper Lee, Olivia Manning and Mordecai Richler.Evelyn's Husband
By Charles W. Chesnutt. 2005
The critique of white male society that Charles W. Chesnutt launched in A Marrow of Tradition continues in Evelyn's Husband,…
one of six manuscripts left unpublished when this highly regarded African American innovator died. Set in Boston society, on a deserted Caribbean island, and in Brazil, Evelyn's Husbandis the story of two men—one old, one young—in love with the same young woman. Late in his career Chesnutt embarked on a period of experimentation with eccentric forms, finishing this hybrid of a romance and adventure story just before publishing his last work, The Colonel's Dream. In Evelyn's Husband, Chesnutt crafts a parody examining white male roles in the early 1900s, a time when there was rampant anxiety over the subject. In Boston, the older man is left at the altar when his bride-to-be flees and marries a young architect. Later, trapped on an island together, the jilted lover and the young husband find a productive middle ground between the dilettante and the primitive. Along with A Business Career, this novel marks Chesnutt's achievement in being among the first African American authors to defy the color barrier and write fiction with a white cast of main characters.Selected works and incidental writings by the celebrated author of A River Runs Through It, plus excerpts from a 1986…
interview.In his eighty-seven years, Norman Maclean played many parts: fisherman, logger, firefighter, scholar, teacher. But it was a role he took up late in life, that of writer, that won him enduring fame and critical acclaim—as well as the devotion of readers worldwide. Though the 1976 collection A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was the only book Maclean published in his lifetime, it was an unexpected success, and the moving family tragedy of the title novella—based largely on Maclean’s memories of his childhood home in Montana—has proved to be one of the most enduring American stories ever written.The Norman Maclean Reader is a wonderful addition to Maclean’s celebrated oeuvre. Bringing together previously unpublished materials with incidental writings and selections from his more famous works, the Reader will serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering longtime fans new insight into his life and career.In this evocative collection, Maclean as both a writer and a man becomes evident. Perceptive, intimate essays deal with his career as a teacher and a literary scholar, as well as the wealth of family stories for which Maclean is famous. Complete with a generous selection of letters, as well as excerpts from a 1986 interview, The Norman Maclean Reader provides a fully fleshed-out portrait of this much admired author, showing us a writer fully aware of the nuances of his craft, and a man as at home in the academic environment of the University of Chicago as in the quiet mountains of his beloved Montana.Various and moving, the works collected in The Norman Maclean Reader serve as both a summation and a celebration, giving readers a chance once again to hear one of American literature’s most distinctive voices.Praise for The Norman MacLean Reader“A solid, satisfying, well-made body of work by a patient craftsman.” —Chicago Tribune“The Norman Maclean Reader fills out and makes more human the impressions of the restless, inquiring storyteller we saw in previously published works. In his writings, at their best, we too feel the thrusts and strains. He is a writer of great beauty, in his own terms.” —Financial Times“Weltzien has not only done great service for Norman Maclean’s readers, he has rightly expanded Maclean’s place in American literature . . . . For me, The Norman Maclean reader is discovered treasure.” —Bloomsbury ReviewThe art of mystery: the search for questions (Art Of... Ser.)
