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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > From 1900
In The Beekeeper of Sinjar, the acclaimed poet and journalist Dunya Mikhail tells the harrowing stories of women from across Iraq who have managed to escape the clutches of ISIS. Since 2014, ISIS has been persecuting the Yazidi people, killing or enslaving those who won't convert to Islam. These women have lost their families and loved ones, along with everything they've ever known. Dunya Mikhail weaves together the women's tales of endurance and near-impossible escape with the story of her own exile and her dreams for the future of Iraq. In the midst of ISIS's reign of terror and hatred, an unlikely hero has emerged: the Beekeeper. Once a trader selling his mountain honey across the region, when ISIS came to Sinjar he turned his knowledge of the local terrain to another, more dangerous use. Along with a secret network of transporters, helpers, and former bootleggers, Abdullah Shrem smuggles brutalised Yazidi women to safety through the war-torn landscapes of Iraq, Syria, and Eastern Turkey. This powerful work of literary nonfiction offers a counterpoint to ISIS's genocidal extremism: hope, as ordinary people risk torture and death to save the lives of others.
A wonderfully frank and funny memoir by Britain's greatest and most ferocious interviewer, Lynn Barber. 'Packed full of incredible stories' Glamour 'Funny, bold, incisive, clever and interesting' Independent 'Candid, unsentimental and extremely funny. I read it in one glorious go, laughing and crying throughout' Zoe Heller Lynn Barber, by her own admission, has always suffered from a compelling sense of nosiness. An exceptionally inquisitive child she constantly questioned everyone she knew about imitate details of their lives. This talent for nosiness, coupled with her unusual lack of the very English fear of social embarrassment, turned out to be the perfect qualification for a celebrity interviewer. In A Curious Career, Lynn Barber takes us from her early years as a journalist at Penthouse - where she started out interviewing foot fetishists, voyeurs, dominatrices and men who liked wearing nappies - to her later more eminent role interrogating a huge cross-section of celebrities ranging from politicians to film stars, comedians, writers, artists and musicians. A Curious Career is full of glorious anecdotes - the interview with Salvador Dali that, at Dali's invitation, ended up lasting four days, or the drinking session with Shane MacGowan during which they planned to rob a bank. It also contains eye-opening transcripts, such as her infamous interview with the hilarious and spectacularly rude Marianne Faithfull. A wonderfully frank and funny memoir by Britain's greatest and most ferocious interviewer, A Curious Career is also a fascinating window into the lives of celebrities and the changing world of journalism.
Voetstoots is ’n bontgejasde keur uit sestien jaar van Annelie se koerantrubrieke. Die temas is so wyd soos die Heer se genade. Rakende aan die torings van Babel wat ons bou. ’n Kind wat doodgeskok word terwyl hulle jagentjies speel. ’n Begrafnisbrief uit Holland. ’n Boer wat sy plaashek vir oulaas sluit. Toentertyd se poskoets en handsentrale. Die boks langspeelplate in die gryse se waenhuis. Die smart om ’n kind te begrawe. ’n Glips met bensien in die tamatieslaai. ’n Sywurmhart wat sy in haar Bybel bêre. Mense sonder ’n woord van eer. ’n Eensame oom wie se hondjie op ’n sypaadjie doodgebyt is. ’n Lys van moets en moenies vir dames uit 1944. ’n Boks papsakwyn wat suur geword het. Dis lag, huil, kwaadword, nostalgie, deernis, onbegrip en lewenswette saamgeryg in ’n kleurvolle lappieskombers. En Annelie is bedrewe met die rygnaald.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2019 presents articles honored by this year's National Magazine Awards, showcasing outstanding writing that addresses urgent topics such as justice, gender, power, and violence, both at home and abroad. The anthology features remarkable reporting, including the story of a teenager who tried to get out of MS-13, only to face deportation (ProPublica); an account of the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar (Politico); and a sweeping California Sunday Magazine profile of an agribusiness empire. Other journalists explore the indications of environmental catastrophe, from invasive lionfish (Smithsonian) to the omnipresence of plastic (National Geographic). Personal pieces consider the toll of mass incarceration, including Reginald Dwayne Betts's "Getting Out" (New York Times Magazine); "This Place Is Crazy," by John J. Lennon (Esquire); and Robert Wright's "Getting Out of Prison Meant Leaving Dear Friends Behind" (Marshall Project with Vice). From the pages of the Atlantic and the New Yorker, writers and critics discuss prominent political figures: Franklin Foer's "American Hustler" explores Paul Manafort's career of corruption; Jill Lepore recounts the emergence of Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Caitlin Flanagan and Doreen St. Felix reflect on the Kavanaugh hearings and #MeToo. Leslie Jamison crafts a portrait of the Museum of Broken Relationships (Virginia Quarterly Review), and Kasey Cordell and Lindsey B. Koehler ponder "The Art of Dying Well" (5280). A pair of never-before-published conversations illuminates the state of the American magazine: New Yorker writer Ben Taub speaks to Eric Sullivan of Esquire about pursuing a career as a reporter, alongside Taub's piece investigating how the Iraqi state is fueling a resurgence of ISIS. And Karolina Waclawiak of BuzzFeed News interviews McSweeney's editor Claire Boyle about challenges and opportunities for fiction at small magazines. That conversation is inspired by McSweeney's winning the ASME Award for Fiction, which is celebrated here with a story by Lesley Nneka Arimah, a magical-realist tale charged with feminist allegory.
