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Biography & True StoriesJanuary 2014Beyond Writing
by Ibrahim Abdelmeguid
One of Egypt’s leading literary voices offers a first-hand look at political, social, cultural events of the last 40 years and how they influenced his writing. Ibrahim Abdelmeguid, called “the quintessential writer about Alexandria” by The National newspaper, looks back over his decades-long writing career this book, which what he calls a “literary autobiography.” In it, he reflects on the social, political, and cultural influences in Egypt and elsewhere that have shaped him as a writer. He shares his views on major political events, such as the 1967 defeat after the Six-Day War, and explanations of their profound impact on his personal life and works of fiction. Abdelmeguid devotes a portion of his work to discussing the development of his views on Egypt’s second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, over the course of his turbulent tenure in office. The book is divided into a brief introduction and four chapters. Abdelmeguid guides the reader through his literary career, moving masterfully between the factual and the meditative. He explores how each of his novels and many of his short stories was conceived. He also describes cultural, political, and social contexts in which his writing evolved and was received by literary critics and casual readers. He spends considerable time describing the creative process behind his Alexandria trilogy— No One Sleeps in Alexandria, Birds of Amber, and Clouds Over Alexandria. The first book, No One Sleeps in Alexandria, is set during World War II. Abdelmeguid visited numerous key sites in Alexandria and surrounding areas and read every newspaper he could get his hands on. The result of his devotion to research is a vibrant portrayal of Alexandria that shines throughout the epic novel. Of particular note is his successful communication of the cultural and religious diversity of the city and the impact of that on the promotion of a culture of tolerance. Beyond Writing is a rare and important addition to the modern Arabic literary map. Few Arab authors are willing to so transparently share their writing process, preferring to highlight the polished final product while concealing the hard work that brought it into existence. Readers are lucky that it is a writer as prominent, thoughtful, and engaging as Abdelmeguid is willing to draw back the curtain.
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Literature & Literary StudiesJuly 2024Mid-century women's writing
Disrupting the public/private divide
by Melissa Dinsman, Megan Faragher, Ravenel Richardson
The traditional narrative of the mid-century (1930s-60s) is that of a wave of expansion and constriction, with the swelling of economic and political freedoms for women in the 1930s, the cresting of women in the public sphere during the Second World War, and the resulting break as employment and political opportunities for women dwindled in the 1950s when men returned home from the front. But as the burgeoning field of interwar and mid-century women's writing has demonstrated, this narrative is in desperate need of re-examination. Mid-century women's writing: Disrupting the public/private divide aims to revivify studies of female writers, journalists, broadcasters, and public intellectuals living or working in Britain, or under British rule, during the mid-century while also complicating extant narratives about the divisions between domesticity and politics.
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Literature & Literary StudiesNovember 2013Writing otherwise
Experiments in cultural criticism
by Jackie Stacey, Janet Wolff
Writing otherwise is a collection of essays by established feminist and cultural critics interested in experimenting with new styles of expression. Leading figures in their field, such as Marianne Hirsch, Lynne Pearce, Griselda Pollock, Carol Smart, Jackie Stacey and Janet Wolff, all risk new ways of writing about themselves and their subjects. Aimed at both general and academic readers interested in how scholarly writing might be more innovative and creative, this collection introduces the personal, the poetic and the experimental into the frame of cultural criticism. This collection of essays is highly interdisciplinary and contributes to debates in sociology, history, anthropology, art history, cultural and media studies and gender studies. ;
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Literary studies: from c 1900 -August 2016Writing otherwise
Experiments in cultural criticism
by Edited by Jackie Stacey, Janet Wolff
Writing otherwise is a collection of essays by established feminist and cultural critics interested in experimenting with new styles of expression. Leading figures in their field, such as Marianne Hirsch, Lynne Pearce, Griselda Pollock, Carol Smart, Jackie Stacey and Janet Wolff, all risk new ways of writing about themselves and their subjects. Aimed at both general and academic readers interested in how scholarly writing might be more innovative and creative, this collection introduces the personal, the poetic and the experimental into the frame of cultural criticism. This collection of essays is highly interdisciplinary and contributes to debates in sociology, history, anthropology, art history, cultural and media studies and gender studies.