By Maud Casey. 2018
Where does mystery reside in a work of fiction Maud Casey takes us into the Land of Un a space…
of uncertainty and unknowing to find out and looks at the variety of ways mystery is created through character, image, structure, and haunted texts, including the novels of Shirley Jackson, Paul Yoon, J. M. Coetzee, and more. Casey's wide-ranging discussion encompasses spirit photography, the radical nature of empathy, and contradictory characters, as she searches for questions rather than answers. Adult. UnratedSouthland
By Nina Revoyr. 2003
A compelling story of race, love, murder, and history against the backdrop of an ever-changing Los Angeles. "I'm an LA…
native with a lot of love for LA crime fiction, but instead of preaching to the noir choir about The Long Goodbye, I'd like to gush about Southland by Nina Revoyr. It's a brilliant, ambitious, moving literary crime novel about two families in South Los Angeles and their tangled history between the 1930s and the 1990s. The central mystery is the death of four black boys in a Japanese-American man's store during the Watts Rebellion of 1965. It's a powerful book, one that I think about often, as well as a huge influence on my work. Right up there with Chandler." --Stephanie Cha (of the LARB) in GQ on "The Greatest Crime Novelists on Their Favorite Crime Novels Ever" "A story about injustice dressed up as a detective novel, Southland reminds us that activism is both an ongoing project and a deeply personal choice." --Vallaire Wallace in Electric Lit on "The Novel That Shows Us How to Face our Past to Change Our Future" "Jackie Ishida's grandfather had a store in Watts where four boys were killed during the riots in 1965, a mystery she attempts to solve." --New York Times Book Review, Ross MacDonald on "Where Noir Lives in the City of Angels" "It is the kind of saga that often epitomizes and shocks LA--friction and violence between races and cultures." --Los Angeles Times, named one of the 20 Essential LA Crime Books "When I started working on Your House Will Pay, I hoped to write something that was half as smart and affecting as Southland. Revoyr's novel takes place in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, following two families--one black, one Japanese--over several decades. It's a character-driven saga with the engine of a crime novel, unravelling a horrific multiple murder that took place in the chaotic days of the Watts Rebellion in 1965." --The Guardian (UK), one of Steph Cha's Top 10 Books About Trouble in Los Angeles "[A]n absolutely compelling story of family and racial tragedy. Revoyr's novel is honest in detailing southern California's brutal history, and honorable in showing how families survived with love and tenacity and dignity." --Susan Straight, author of Highwire Moon Southland brings us a fascinating story of race, love, murder and history, against the backdrop of an ever-changing Los Angeles. A young Japanese-American woman, Jackie Ishida, is in her last semester of law school when her grandfather, Frank Sakai, dies unexpectedly. While trying to fulfill a request from his will, Jackie discovers that four African-American boys were killed in the store Frank owned during the Watts Riots of 1965. Along with James Lanier, a cousin of one of the victims, Jackie tries to piece together the story of the boys' deaths. In the process, she unearths the long-held secrets of her family's history. Southland depicts a young woman in the process of learning that her own history has bestowed upon her a deep obligation to be engaged in the larger world. And in Frank Sakai and his African-American friends, it presents characters who find significant common ground in their struggles, but who also engage each other across grounds--historical and cultural--that are still very much in dispute. Moving in and out of the past--from the internment camps of World War II, to the barley fields of the Crenshaw District in the 1930s, to the streets of Watts in the 1960s, to the night spots and garment factories of the 1990s--Southland weaves a tale of Los Angeles in all of its faces and forms.When Johnny Came Marching Home: A Novel
By William Heffernan. 2012
"A solid historical from Edgar-winner Heffernan."--Publishers Weekly"Mystery fans will zip through this, fans of historical fiction will enjoy the fin…
de guerre mood."--Library Journal"Heffernan swings his vivid tale back and forth between past and present, war and peace-a neat tour de force he pulls off with admirable assurance."--Kirkus Reviews"Moving back and forth in time, the well-paced narrative involves the reader with powerfully vivid descriptions of horrendous battles like the Wilderness and Gettysburg, of terrible raids on civilians, and of great physical and mental anguish suffered by the soldiers. Heffernan skillfully presents a realistic and evocative tale of war and its lingering effects."--Historical Novels Review"Heffernan, three times nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and an Edgar Award winner, knows his history and his mysteries . . . This is really a story of war and redemption and what happens to idealistic kids who have to turn into killers."--Globe & Mail (Canada)"Sliding back and forth in time-before, during, and after the Civil War-William Heffernan creates a powerful, intriguing, and complex novel about the intricacies of friendship and the devastating effects of war."