Juliet Jacques was one of the first trans writers in the UK to contribute broadly to both British and foreign media, writing widely about the trans experience. Spanning over a decade, Jacques' ground-breaking journalism about selfhood, society, art, politics, freedom, and gender identity, tracks the backlash against emerging trans rights and the rise of a new and more explicit form of media transphobia. Front Lines is a seminal collection of writings on trans and queer art, politics, and media, from a period in which the relationship between trans and non-binary people and the British media was exceptionally turbulent. Jacques navigates the tension between wanting to simply write about art and culture and needing to counter the dishonest, damaging rhetoric being published about trans people in virtually every national newspaper in the UK. 'I never believed any journalism was objective, nor that there was any point in even trying to be,' writes Jacques in her introduction. 'Above all, activism is needed to fight this, with journalism to support it: there is no point in pretending to be objective in our work, as the stakes remain just as high as they were back in 2010, perhaps even higher... We're entering a new phase of collective struggle, with new fronts and new tactics needed: I hope this book can help to inform that.' This crucial collection asks what we can learn from the last decade and, importantly, what we can do now. How can new writers take up the struggle for trans liberation? And what will the future of trans writing look like?
Award-winning journalist Wolfgang Bauer and photographer Stanislav Krupar were the first undercover reporters to document the journey of Syrian refugees from Egypt to Europe. Posing as English teachers in 2014, they were direct witnesses to the brutality of smuggler gangs, the processes of detainment and deportation, the dangers of sea-crossing on rickety boats, and the final furtive journey through Europe. Combining their own travels with other eyewitness accounts in the first book of reportage of its kind, Crossing the Sea brings to life both the systemic problems and the individual faces behind the crisis, and is a passionate appeal for more humanitarian refugee policies.
With contributions from seven of Mexico's finest journalists, this is reportage at its bravest and most necessary - it has the power to change the world's view of their country, and by the force of its truth, to start to heal the country's many sorrows. Supported the Arts Council Grant's for the Arts Programme and by PEN Promotes Veering between carnival and apocalypse, Mexico has in the last ten years become the epicentre of the international drug trade. The so-called "war on drugs" has been a brutal and chaotic failure (more than 160,000 lives have been lost). The drug cartels and the forces of law and order are often in collusion, corruption is everywhere. Life is cheap and inconvenient people - the poor, the unlucky, the honest or the inquisitive - can be "disappeared" leaving not a trace behind (in September 2015, more than 26,798 were officially registered as "not located"). Yet people in all walks of life have refused to give up. Diego Enrique Osorno and Juan Villoro tell stories of teenage prostitution and Mexico's street children. Anabel Hernandez and Emiliano Ruiz Parra give chilling accounts of the "disappearance" of forty-three students and the murder of a self-educated land lawyer. Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez and Marcela Turati dissect the impact of the violence on the victims and those left behind, while Lydia Cacho contributes a journal of what it is like to live every day of your life under threat of death. Reading these accounts we begin to understand the true nature of the meltdown of democracy, obscured by lurid headlines, and the sheer physical and intellectual courage needed to oppose it.
