Saga Publications
Independent Press
View Rights PortalEstablished by Alberto Mondadori in 1958, il Saggiatore is an independent publishing house focused on literary fiction and non-fiction, with a particular emphasis on science, history and economics. Our wide-ranging non-fiction list comprises the likes of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jean-Paul Sartre, Fernand Braudel, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Daron Acemoglu, Paul Mason, Jaron Lanier, Joseph Mazur, Mark Cousins and Piero Camporesi, among others. Our ever-growing literary fiction list includes Allen Ginsberg, Witold Gombrowicz, Joan Didion, Geoff Dyer, Olivia Laing, Esther Kinsky, Mircea Cărtărescu, László Darvasi, Akwaeke Emezi, Emma Glass, Mike McCormack and David Peace, to name just a few. Shortly after the birth of the publishing house, speaking to an Italian newspaper, Alberto Mondadori said: “I’m an explorer, I like to travel in time”. Sixty years later, his words and his vision live on, and il Saggiatore’s project is still the same: to publish books that can stand the test of time.
View Rights PortalA turbulent era. An impossible love affair. A moving saga. Hamburg 1886. Lily, whose father is a ship owner, dreams of becoming a writer. During a ship-naming ceremony, Lily gives a short speech during which her hat is blown off her head. One of the workers tries to get it back for her and is badly injured. Lily is shocked that no one sympathises with the young man’s fate. Then Johannes Bolten comes to the ship owner’s villa to demand compensation for his injured friend. Lily wants to help and allows herself to be drawn into a dangerous game of hide-and-seek. She begins a passionate affair with him. But Jo, who comes from the notorious gangland area, has a secret that Lily must never discover…
Queer lives give rise to a vast array of objects: the things we fill our houses with, the gifts we share with our friends, the commodities we consume at work and at play, the clothes and accessories we wear, and the analogue and digital technologies we use to communicate with one another. But what makes an object queer? The sixty-three chapters in Queer Objects consider this question in relation to lesbian, gay and transgender communities across time, cultures and space. In this unique international collaboration, well-known and newer writers traverse world history to write about items ranging from ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and Roman artefacts to political placards, snapshots, sex toys and the smartphone. Fabulous, captivating, transgressive.
Sweet Darusya, Maria Matios’ best-known novel, has been rightly called "a tragedy matching the history of the 20th century", and Darusya herself is "an almost biblical figure". This “drama in three lives” has nothing unambiguous: neither characters nor circumstances nor resolution. There are no epoch-making people or events, heroes or villains, but, as one critic noted, "your heart breaks when you read this book." Sweet Darusya recreates the true spirit of the past through a family saga and touches upon topics that until now prevent a part of modern society from perceiving Ukrainian history without omissions, censorship and irritability. This unique view that Maria Matios offers in this novel, measures the essence of human urges, suffering, true love, and human nature in general. Authentic writing style, deep psychologism, and a complex plot that unfolds in reverse chronological order create a unique piece of prose.
This novel has been recognized by Ukrainian and foreign critics not only as the most outstanding work of Ukrainian literature since independence, but also as one of the most important in all Eastern European literature since the fall of communism. Awarded the Central European Literary Prize "Angelus" (2013), translated into English, German, Polish, Czech, Russian, repeatedly awarded as "Book of the Year" (in Ukraine, Germany, Switzerland, Poland), "Museum of Abandoned Secrets", Nobel novel class ”(Newsweek Polska); rightly became the calling card of new Ukrainian literature. This is a modern epos of contemporary Ukraine: a family saga of three generations, the events of which cover the period from the 1940s to the spring of 2004. Great literature and ugly truth about the power of the past over the future, about love, betrayal and death, about the original war of man for the right to be himself.
Jacques Martineau, Olivier Ducastel, Alain Guiraudie, Sébastien Lifshitz and Céline Sciamma. The films of these five major French directors exemplify queer cinema in the twenty-first century. Comprehensive in scope, Queer cinema in contemporary France traces the development of the meaning of queer across these directors' careers, from their earliest, often unknown films to their later, major films with wide international release. Whether having sex on the beach or kissing in the high school swimming pool, these cinematic characters create or embody forward-looking, open-ended and optimistic forms of queerness and modes of living, loving and desiring. Whether they are white, beur or black, whether they are lesbian, gay, trans* or queer, they open up hetero- and cisnormativity to new ways of being a gendered subject.
