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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        November 2022

        Kate Atkinson

        by Armelle Parey

        This timely in-depth study of award-winning Kate Atkinson's work provides a welcome comprehensive overview of the novels, play and short stories. It explores the major themes and aesthetic concerns in her fiction. Combining close analysis and literary contextualisation, it situates her multi-faceted work in terms of a hybridisation of genres and innovative narrative strategies to evoke contemporary issues and well as the past. Chapters offer insights into each major publication (from Behind the Scenes at the Museum to Big Sky, the latest instalment in the Brodie sequence, through the celebrated Life After Life and subsequent re-imaginings of the war) in relation to the key concerns of Atkinson's fiction, including self-narrativisation, history, memory and women's lives.

      • Trusted Partner
        May 1983

        Titan

        by Jean Paul, Ralph-Rainer Wuthenow

        "Literarisch verbindet der Titan ganz heterogene Formen wie Schauer- und Abenteuerroman; Staatsroman, und vor allem den Bildungsroman, mit deren Hilfe er schließlich das allseitig ausgebildete bürgerliche Individuum auf den deutsch-kleinstaatlichen Fürstenthron setzt: grandioses Zeugnis und Parodie des Anspruchs der Epoche, die Literatur an die Macht zu bringen."

      • Trusted Partner
        January 2002

        Der Weg ins Freie

        Roman

        by Arthur Schnitzler, Hansgeorg Schmidt-Bergmann, Hansgeorg Schmidt-Bergmann

        1910 hatte Schnitzler vermerkt: »An der Stelle, die ihm gebührt, wird der Roman erst in der reineren Atmosphäre späterer Jahre sich behaupten.« Denn bei seinem Erscheinen 1908 löste der Roman einen regelrechten Skandal aus. Die Spitzen der Wiener Salonkultur sahen sich gespiegelt, und für viele ihrer Akteure waren die Indiskretionen des Schlüsselromans wenig schmeichelhaft. Mit psychologischer Raffinesse gelingt Schnitzler die Demaskierung der lebensuntüchtigen Gesellschaft der Jahrhundertwende und ein kaleidoskopartiger Blick auf die Ängste, Sehnsüchte und das uneingelöste Begehren der Personen. So hat man, bezogen auf den Protagonisten, den jungen Musiker Georg von Wergenthin, auch von einem »Anti-Bildungsroman« sprechen können, denn der junge Musiker bleibt, was er am Beginn des Romans gewesen ist – letztlich ohne Ziel und ohne persönliche oder gesellschaftliche Perspektiven.

      • Trusted Partner
        July 2021

        Wahre Geschichten

        by Sophie Calle, Sabine Erbrich

        Sophie Calle entblößt sich, bis zur Unkenntlichkeit. In 65 dramatischen, frivolen, zärtlichen und verspielten Episoden erzählt die französische Künstlerin ein ganzes Leben in Fragmenten. Sie erzählt von den Kränkungen der frühen Jahre, von unverständlich wachsenden Brüsten, von kruden Liebesaffären, von ihrer Zeit als Stripperin und Aktmodell, von letzten und allerletzten Dingen. Und jede dieser Episoden beglaubigt sie mit einem ‘authentischenʼ Erinnerungsstück, mit Fotografien von Brautkleidern, von Liebesbriefchen, von angekokelten Betten, von ausgestopften Katzen. Sophie Calle hat so eine Wunderkammer der Versehrtheiten, Begierden, Erfahrungen, Fantasien geschaffen. Und wie beiläufig die Demarkationslinien zwischen Fiktion und Wirklichkeit verwischt. Kindheit, Liebe, Sex, Tod: Vermittels lakonischer Texte und doppelbödiger Fotografien, in einer hochgradig eigensinnigen Mischung aus Melancholie, Voyeurismus und trockenem Humor erzählt Sophie Calle den Bildungsroman ihres Lebens.