Sachin Tendulkar has made poets of prose writers even if his strokeplay has demontrated the futility of conveying in words the brilliance of his batsmanship. As R C Robertson-Glasgow said in another context, he was "easy to watch, difficult to bowl to and impossible to write about." In this collection of essays by some of the finest writers on cricket, the attempt is not so much to pin Sachin down as to let him roam free: beyond statistics, above nationality, and above the need to explain. From the sublime to the ridiculous it is all here. As Peter Roebuck once said "Whenever I feel low I only need to remind myself how privileged I am to be writing on the game in the Tendulkar era"
"Did Mandela work for nothing?" These are just some of Eric Miyeni’s newspaper columns and opinion pieces, which have earned him friends and enemies alike. Known for his straight-talking frankness, his views on subjects ranging from politics and travel to big business and sport elicit strong responses. Here Comes The Snake In The Grass is a selection of Eric Miyeni’s columns and occasional writings covering a variety of topics, from Julius Malema, Oprah Winfrey and Brenda Fassie to the value of radio, the true cost of crime, the need for excellence in South Africa and the difficulty of finding love in the modern world. Some of the writings in this collection court controversy, addressing issues many want hidden from view; others provide glimpses of the writer’s softer side. All show why Eric Miyeni’s is an unmistakeable voice in the South African media. Alternately hard-hitting and personal, rousing and funny, Here Comes The Snake In The Grass is an entertaining and informative look at the South African cultural landscape.
Explores the link between revolutionary change in the Victorian world of print and women's entry into the field of mass-market publishing This book highlights the integral relationship between the rise of the popular woman writer and the expansion and diversification of newspaper, book and periodical print media during a period of revolutionary change, 1832-1860. It includes discussion of canonical women writers such as Felicia Hemans, Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot, as well as lesser-known figures such as Eliza Cook and Frances Brown. It also examines the ways women readers actively responded to a robust popular print culture by creating scrapbooks and engaging in forms of celebrity worship. Easley analyses the ways Victorian women's participation in popular print culture anticipates our own engagement with new media in the twenty-first century.
Jordan's diverse socioeconomic make-up encapsulates, like no other Middle Eastern state, both the array of pressing short-term problems facing the region, and the underlying challenges that Arab states will need to face once the current spate of civil conflicts is over: meaningful youth employment, female participation in politics, and integration of refugees into society. This book tells the story of Jordan through the lives of ordinary people, including a political cartoonist, a Syrian refugee, a Jihadist and a female parliamentarian. The raw voices and everyday struggles of these people shine a fresh light on the politics, religion, and society of a culture coming to terms with the harsh reality of modernisation and urbanisation at a time of regional upheaval. With her deep knowledge of Jordan's landscape, language and culture, Rana Sweis sketches an intimate portrait of the intricacies and complexities of life in the Middle East. Rather than focusing on how individuals are affected by events in the region, she reveals a cast of characters shaping their own lives and times. Voices of Jordan shares those stories in all of their rich detail, offering a living, breathing social and political history.
Winner of the Hay Festival Award for Prose Winner of the 2016 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award Shortlisted for the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Excellence in Journalism Award Shortlisted for the 2017 Moore Prize for Non-Fiction Literature In May of 2012, Janine di Giovanni travelled to Syria, marking the beginning of a long relationship with the country, as she began reporting from both sides of the conflict, witnessing its descent into one of the most brutal, internecine conflicts in recent history. Drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught up in the fighting, Syria came to consume her every moment, her every emotion. Speaking to those directly involved in the war, di Giovanni relays the personal stories of rebel fighters thrown in jail at the least provocation; of children and families forced to watch loved ones taken and killed by regime forces with dubious justifications; and the stories of the elite, holding pool parties in Damascus hotels, trying to deny the human consequences of the nearby shelling. Delivered with passion, fearlessness and sensitivity, The Morning They Came for Us is an unflinching account of a nation on the brink of disintegration, charting an apocalyptic but at times tender story of life in a jihadist war - and an unforgettable testament to human resilience in the face of devastating, unimaginable horrors.
Rana Jawad, a British-Lebanese journalist who has reported from Tripoli for the BBC for seven years, found herself the last British journalist reporting from inside Tripoli early in 2010. Defiant and terrified in turns, she went into hiding and bravely issued the series of anonymous Tripoli Witness blogs that have become famous among anyone following the course of the insurgency. The raw blog accounts published here are accompanied by a short introductory pieces as well as a series of opening essays of what it was like to live in Gaddafi's Libya. Paul Kenyon, the acclaimed Panorama Presenter who was recently awarded for his BBC documentary on Libya, introduces Rana's work and gives an insight into this remarkable young journalists's brave reporting through harrowing times.