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Literature & Literary StudiesOctober 2010Writing for Art
The aesthetics of ekphrasis
by Stephen Cheeke
Writing for art is a concise introduction to the subject of ekphrasis, and the first study to offer a useful general survey of the larger philosophical and theoretical questions arising from the encounter of literary texts and artworks. Stephen Cheeke offers close readings of poems and prose from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries alongside a generous amount of illustrations, covering a broad range of writing and theory about the relation of literary texts to the visual arts, and extending the subject of ekphrasis to include literary works on photography, as well as celebrated prose descriptions of artworks. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2020Working-class writing and publishing in the late twentieth century
by Tom Woodin
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Humanities & Social SciencesHOMECOMING
by Wolfgang Büscher
In the middle of the woods, in the middle of Germany: Wolfgang Büscher‘s fascinating journey into its very core. Night after night, a boy stands at the window of his parents’ house and watches the sun as it disappears from view behind the rolling hills in the west. He roams through the woods with his friends, building wooden shacks which the foresters destroy. It’s the early sixties. Decades later, Wolfgang Büscher makes his childhood dream come true. He moves to the woods and experiences spring, summer and autumn there. An aristocratic family on the border of Hessen and Westphalia where Büscher grew up allows him to stay in a hunting lodge in the middle of the woods, in the middle of Germany. This is where he puts up his camp bed. He has no electricity or running water. He prepares himself for quiet times alone, chopping wood and making fires, the odd hunting expedition, hiking, a marksmen’s festival, extreme loneliness and a nighttime blackness never seen in the city. The year takes an unexpectedly dramatic turn as storms, heat and plagues of beetles kill half of the woods. And something else happens which turns everything on its head: Büscher’s mother dies that summer, meaning the house he grew up in is left empty, but full of memories. This is a homecoming more existential than he could have imagined. A book far removed from the deafening din of today‘s world. An exploration of a nation, floods of memories and a “sentimental education” all rolled into one - literary, perceptive and overwhelming.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2019Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England
by Lindy Brady, T. J. H. McCarthy, Stephen Mossman, Carrie Beneš, Jochen Schenk
This is the first study of the Anglo-Welsh border region in the period before the Norman arrival in England, from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Its conclusions significantly alter our current picture of Anglo/Welsh relations before the Norman Conquest by overturning the longstanding critical belief that relations between these two peoples during this period were predominately contentious. Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates that the region which would later become the March of Wales was not a military frontier in Anglo-Saxon England, but a distinctively mixed Anglo-Welsh cultural zone which was depicted as a singular place in contemporary Welsh and Anglo-Saxon texts. This study reveals that the region of the Welsh borderlands was much more culturally coherent, and the impact of the Norman Conquest on it much greater, than has been previously realised.
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Children's & YANovember 2019Claire Malone Changes the World
by Nadia L. King / Alisa Knatko
Swedish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg has captured the world’s attention as she campaigns to raise awareness of climate change and calls world leaders to account. All children can follow Greta’s lead. Claire Malone is the hero of Claire Malone Changes the World, a feisty character with boundless energy to change her world for the better. Armed with her typewriter and the determination to make a difference, Claire is an ordinary kid with an extraordinary desire to change things for the better. Writing letter after letter, Claire advocates for change. One day she notices that her local park needs upgrading and she commits wholeheartedly to the cause. This an empowering and inspiring picture book for young children but especially for girls. You will love the journey of Claire, a strong and ambitious girl, so much that you will want to read this book over and over again.
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FictionWHY I CAN'T WRITE
How to survive in a world where you can’t pay rent, can’t afford to focus, be healthy or to remain principled. Dijana Matković tells a powerful story of searching for a room of her own in the late stages of capitalism.
by DIJANA MATKOVIĆ
It is a coming-of-age story for Generation Z. How to grow up or even live in a world where no steady jobs are available, you can’t pay your rent and can’t afford medical or living expenses. Moreover, it touches on how to be a socially engaged artist in such a world, and more so, a woman in a post-me too world? Dijana, a daughter of working-class immigrants, tells the story of her difficult childhood and adolescence, how should became a journalist and later a writer in a society full of prejudices, glass ceilings and obstacles. How she gradually became a stereotypical ‘success story’, even though she still struggles with writing, because she can’t afford a ‘room of her own’. Dijana is a daughter of working-class immigrants, who came to Slovenia in the eighties in search of a better future. The family is building a house but is made redundant from the local factory when Yugoslavia is in the midst of an economic crisis. When her parents get divorced, Dijana, her older sister and mother struggle with basic needs. She is ashamed of their poverty, her classmates bully her because of her immigrant status, but mostly because of her being ‘white trash’. In the local school she meets teachers with prejudices against immigrants, but is helped by a librarian who spots her talent. When Dijana goes to secondary school, she moves in with her older sister who lives in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Her sister is into rave culture and Dijana starts to explore experimenting with drugs, music and dance. At the secondary school, she is again considered ‘the weird kid’, as she isn’t enough of a foreigner for other immigrant kids because she is from the country, yet she isn’t Slovenian enough for other native kids. She falls even deeper into drug addiction, fails the first year of school and has to move back to live with her mother. She takes on odd jobs to make ends meet. Whilst working as a waitress she encounters sexism and sexual violence from customers and abuse from the boss. She finishes night school and graduates. She meets many ‘lost’ people of her generation along the way, who tell her their stories about precarious, minimum wage jobs, lack of opportunities, expensive rent, etc. Dijana writes for numerous newspapers but loses or quits her job, because she isn’t allowed to write the stories she wants or because of the bad working conditions or the blatant sexual harassment. Due to the high rent in the capital, Dijana has to move to the countryside to live with her mother. She feels lonely there, struggles with anxiety and cannot write a second book, because she is constantly under pressure to make a living. She realises that she must persevere regardless of the obstacles, she must follow her inner truth and by writing about it, try to create a community of like-minded people, a community of people who support each other – all literature/art is social.