Originally, The Motherland Saga ended in 1983, and what came thereafter was a brief epilogue. However, the past thirty-eight years have witnessed unimaginable changes in the fabric of the people, the culture, and the politics of Turkey. The emerging history of this great land compelled the writing of this fourth volume, THE FOOTSTEPS OF FOREVER. While the period from 2005 to 2020 has witnessed a sea change in the fortunes of this tortured nation and what appears to be a complete reversal in Turkey’s international alliances and its worldview, THE FOOTSTEPS OF FOREVER, Volume Four of the saga, concentrates on the period 1983-2005, which set the scene for what occurred thereafter. While it might be helpful to the reader to read LEGACY, EMERGENCE, and COMING OF AGE first, it is not really necessary, for you are traveling on a time train through the Twentieth and into the Twenty-First Century, and if you choose to get on the train in 1897 or today, your ultimate destination will be the same. Perhaps one day there will be a sequel … and another … and another. Published by Pangæa Publishing Group,2019 Volume Four - 328 pages – 23 cm x 15 cm
Drawing from the latest research on interoception— which examines how our senseof self arises from subjective appraisal of bodily signals and how those appraisal habits develop in childhood—the book argues for a reframing of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other “mental health” issues as social-emotional illnesses rooted in the body. Saga Briggs harnesses psychedelic science to show how interoception can be altered by psychoactive substances, providing an additional framework for understanding their therapeutic benefits.
When Jenny von Sperber first met Fritz, the gorilla didn’t let her out of his sight. He was already over 50 years old then, but he was still extremely charismatic. One thing matters for the journalist: she wants to find out everything about Fritz’s life. Born in 1963, he was captured in the wild and came from Cameroon to Germany in 1966. At that time, apes were still regarded as a curiosity in zoos. When a ban was declared on the wild gorilla trade, Fritz was already a father of many youngsters. This fascinating gorilla-family saga not only recounts the eventful life of Fritz, but also shows the development in European zoos in handling wild animals. Nowadays, things have certainly improved. But there are still questions, for example, what does it do to us when we marvel at our closest relatives behind glass? And is it even still current to confine apes ... was it ever?
The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed the striking advance of pornography into the Western cultural mainstream. Symptomatic of this development has been the use by writers, artists, and film-makers of the imagery and aesthetics of pornography, in works which have, often on this basis, achieved considerable international success. Amongst these artists are a number of French authors and directors - such as Michel Houellebecq, Catherine Breillat, Virginie Despentes, or Catherine Millet - whose work has often been dismissed as trashy or exploitative, but whose use of pornographic material may in fact be indicative of important contemporary concerns. In this study of a very significant trend, the authors explore how the reference to pornography encodes diverse political, cultural, and existential questions, including relations between the sexes, the collapse of avant-garde politics, gay sexualities in the time of AIDS, the anti-feminist backlash, the relation to the body and illness, the place of fantasy, and the sexualisation of children. It will be of interest to undergraduates, graduates, and researchers in the fields of French culture, gender, film and media studies.
The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed the striking advance of pornography into the Western cultural mainstream. Symptomatic of this development has been the use by writers, artists, and film-makers of the imagery and aesthetics of pornography, in works which have, often on this basis, achieved considerable international success. Amongst these artists are a number of French authors and directors - such as Michel Houellebecq, Catherine Breillat, Virginie Despentes, or Catherine Millet - whose work has often been dismissed as trashy or exploitative, but whose use of pornographic material may in fact be indicative of important contemporary concerns. In this, the first study of this significant trend, the authors explore how the reference to pornography encodes diverse political, cultural, and existential questions, including relations between the sexes, the collapse of avant-garde politics, gay sexualities in the time of AIDS, the anti-feminist backlash, the relation to the body and illness, the place of fantasy, and the sexualisation of children. It will be of interest to undergraduates, graduates, and researchers in the fields of French culture, gender, film and media studies.
Queer exceptions is a study of contemporary solo performance in the UK and Western Europe that explores the contentious relationship between identity, individuality and neoliberalism. With diverse case studies featuring the work of La Ribot, David Hoyle, Oreet Ashery, Bridget Christie, Tanja Ostojic, Adrian Howells and Nassim Soleimanpour, the book examines the role of singular or 'exceptional' subjects in constructing and challenging assumed notions of communal sociability and togetherness, while drawing fresh insight from the fields of sociology, gender studies and political philosophy to reconsider theatre's attachment to singular lives and experiences. Framed by a detailed exploration of arts festivals as encapsulating the material, entrepreneurial circumstances of contemporary performance-making, this is the first major critical study of solo work since the millennium.