--Jonathan Santlofer, author of The Death Artist"When Johnny Came Marching Home evokes a young soldier's reluctant relationship to violence and brutality with a chilling realism that brings the reader face-to-face with the moral complexities of even the most noble of wars. Following in the literary tradition of Ernest Hemingway, James Jones, and Larry Heinemann, William Heffernan is able to somehow find grace and beauty amidst the horror of battle."--Kaylie Jones, author of A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries"When Johnny Came Marching Home is a carefully constructed and evocative Civil War-era tale that will hold you from first to last page. The author has a rare gift for transporting the reader in time and place. Put this one at the top of your list. No one does this kind of novel better than Heffernan."--John Lutz, author of SerialWhen Johnny Came Marching Home is a mystery, a love story, and William Heffernan's best book to date. The novel tells the story of three boys who grow up in rural Vermont in a seemingly indestructible friendship, then see their lives ruined as they go off to fight in America's "great and noble war."Trapped in a what appears to be an endless bloodbath-vividly presented with Heffernan's meticulous historical research-the boys gradually begin to change until their close-knit childhood ties are little more than a fractured memory. By war's end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath.The novel turns on the subsequent murder of the psychopath, and the offer of redemption for the wounded young man who must investigate the crime. When Johnny Came Marching Home is a story about war and how it affects the lives of all who become a part of it, both directly and peripherally. Although set during the Civil War, this book casts shadows of what we endure today and the horrors to which young soldiers are subjected.William Heffernan, a three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, is the author of eighteen novels, including such bestsellers as The Corsincan, The Dinosaur Club (a New York Times bestseller), The Dead Detective, and Tarnished Blue (winner of an Edgar Award). Heffernan lives outside of St. Petersburg, Florida.Lost Canyon
By Nina Revoyr. 2015
One of the San Francisco Chronicle's 100 Recommended Books of 2015"Los Angeles is home to many great storytellers, but Nina…
Revoyr is one of its finest scribes....[Lost Canyon] pulses with both beauty and terror, and the struggles of these characters, their physical and mental reckonings, are enough to make readers sweat without getting off the couch."--Los Angeles Times"Revoyr [is] an edgy and spellbinding writer with an uncanny gift for aligning human struggles with nature's glory and perils....With ravishing descriptions of the magnificent landscape, unrelenting suspense, incisive psychology, and shrewd perspectives on matters of race and gender, Revoyr has created a gripping tale of unintended adventure and profound transformation."--Booklist, Starred review"A suspenseful adventure story that explores how people react to danger, uncertainty, fear, and life-or-death choices....This is an exciting, page-turning adventure story that reveals how good people can do things totally contrary to their own moral code, and the conclusion will both surprise and satisfy."--Publishers Weekly"Revoyr travels LA's patchwork neighborhoods--delineating gangs and money, color and prejudice--and nicely sketches 'the grand, untamed Sierra.' Like Deliverance, a tense...morality tale formed in the crucible of physical duress."--Kirkus Reviews"With a nod to James Dickey's Deliverance...A direct, bangin' read for those interested in how people deal with physical and moral challenges."--Library Journal"An exciting blend of literary fiction and thrilling suspense--a harrowing trip into physical danger and a clever meditation on race relations and bravery."--Shelf AwarenessA Book Riot Quick Pick/Book of the Week for the week of August 28, 2015"What a pleasure it is seeing characters that live and breathe in the same textured universe that we do....Linked to complicated national issues, imbued with layered representations of Angelenos, [Revoyr] has brought us an intellectually adroit, emotionally nerve-wracking, page-turning thriller."--Los Angeles Review of Books"Even at its deadliest, Revoyr makes the high altitude seem mesmerizing....Revoyr has created characters we care for, issues we need to think about, and vistas that linger, making reading her book almost as much of a rush as scaling the sheer, icy rock of the Sierra Nevada."