      • Trusted Partner
        September 2001

        Wie ich Schriftsteller wurde

        Versuch einer intellektuellen Autobiographie

        by Andrzej Stasiuk, Olaf Kühl

        Andrzej Stasiuk wäre lieber Rockstar geworden als Schriftsteller. Daß es anders kam, verdanken wir der verwunschenen Trostlosigkeit Warschaus, dem Realismus Godots, der Musik der Sex Pistols und Leuten wie Lou Reed und Jean Genet. Und einer permanenten Rebellion gegen Eltern, Schule, Armee und Gesellschaft. Im Dezember 1980, als das Kriegsrecht in Polen verhängt wurde, kehrte Stasiuk nicht mehr in seine Kaserne zurück und landete im Gefängnis. Nach seiner Entlassung wurde er als Held des Widerstands gefeiert. Doch er war weder Pazifist noch Dissident - er hatte einfach keine Lust mehr.Dieser in einem einzigen, langen Atemzug erzählte Bildungsroman in ironischer Absicht bestätigt, was Stasiuk-Leser längst wissen: daß seine poetische Kraft sich nicht nur einem gefährlichen Leben, sondern auch dem unverwandten Staunen über die Wirklichkeit verdankt.

      • Trusted Partner
        February 1991

        Sommer im Treibhaus

        Science-fiction-Roman

        by George Turner, Michael Koseler

        George Turners Buch, das im englischen Sprachraum beträchtliche Aufmerksamkeit gefunden hat und mit einem SF-Preis ausgezeichnet wurde, ist ein Bildungsroman. Erzählt wird die Geschichte einiger junger Leute, die in einer zukünftigen Stadt Australiens aufwachsen, in der sich die Massen drängen, in der aber nur die Privilegierten Arbeit und menschenwürdige Unterkünfte haben, und die Städte allmählich in den steigenden Fluten des Ozeans und des Elends versinken – eine Folge des Treibhauseffektes, der zu katastrophalen Klimaveränderungen und als Folge davon zu weltweiten Hungersnöten führt. Der überwiegende Teil der Bevölkerung muß eine von Gewalt geprägte, kümmerliche Existenz fristen. Trotz des düsteren Hintergrunds, der andere Antiutopien anklingen läßt, ist dies keineswegs ein pessimistisches, deprimierendes Buch, sondern eine differenzierte Lektüre, die menschlichen Unternehmungsgeist und Mut feiert, die sich auch durch bedrückende äußere Umstände nicht unterkriegen lassen.

      • Trusted Partner
        August 2022

        Die Wunder

        Roman | Elegant und feministisch | Das Sensationsdebüt über die jüngere Geschichte Spaniens

        by Elena Medel

        Noch nie sind sie sich begegnet: María und Alicia, Großmutter und Enkelin. Die Ältere kommt Ende der Sechziger einer Schande wegen nach Madrid, arbeitet als Kindermädchen, als Hausangestellte, der komplette Lohn fortan bestimmt für die zurückgelassene, fast unbekannte Tochter. Die Jüngere flieht Jahrzehnte später in die Stadt, von einer Tragödie um ihre Herkunft und den Schlaf gebracht. María und Alicia, beide führen sie ein Frauenleben, beiden fehlt das Geld. Und damit die Zuversicht und das Vertrauen. In sich selbst, ihre Männer, dieses Land, in dem sich alles verändert zu haben scheint, bis auf das eigene Elend. Und plötzlich fordert jede auf ihre Weise die hergebrachte Ordnung heraus. Als literarische Ausnahmeerscheinung gefeiert, wurde ihr Sensationsdebüt blitzschnell zum Klassiker einer neuen Generation. Elena Medel schreibt darin die jüngere Geschichte Spaniens aus Sicht der vergessenen Hälfte. Die Wunder ist ein eleganter feministischer Bildungsroman über die herrschenden Kräfte, über das Geld, das Begehren, die Mutterliebe, und wie sie als Waffen seit jeher gegen die Frauen verwendet werden. Augenöffnend und wunderschön.

      • Fiction
        March 2020

        The Pharmacist

        by Justin David

        Twenty-four-year-old Billy is beautiful and sexy. Albert—The Pharmacist—is a compelling but damaged older man, and a veteran of London’s late ’90s club scene. After a chance meeting in the heart of the London’s East End, Billy is seduced into the sphere of Albert. An unconventional friendship develops, fueled by Albert’s queer narratives and an endless supply of narcotics. Alive with the twilight times between day and night, consciousness and unconsciousness, the foundations of Billy’s life begin to irrevocably shift and crack, as he fast-tracks toward manhood. This story of lust, love and loss is homoerotic bildungsroman at its finest.