From an award-winning author comes a tale of a notorious double-murder, for readers of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, or Emmanuel Carrère's The Adversary. In 1982 Malcolm Macarthur, the wealthy heir to a small estate, found himself suddenly without money. The solution, he decided, was to rob a bank. To do this, he would need a gun and a car. In the process of procuring them, he killed two people, and the circumstances of his eventual arrest in the apartment of Ireland's Attorney General nearly brought down the government. The case remains one of the most shocking in Ireland's history. Mark O'Connell has long been haunted by the story of this brutal double murder. But in recent years this haunting has become mutual. When O'Connell sets out to unravel the mysteries still surrounding these horrific and inexplicable crimes, he tracks down Macarthur himself, now an elderly man living out his days in Dublin and reluctant to talk. As the two men circle one another, O'Connell is pushed into a confrontation with his own narrative: what does it mean to write about a murderer?
The Believer, a twelve-time National Magazine Award finalist, is a literature, arts, and culture magazine published by the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute, and based in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In each issue, readers will find journalism, essays, intimate interviews, an expansive comics section, poetry, timely and untimely reviews, and on occasion, delightful and unexpected bonus items. The magazine is edited by a group of novelists, poets, artists, critics, regular readers of the Chicago Manual of Style, and aficionados of print and digital literature. Our regular columnists are Nick Hornby and Peter Orner. All editions of The Believer are perfect-bound and printed by friendly Canadians on recycled, acid-free, heavy-stock paper and suitable for archiving, framing, or reading in the tub. We publish five issues a year, including one double issue. Questions? Please give us a call: (866) 930-0264 or reach us by email: [email protected].
'An extraordinary book: deeply moving, darkly funny and hugely powerful' Robert Macfarlane Heavy Light is the story of a breakdown: a journey through mania, psychosis and treatment in a psychiatric hospital, and onwards to release, recovery and healing. After a lifetime of ups and downs, Horatio Clare was committed to hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. From hypomania in the Alps, to a complete breakdown and a locked ward in Wakefield, this is a gripping account of how the mind loses touch with reality, how we fall apart and how we can be healed - or not - by treatment. A story of the wonder and intensity of the manic experience, as well as its peril and strangeness, it is shot through with the love, kindness, humour and care of those who deal with someone who becomes dangerously ill. Partly a tribute to those who looked after Horatio, from family and friends to strangers and professionals, and partly an investigation into how we understand and treat acute crises of mental health, Heavy Light's beauty, power and compassion illuminate a fundamental part of human experience. It asks urgent questions about mental health that affect each and every one of us. 'One of the most brilliant travel writers of our day takes us us now to that most challenging country, severe mental illness; and does so with such wit, warmth, and humanity, that, better acquainted with its terrors, we may better face our own' Reverend Richard Coles 'A record of the bravest, most perilous, most intrepid journey that any human being can ever make. It is stricken, moving, urgent, crucial . . . A luminous, beautiful achievement' Niall Griffiths
Twenty-one years after the murder of Hip-hop genius The Notorious B.I.G., The Man On High fuses the creative and the critical, asking what legacy means in the 21st century. Contemplating Biggie through the lens of skateboarding, music and poetry, Alessandrelli proves that The Notorious B.I.G. will always be rapping in the present tense.
'Journalists are said to write the first rough drafts of history. But I was only the messenger.' When Argentine troops surged onto the shores of the Falkland Islands, it was Harold Briley who broke the news to Britain and the rest of the world. As the BBC World Service's Latin America Correspondent, he was perfectly placed both metaphorically and physically: not only was he reporting from his base in Buenos Aires, but he had first-hand knowledge of the countries, their politics and their cultures. In Fight for Falklands Freedom: Reporting Live from Argentina and the Islands, Briley returns to the Islands to tell the full story in a breathless play-by-play account. Drawing on hundreds of his own reports, as well as interviews with political and military leaders from both sides, this is a fascinating insight into what happened, when it happened - and why.
From ISIS propaganda videos to popular regime-backed TV series and digital activism, the Syrian conflict has been dramatically affected by the production of media, at the same time generating in its turn an impressive visual culture. Yet what are the aesthetic, political and material implications of the collusion between the production of this sheer amount of visual media being continuously shared and re-manipulated on the Internet, and the performance of the conflict on the ground? This ethnography uses the Syrian case to reflect more broadly on how the networked age reshapes contemporary warfare and impacts on the enactment of violence through images and on images. In stark contrast to the techno-utopias celebrating digital democracy and participatory cultures, Donatella Della Ratta's analysis exposes the dark side of online practices, where visual regimes of representation and media production dramatically intertwine with modes of destruction and the performance of violence. Exploring the most socially-mediated conflict of contemporary times, the book offers a fascinating insight into the transformation of warfare and life in the age of the internet.