--San Francisco ChronicleFour people on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada find more adventure than they ever imagined. Each of them is drawn to the mountains for reasons as diverse as their own lives. Gwen Foster, a counselor for at-risk youth, is struggling with burnout from the demands of her job and with the loss of one of her teens. Real estate agent Oscar Barajas is adjusting to the fall of the housing market and being a single parent. Todd Harris, an attorney, is stuck in a lucrative but unfulfilling career--and in a failing marriage. They are all brought together by their trainer, Tracy Cole, a former athlete with a taste for risky pursuits.When the hikers start up a pristine mountain trail that hasn't been traveled in years, all they have to guide them is a hand-drawn map of a remote, mysterious place called Lost Canyon. At first, the route past high alpine lakes and under towering, snowcapped peaks offers all the freedom and exhilaration they'd hoped for. But when they stumble onto someone who doesn't want to be found, the group finds itself faced with a series of dangerous conflicts, moral dilemmas, confrontations with nature, and an all-out struggle for survival.Moving effortlessly between city and wilderness, Lost Canyon explores the ways that race, class, and culture shape experience and perception. It examines the choices good people must face in desperate situations. Set in the grand, wild landscape of the California mountains, Lost Canyon is a story of brewing social tensions and breathtaking adventure that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.A Student of History
By Nina Revoyr. 2019
"Revoyr is gifted in her ability to deal with complex ideas like racism, class conflict, and sexuality without sacrificing the…
truth of her narrative. Furthermore, like the most adroit novelists, Revoyr specializes in reversal. All of her books are filled with suspense and sudden surprises that take the stories in unexpected directions...As much as Nina Revoyr herself is a student of history, she's also one of our best teachers."--Los Angeles Review of Books"Revoyr's latest noir tells a story that's somewhere between Sunset Boulevard and the darker regions of The Great Gatsby...Revoyr is a subtle observer of human foibles and social structures, and the result is one of the most insightful, and the most entertaining books of the year."--Literary Hub, one of Lit Hub's 50 Favorite Books of 2019"A Student of History is full of research, detail, lush descriptions, and visual place-setting. [Revoyr's] a fiction writer with an eye for reality set in a dream-like world, often in her home city of Los Angeles."--The Rumpus"Any Nina Revoyr novel is a cause for celebration, and her latest, A Student of History, is assured and marvelous, an absorbing rags among riches tale about a broke USC grad student who finds himself swept off his feet by Los Angeles's insular, powerful .01% class. It's a contemporary novel that feels like an instant classic, with the wry tragedy of The House of Mirth, the sinister glamour of Sunset Boulevard, and a fresh, original point of view."--CrimeReads"With a nod to Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby, Rick Nagano is Nick Carraway and young Pip rolled into one...Lambda Award–winner Revoyr focuses on the impact of race in the construct of class and society, and how there are some doors that will always remain closed."--The Advocate"Nina Revyor's new novel, A Student of History, continues the tradition of the Los Angeles oil novel, but steers it in a new direction."--Rain Taxi Review of Books"With her two Walter Mosley-like gifts--impeccable narrative pacing and masterful command of Los Angeles' intricate, evolving dynamics of race and class--Nina Revoyr's LA novels convincingly capture the lifespan of Los Angeles as a major city, none more gracefully than A Student of History."--New York Journal of BooksRick Nagano is a graduate student in the history department at USC, struggling to make rent on his South Los Angeles apartment near the neighborhood where his family once lived. When he lands a job as a research assistant for the elderly Mrs. W--, the heir to an oil fortune, he sees it at first simply as a source of extra cash. But as he grows closer to the iconoclastic, charming, and feisty Mrs. W--, he gets drawn into a world of privilege and wealth far different from his racially mixed, blue-collar beginnings.Putting aside his half-finished dissertation, Rick sets up office in Mrs. W--'s grand Bel Air mansion and begins to transcribe her journals--which document an old Los Angeles not described in his history books. He also accompanies Mrs. W-- to venues frequented by the descendants of the land and oil barons who built the city. One evening, at an event, he meets Fiona Morgan--the elegant scion of an old steel family--who takes an interest in his studies. Irresistibly drawn to Fiona, he agrees to help her with a project of questionable merit in the hopes he'll win her favor.A Student of History explores both the beginnings of Los Angeles and the present-day dynamics of race and class. It offers a window into the usually hidden world of high society, and the influence of historic families on current events. Like Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby, it features, in Rick Nagano, a young man of modest means who is navigating a world where he doesn't belong.West of the West: imagining California : an anthology
By Leonard Michaels, David Reid, Raquel Scherr. 1995
An anthology of short stories, poems, essays, quotes, and excerpts that explore popular California themes and the romantic image of…
the West. Includes selections by well-known authors such as: Rudyard Kipling, Jack Kerouac, Simone de Beauvoir, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Soto, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Maya Angelou, and Amy TanHope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts: Or, Early Times In The Massachusetts (American Women Writers Ser.)