      • Fiction
        July 2023

        Na kolenách

        by Alica Cárska

        The author depicts the life of a girl and later a woman who grows up in poverty in an unspecified small Slovak town. A precarious social situation, an unscrupulous mother and cruel classmates undermine her self-confidence, which is why it is a life of self-doubt and self-questioning from the beginning. A growing sense of guilt gradually becomes fuel for blaming everyone around her. She seeks refuge sometimes in confessionals, other times in anonymous hotel rooms. Can Alice shake the feeling that she is not in control of her destiny, that her free will is an illusion?

      • Rompepistas

        by Rosa Codina

        Rompepistas tells the story of a seventeen-year-old- punk born in the suburbs of Barcelona during the Summer of 1987. Full of violence, punk rock and reggae, Rompepistas is an exciting coming-of-age graphic novel that tells with intensity and great sense of humor the passage from adolescence to early youth exploring friendship and guilt, blood ties, broken promises and the loss of innocence.Based on Kiko Amat’s popular bildungsroman published in 2009 Rompepistas is RosaCodina’s fi rst graphic novel and one of the most impressive debuts of 2019.

      • Farfariel - The book of Micù

        by Pietro Albì

        Farfariel is a weird bildungsroman for young adults, somehow reminiscing of The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende. Micù is a preadolescent with physical disability born before World War II in the poor but magical atmos-phere of rural southern Italy. He is trying to grow up despite his own difficulties, the tragicomic inhabitants of the village and a spiteful demon who has the power to interfere with the story and its writer... In fact Far-fariel, unhappy about the way the writer is telling the story, edit and correct the book with his red pen!

      • Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2020

        Harry Potter and Beyond

        On J. K. Rowling's Fantasies and Other Fictions

        by Tison Pugh

        Harry Potter and Beyond explores J. K. Rowling’s beloved best-selling series and its virtuoso reimagining of British literary traditions. Weaving together elements of fantasy, the school-story novel, detective fiction, allegory, and bildungsroman, the Harry Potter novels evade simplistic categorization as children’s or fantasy literature. Along with the seven foundational novels of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and Beyond assesses the extraordinary range of supplementary material concerning the young wizard and his allies and a range of other Potter-inspired narratives. Pugh also surveys Rowling’s literary fiction The Casual Vacancy and her detective series written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Through this comprehensive overview of Rowling’s body of work, Pugh reveals the vast web of connections between yesteryear’s stories and Rowling’s vivid creations.

      • Fiction

        Polish Boys

        by Mudlum

        Polish Boys is a story of young bohemian-intellectuals who have settled in old dilapidated buildings and who follow their ideals. The novel is located in socialist Poland but space and time are irrelevant and can be seen as an allegory. Polish Boys is about the confidence of youth and about aspirations for beauty and truth, how high expectations meet reality, how some people bend and deviate and some donʼt. Adam, Sulisław, Teofilis and Jerzy grow up together and become influential figures in Warsawʼs art and literary circles. They set up the radical cultural newspaper Płaszcze and try to transform the society surrounding them. Their radicalism is challenged and not least by the convenient choices offered by the establishment. The same choices are present in their private lives: the unpredictability of free love or the security of a family. Polish Boys is a bildungsroman for the whole generation inspired by the cultural group ZA/UM in Estonia. The author, who was a member of the group, writes from her personal experience with warmth and compassion, which makes the novelʼs tonality both universal and human.

      • Fiction

        Firewing

        by JP Koskinen

        An expansive, emotionally rich bildungsroman and epic tale covering large parts of the 20th century, Firewing follows a group of immigrants in search of a paradise, and one boy whose biggest dream is to fly—no matter what it takes.   In an America ravaged by the Great Depression, a family with a Finnish background hears rumors of a workers’ paradise being built in the Soviet Union. They leave everything behind and travel across the Atlantic in search of a better future. They arrive in Petrozavodsk on the shores of Lake Onega, but soon realize that life in Soviet Karelia is not a paradise but a struggle for survival. In the middle of it all is Charles, the only son, and his dreams of freedom and flying that offer the only escape from the harsh realities and the circle of deception around him.   Firewing is an immigrant coming-of-age story about trying to find a way through the turmoil of the early 20th century. It is a sublime and profound novel about a boy who only wants to fly.