My father, the monster of the Springs house of horrors “I kneel on the foot piece next to the bed and lower my head. A piercing, burning pain engulfs my entire face. Dad has kicked me. Blood is gushing from my nose. Then I feel cold water being poured all over my body. Electrical wires shock me, I can’t see through the blood. God, help me.” (Translated) Landi is the eldest of five children who were rescued from the so-called Springs house of horror. She is now 21 years old and tells her astonishing story for the very first time. In May 2014, police raided the house where a sadistic father had imprisoned, abused and tortured his wife and five children in a rat-infested den of sleaze. In chilling detail, Landi recalls how their father assaulted them by tasering them, shooting them with a gas pistol and burning them with a blowtorch, how he researched torture methods and nearly drowned them in a bathtub. She relates her memories to Susan Cilliers, an experienced journalist, who documents it with compassion, skilfully combining it with facts that emanated from the police investigation and court case. House of Horrors is the shocking tale of a father who took everything from his family in the cruellest possible way, but it is also a story of hope about a brave young girl who eventually finds happiness and healing.
In some ways, I didn't - don't - want to remember any of it. Which is not to say that one ever forgets. I don't know any journalist who worked through the Troubles, with its relentless cycle of murders and doorstepping the homes of the dead and funerals and yet more murders, who isn't haunted from time to time by being an eyewitness to evil, to heartache and, yes, to courage too. GAIL WALKER, editor, Belfast Telegraph In Reporting the Troubles sixty-eight renowned journalists tell their stories of working in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - the victims that they have never forgotten, the events that have never left them, and the lasting impact of the experience of working through those years. The result is a compelling account of one of the most turbulent periods in recent history, told by the journalists who reported on it. Beginning in 1968 with an eyewitness report of the day that civil rights protestors clashed with the police in Derry, the journalists give candid accounts of the years that followed - arriving on the scene of major atrocities; knocking on the doors of bereaved relatives; maintaining objectivity in the face of threats from paramilitaries and pressure from the state; and always the absolute commitment to telling the truth. This is a landmark book - a history of the Troubles told by the journalists who were on the ground from the beginning and including many of the biggest names in journalism from the last fifty years. Reporting the Troubles is a remarkable act of remembrance that is raw, thought provoking and profoundly moving. Contributors: Kate Adie, Martin Bell, Nicholas Denis, Sean O'Neill, David Armstrong, Wendy Austin, Trevor Birney, Suzanne Breen, Gordon Burns, Anne Cadwallader, Michael Cairns, Jim Campbell, Paul Clark, John Coghlan, Martin Cowley, Ed Curran, David Davin-Power, Deaglan de Breadun, John Devine, Noel Doran, Noreen Erskine, Paul Faith, Robert Fisk, Derval Fitzsimons, Tommie Gorman, Katie Hannon, Deric Henderson, Eamonn Holmes, Gloria Hunniford, John Irvine, Jeanie Johnston, Alan Jones, Hugh Jordan, Richard Kay, Martin Lindsay, Ivan Little, Jane Loughrey, Eamonn Mallie, Ray Managh, Steven McCaffery, Justine McCarthy, Alf McCreary, Denzil McDaniel, Henry McDonald, Jim McDowell, Eddie McIlwaine, Susan McKay, David McKittrick, Ivan McMichael, Gerry Moriarty, John Mullin, Bill Neely, Miriam O'Callaghan, Conor O'Clery, Sister Martina Purdy, Ken Reid, Brian Rowan, Chris Ryder, Gerald Seymour, Sam Smyth, Peter Taylor, Alex Thomson, Chris Moore, Gail Walker, David Walmsley, Ian Woods, Robin Walsh.
Haunting stories from the Soviet-Afghan War from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature - A new translation of Zinky Boys based on the revised text - From 1979 to 1989 Soviet troops engaged in a devastating war in Afghanistan that claimed thousands of casualties on both sides. While the Soviet Union talked about a 'peace-keeping' mission, the dead were shipped back in sealed zinc coffins. Boys in Zinc presents the honest testimonies of soldiers, doctors and nurses, mothers, wives and siblings who describe the lasting effects of war. Weaving together their stories, Svetlana Alexievich shows us the truth of the Soviet-Afghan conflict: the killing and the beauty of small everyday moments, the shame of returned veterans, the worries of all those left behind. When it was first published in the USSR in 1991, Boys in Zinc sparked huge controversy for its unflinching, harrowing insight into the realities of war. |
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