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Biography & True StoriesMarch 2022Body Work
The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
by Melissa Febos,
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor-via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia-Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution-to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page.
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Biography & True StoriesMarch 2022Body Work
The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
by Melissa Febos,
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor-via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia-Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution-to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page.
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Biography & True StoriesMarch 2022Body Work
The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
by Melissa Febos,
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor-via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia-Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution-to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page.
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Children's & YAThe Child in Three-Story Attic
China Story Picture Books
by Zhang Qiusheng
China Story Picture Books is the first set of children's picture books launched by the Bingxin Award Committee. This set of books covers the works of seven Bingxin Award-winning writers of different ages including children's literature masters and promising young writers. The illustrations are full of traditional Chinese cultural elements such as dragon lantern dance, paper cutting, oil paper umbrella, and bamboo. Powerful painters at home and abroad are invited to do illustrations, which brings interesting fusion and collision of Chinese and foreign cultures to the books. In addition to the original illustrations, the stories are more touching. Every child can harvest the courage and wisdom for growing up from these stories. The series consists of 7 picture books: The Dragon Lantern, The Path of Golden Flowers, The Child in Three-Story Attic, The School Day Gifts, The Secret of Crossing, The Slope of Sisters. The Child in Three-Story Attic tells a story of growing up in the alley of Shanghai of Old China. The protagonist lives in a three-story attic in an old alley from the age of one to twelve. On a typhoon night, the protagonist curled up in the corner of the attic found a copy of The Adventures of Pinocchio and began his writing. Now although the old alley has disappeared, his memory of the attic will never die.
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Literature & Literary StudiesFebruary 1994Italian women writing
by Sharon Wood
How has it happened that from being politely ignored or marginalized just half a century ago, women writers in Italy are now at the centre of literary activity? To what extent does writing by women reflect the successes and failures of Italy in the post-war period? What form did the feminist movement in Italy take, and how did this affect what - and how - women wrote? And how are women who write responding to a more fragmented post-modern age? These are just some of the questions asked of the relationship between women and fiction in post-war Italy in this anthology. It includes stories by Cialente, Ginzburg, Ortese, Morante, Romano, Maraini and Duranti as well as Bompiani, Sanvitale, Mizzau, Scaramuzzino, Capriolo and Petrignani. The thirteen stories presented offer a range of style and content indicative of the wealth and diversity of writing by women, and their reading is supported by critical notes and an extensive vocabulary. This is a clear and challenging introduction to the rich field of women and fiction in Italy. ;
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Children's & YAJanuary 2011The Boy Who Saw the Color of Air
by Abdo Wazen
In his first YA novel, cultural journalist and author Abdo Wazen writes about a blind teenager in Lebanon who finds strength and friendship among an unlikely group. Growing up in a small Lebanese village, Bassim’s blindness limits his engagement with the materials taught in his schools. Despite his family’s love and support, his opportunities seem limited. So at thirteen years old, Bassim leaves his village to join the Institute for the Blind in a Beirut suburb. There, he comes alive. He learns Braille and discovers talents he didn’t know he had. Bassim is empowered by his newfound abilities to read and write. Thanks to his newly developed self-confidence, Bassim decides to take a risk and submit a short story to a competition sponsored by the Ministry of Education. After winning the competition, he is hired to work at the Institute for the Blind. At the Institute, Bassim, a Sunni Muslim, forms a strong friendship with George, a Christian. Cooperation and collective support are central to the success of each student at the Institute, a principle that overcomes religious differences. In the book, the Institute comes to symbolize the positive changes that tolerance can bring to the country and society at large. The Boy Who Saw the Color of Air is also a book about Lebanon and its treatment of people with disabilities. It offers insight into the vital role of strong family support in individual success, the internal functioning of institutions like the Institute, as well as the unique religious and cultural environment of Beirut. Wazen’s lucid language and the linear structure he employs result in a coherent and easy-to-read narrative. The Boy Who Saw the Color of Air is an important contribution to a literature in which people with disabilities are underrepresented. In addition to offering a story of empowerment and friendship, this book also aims to educate readers about people with disabilities and shed light on the indispensable roles played by institutions like the Institute.