      • Fiction

        Cancún

        by Miguel Del Castillo

        Set between the Barra da Tijuca and the Mexican seaside of Cancún, this touching bildungsroman is a mix of rarely-found honesty and fundamental themes such as religion and fatherhood. Right before entering his teenage years, Joel feels out of place among his school-mates and the kids of his neighborhood. It’s 1998 and the world seems everyday  more threatening. He seeks refuge in a group of young kids from the Evangelical Church, while at the same time he starts having a hard time dealing with his dad, who just came back home after spending four mysterious years in Cancún.Decades later, after his father’s death, far away from any religious affiliation and about to have a son of his own, Joel decides to reach the Mexican seaside, alone. While trying to follow his father’s steps, what had to be an easy trip turns into a complex situation, that helps us better understand what made Joel who he has become today.With a clear and straight-forward prose, Miguel Del Castillo gives us the picture of a generation and a class forged into big isolated buildings, tax havens, in schools where violence is a daily issue and in the sparkling plastic feel of fast foods.One of the most surprising novels of the new generation of Brazilian writers.

      • Poetry by individual poets
        September 2013

        Letting Go

        Poems of childhood, daughterhood and parenthood

        by Angela Topping

        But they learn to walk away / like any other guest   Love is about letting go. This notion threads its way throughout Angela Topping's new selection. She writes tenderly and movingly about childhood, growing up, bereavement and parenthood. These are frank, honest and moving poems arranged in an unfolding narrative which reaches out to the reader, wanting to share and engage.

      • My White

        by Ksenia Burzhskaya

        A sensational and highly anticipated novel by Ksenia Burzhskaya, a Russian renowned journalist, writer, and co-host of the YouTube channel White Noise, together with the famous Russian writer, Tatyana Tolstaya. Ksenia is also a speechwriter for Alisa (a voice assistant and Yandex’s alternative to Alexa) and the winner of the literary competition My First Pain (2008) organized by another great Russian author, Ludmila Ulitskaya. My White is set in the modern day. Throughout the book, the main character, sixteen-year-old girl Jane (Zhenya) is preparing for a New Year school performance. Zhenya was brought up by her two moms, artist Alexandra and doctor Vera. But despite that, she faces the same problems every other teenager does: she studies, meets up with friends, falls for a boy, and tries her best to get over an unrequited love and her parents’ divorce. Zhenya’s ultimate goal and destination in the novel, the concert, has two purposes: to gather her mothers and hopefully make them change their mind about the divorce, and to give her a chance to confess to Lyonya, head of their music club and the guy she is secretly in love with.   The novel has two central story lines. The first is a constant rehearsal, anticipation and premonition, that may be more important than the event itself. The second is memories, regrets, attempts to find your own way and answer the eternal questions: what is love? can it last forever? why do we love at all?

      • December 2021

        The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature

        by Edited by Kuei-fen Chiu and Yingjin Zhang

        In The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature, Kuei-fen Chiu and Yingjin Zhang aim to bridge the distance between the scholarship of world literature and that of Chinese and Sinophone literary studies. This edited volume advances research on world literature by bringing in new developments in Chinese/Sinophone literatures and adds a much-needed new global perspective on Chinese literary studies beyond the traditional national literature paradigm and its recent critique by Sinophone studies. In addition to a critical mapping of the domains of world literature, Sinophone literature, and world literature in Chinese to delineate the nuanced differences of these three disciplines, the book addresses the issues of translation, genre, and the impact of media and technology on our understanding of “literature” and “literary prestige.” It also provides critical studies of the complicated ways in which Chinese and Sinophone literatures are translated, received, and reinvested across various genres and media, and thus circulate as world literature. The issues taken up by the contributors to this volume promise fruitful polemical interventions in the studies of world literature from the vantage point of Chinese and Sinophone literatures.

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