Die Geschichte der lebenslangen Freundschaft zwischen Lila und Elena begeisterte Millionen. Als Kinder begegnen sich die beiden zum ersten Mal im Neapel der 50er Jahre. Sehr bald gehen sie getrennte Wege. Jede für sich erlebt Liebe, Arbeit, Ehe, Mutterschaft, die Umwälzungen im Land, das Vergehen der Jahre, und doch bleiben sie zeit ihres Lebens unmissverständlich aufeinander bezogen. Bis die eine spurlos verschwindet und der anderen nichts bleibt, als dagegen anzuschreiben: Die Neapolitanische Saga beginnt. Vier Bände, ein literarisches Ereignis, jetzt im Schuber zum großartigen Preis.
De-centering queer theory seeks to reorient queer theory to a different conception of bodies and sexuality derived from Eastern European Marxism. The book articulates a contrast between the concept of the productive body, which draws its epistemology from Soviet and avant-garde theorists, and Cold War gender, which is defined as the social construction of the body. The first part of the book concentrates on the theoretical and visual production of Eastern European Marxism, which proposed an alternative version of sexuality to that of western liberalism. In doing so it offers a historical angle to understand the emergence not only of an alternative epistemology, but also of queer theory's vocabulary. The second part of the book provides a Marxist, anti-capitalist archive for queer studies, which often neglects to engage critically with its liberal and Cold War underpinnings.
Can reading make us better citizens? In Crossing borders and queering citizenship, Feghali crafts a sophisticated theoretical framework to theorise how the act of reading can contribute to the queering of contemporary citizenship in North America. Providing sensitive and convincing readings of work by both popular and niche authors, including Gloria Anzaldúa, Dorothy Allison, Gregory Scofield, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Erín Moure, Junot Díaz, and Yann Martel, this book is the first to not only read these authors together, but also to discuss how each powerfully resists the exclusionary work of state-sanctioned citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. This book convincingly draws connections between queer theory, citizenship studies, and border studies and sheds light on how these connections can reframe our understanding of American Studies.
Festivals of Chinese Ethnic Groups was co-authored by China's well-beloved authors of children's literature including Fang Suzhen, Tang Sulan, Wang Yimei, and was illustrated by celebrated Chinese illustrators such as Cai Gao, Chen Yadan and Zhu Xunde. This series covers intriguing, outstanding and poetic folk tales on festivals and customs from China's ten most representative ethnic groups. Showcasing their courage, gentleness and indomitable will, these delightful stories allow readers to learn more about the distinct and charming characteristics of these ethnic groups. Recommended as parent-child reading by CCTV during the Dragon Boat Festival, this series has won the Most Beautiful Picture Book 2023 prize given by China Library Journal. It was also nominated for the top picture books prize in China for the Chinese Government Award.
Festivals of Chinese Ethnic Groups was co-authored by China's well-beloved authors of children's literature including Fang Suzhen, Tang Sulan, Wang Yimei, and was illustrated by celebrated Chinese illustrators such as Cai Gao, Chen Yadan and Zhu Xunde. This series covers intriguing, outstanding and poetic folk tales on festivals and customs from China's ten most representative ethnic groups. Showcasing their courage, gentleness and indomitable will, these delightful stories allow readers to learn more about the distinct and charming characteristics of these ethnic groups. Recommended as parent-child reading by CCTV during the Dragon Boat Festival, this series has won the Most Beautiful Picture Book 2018 prize given by China Library Journal. It was also nominated for the top picture books prize in China for the Chinese Government Award.
Festivals of Chinese Ethnic Groups was co-authored by China's well-beloved authors of children's literature including Fang Suzhen, Tang Sulan, Wang Yimei, and was illustrated by celebrated Chinese illustrators such as Cai Gao, Chen Yadan and Zhu Xunde. This series covers intriguing, outstanding and poetic folk tales on festivals and customs from China's ten most representative ethnic groups. Showcasing their courage, gentleness and indomitable will, these delightful stories allow readers to learn more about the distinct and charming characteristics of these ethnic groups. Recommended as parent-child reading by CCTV during the Dragon Boat Festival, this series has won the Most Beautiful Picture Book 2021 prize given by China Library Journal. It was also nominated for the top picture books prize in China for the Chinese Government Award.