By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. 1987
Set in seventeenth-century New England, Hope Leslie portrays early American life and celebrates the role of women in history. At…
the heart of the story is a cross-cultural friendship between Hope-Leslie, a spirited thinker in a repressive Puritan society and Magawisca, the passionate daughter of a Pequot chief. It challenges the conventional view of Indians, tackles interracial marriage and claims for women their rightful place in history. Adult. UnratedThis book presents an innovative and imaginative reading of contemporary Australian literature in the context of unprecedented ecological crisis. The Australian…
continent has seen significant, rapid changes to its cultures and land-use from the impact of British colonial rule, yet there is a rich history of Indigenous land-ethics and cosmological thought. By using the age-old idea of ‘cosmos’—the order of the world—to foreground ideas of a good order and chaos, reciprocity and more-than-human agency, this book interrogates the Anthropocene in Australia, focusing on notions of colonisation, farming, mining, bioethics, technology, environmental justice and sovereignty. It offers ‘cosmological readings’ of a diverse range of authors—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—as a challenge to the Anthropocene’s decline-narrative. As a result, it reactivates ‘cosmos’ as an ethical vision and a transculturally important counter-concept to the Anthropocene. Kathrin Bartha-Mitchell argues that the arts can help us envision radical cosmologies of being in and with the planet, and to address the very real social and environmental problems of our era. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and students of Ecocriticism, Environmental Humanities, and postcolonial, transcultural and Indigenous studies, with a primary focus on Australian, New Zealand, Oceanic and Pacific area studies.The Financier: The Critical Edition (The Dreiser Edition)
By Theodore Dreiser. 2010
First published in 1912, Theodore Dreiser's third novel, The Financier, captures the ruthlessness and sparkle of the Gilded Age alongside…
the charismatic amorality of the power brokers and bankers of the mid-nineteenth century. This volume is the first modern edition of The Financier to draw on the uncorrected page proofs of the original 1912 version, which established Dreiser as a master of the American business novel. The novel was the first volume of Dreiser’s Trilogy of Desire, also known as the Cowperwood Trilogy, which includes The Titan (1914) and The Stoic (1947). Dreiser laboriously researched the business practices and personal exploits of real-life robber baron Charles Yerkes to narrate Frank Algernon Cowperwood's early career in The Financier, which explores the unscrupulous world of finance from the Civil War through the panic incited by the 1871 Chicago fire. In 1927, the monumental novel reappeared in a radically revised version for which Dreiser, notorious for lengthy novels, agreed to cut more than two hundred and seventy pages. This revised version became the most familiar, reprinted by publishers and studied by scholars for decades. For this new edition, Roark Mulligan meticulously reviewed earlier versions of the novel and its publication history, including the last-minute removal of paragraphs, pages, and even whole chapters from the 1912 edition, cuts based mainly on the advice of H. L. Mencken. The restored text better matches Dreiser's original vision for the work. More than three hundred additional pages not available to modern readers--including those cut from the 1927 edition and more than seventy hastily removed from the manuscript just days before publication in 1912--more effectively establish characterization and motivation. Restored passages dedicated to the internal thoughts of major and minor characters bring a softer dimension to a novel primarily celebrated for its realistic attention to the cold external world of finance. Mulligan's historical commentary reveals new insights into Dreiser's creative practices and how his business knowledge shaped The Financier. This supplemental material considers the novel's place within the tradition of American business novels and its reflections on the scandalous business practices of the robber baron era.Fifteen stories set in California during the 1850s Gold Rush. Archetypal characters--gold-fevered pioneers, gamblers, preachers, drunkards, cattle-robbers, and iron-willed women--experience…
twists of fortune and the realities of frontier life. Reuben H. Margolin introduces the collection, which spans the career of this author, poet, and literary critic. 1997Stories, essays, and poems selected from literary magazines, journals, and small presses. In Brock Clarke's "Our Pointy Boots," Iraq war…
veterans return to the United States and honor their dead buddy. Includes works by Richard Powers and Joyce Carol Oates. Strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex. 2010Speak, memory: an autobiography revisited (Vintage International Ser.)
By Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. 1989
Autobiographical sketches chronicle the author's upper-class childhood in Russia, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that forced his family into exile in…
Europe, and his 1940 move to the United States. First published in 1951 under the title Conclusive Evidence and revised in 1966. 1947L'autre fille (Les affranchis)
By Annie Ernaux. 2011
"Yvetot, un dimanche d'août 1950. Annie a dix ans, elle joue dehors, au soleil, sur le chemin caillouteux de la…
rue de l'Ecole. Sa mère sort de l'épicerie pour discuter avec une cliente, à quelques mètres d'elle. La conversation des deux femmes est parfaitement audible et les bribes d'une confidence inouïe se gravent à jamais dans la mémoire d'Annie. Avant sa naissance, ses parents avaient eu une autre fille. Elle est morte à l'âge de six ans de la diphtérie. Plus jamais Annie n'entendra un mot de la bouche de ses parents sur cette soeur inconnue. Elle ne leur posera jamais non plus une seule question. Mais même le silence contribue à forger un récit qui donne des contours à cette petite fille morte. Car forcément, elle joue un rôle dans l'identité de l'auteur. Les quelques mots, terribles, prononcés par la mère ; des photographies, une tombe, des objets, des murmures, un livret de famille : ainsi se construit, dans le réel et dans l'imaginaire, la fiction de cette " aînée " pour celle à qui l'on ne dit rien. Reste à savoir si la seconde fille, Annie, est autorisée à devenir ce qu'elle devient par la mort de la première..." -- 4e de couvBest Debut Short Stories 2023: The PEN America Dau Prize (PEN America #7)
By Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem and Dantiel W. Moniz. 2023
The essential annual guide to the newest voices in literature Selected by Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. MonizBest…
Debut Short Stories is an annual celebration of the most promising short story writers today. Selected by a panel of distinguished judges, these twelve stories are the 2023 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes each writer&’s outstanding debut in a literary magazine.The stories in this anthology encompass fraught family gatherings, death, inheritance, reproduction and birth, translation, secrets, and betrayals. They show us what we would rather not face: a grandmother&’s repeated resurrection, the loss of a child, a family&’s excuses for a predator. They direct our attention away from fluorescence and to the natural world: iguanas climbing into beds, a reflection in an orange, sweat like rain drops, gossamer petals, a child named Ant. They question how well we can ever know other people: partners reconsidering each other on the brink of divorce, an imaginary roommate. They remind us that some questions have no perfect answer: Why pretend not to understand someone in need? What can anyone do with anxieties over becoming a parent?This year&’s stories were selected by judges Venita Blackburn, Richard Chiem, and Dantiel W. Moniz, innovators of the short story form. Each story is accompanied by an introduction from the journal editor who first published it, providing insight about what&’s exciting in fiction right now, and recognizing the vital work literary magazines do in nurturing new voices.