Winner of some of France's most prestigious literary prizes, Patrick Modiano is considered one of the most fascinating French novelists alive today. This is the first English literary critique of this best-selling French author, whose works are found increasingly in translation throughout the world and who is attracting considerable critical attention outside France.
In this lucid study, Alan Morris explores Modiano's fifteen major novels. He also traces Modiano's development as a writer and the tragedies which have influenced his works: the death of his younger brother, the neglect of his father and the horrors of the German occupation. Morris delves into Modiano's themes of time, memory, identity and the past, clearly demonstrating this intriguing writer's key place in French writing today.

This book explores the reciprocal influence of friendship ideals and narrative forms in eighteenth-century British fiction. It examines how various novelists, from Samuel Richardson to Mary Shelley, drew upon classical and early modern conceptions of true amity as a model of collaborative pedagogy. Analyzing authors, their professional circumstances, and their audiences, the study shows how the rhetoric of friendship became a means of paying deference to the increasing power of readerships, while it also served as a semi-covert means to persuade resistant readers and confront aesthetic and moral debates head on. The study contributes to an understanding of gender roles in the early history of the novel by disclosing the constant interplay between male and female models of amity. It demonstrates that this gendered dialogue shaped the way novelists imagined character interiority, reconciled with the commercial aspects of writing, and engaged mixed-sex audiences.

James Joyce and the Act of Reception is the first detailed account of Joyce's own engagement with the reception of his work. It shows how Joyce's writing, from the earliest fiction to Finnegans Wake, addresses the social conditions of reading (particularly in Ireland). Most notably, it echoes and transforms the responses of some of Joyce's actual readers, from family and friends to key figures such as Eglinton and Yeats. This study argues that the famous 'unreadable' quality of Joyce's writing is a crucial feature of its historical significance. Not only does Joyce engage with the cultural contexts in which he was read but, by inscribing versions of his own contemporary reception within his writing, he determines that his later readers read through the responses of earlier ones. In its focus on the local and contemporary act of reception, Joyce's work is seen to challenge critical accounts of both modernism and deconstruction.

In Moby-Dick's wide philosophical musings and central narrative arch, Daniel Herman finds a philosophy very closely aligned specifically with the original teachings of Zen Buddhism. In exploring the likelihood of this hitherto undiscovered influence, Herman looks at works Melville is either known to have read or that there is a strong likelihood of his having come across, as well as offering a more expansive consideration of Moby-Dick from a Zen Buddhist perspective, as it is expressed in both ancient and modern teachings. But not only does the book delve deeply into one of the few aspects of Moby-Dick's construction left unexplored by scholars, it also conceives of an entirely new way of reading the greatest of American books-offering critical re-considerations of many of its most crucial and contentious issues, while focusing on what Melville has to teach us about coping with adversity, respecting ideological diversity, and living skillfully in a fickle, slippery world.

Gillian Beer's classic Darwin's Plots, one of the most influential works of literary criticism and cultural history of the last quarter century, is here reissued in an updated edition to coincide with the anniversary of Darwin's birth and of the publication of The Origin of Species. Its focus on how writers, including George Eliot, Charles Kingsley and Thomas Hardy, responded to Darwin's discoveries and to his innovations in scientific language continues to open up new approaches to Darwin's thought and to its effects in the culture of his contemporaries. This 2009 third edition includes an important new essay that investigates Darwin's concern with consciousness across all forms of organic life. It demonstrates how this fascination persisted throughout his career and affected his methods and discoveries. With an updated bibliography reflecting recent work in the field, this book will retain its place at the heart of Victorian studies.

The writers of Gothic literature reflect in their works the concerns and fears of the times in which they were created. These fears, in turn, destabilize the reader; that is, they create within the reader a sense of uneasiness characteristic of the Gothic genre, an uneasiness that comes from the challenging of social and cultural conventions or cherished beliefs. In doing so, these works are also cultural artifacts, for they reflect issues central to society at a given point in time. This book examines the process of destabilization in the modern American Gothic. The volume focuses on the works of three popular 20th-century Gothic writers: H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, and Stephen King. It argues that science and technology are central to the destabilization process in works by these authors, and it demonstrates how, as cultural artifacts, their writings reflect the fears and concerns of contemporary society. Thus the volume demonstrates how the works of these authors remain within the Gothic literary tradition, while they simultaneously adapt that tradition for a modern audience.

Judy Blume is one of the most popular authors of children's and young adult fiction in American history. For over 30 years, her books and career have withstood the test of time and she continues to resonate with new generations of young readers. While she is arguably one of the most important authors of the twentieth century, she is also one of the most banned. What is perhaps the most surprising aspect of Blume's career is that despite today's proliferation of cable channels and easy Internet access, books of hers written decades ago about every day life events that all teenagers experience still manage to find themselves at the center of censorship debates. Rather than change her style, the efforts to censor her books turned Blume into an activist and champion for the First Amendment. Inside this biography Kathleen Tracy explores the life and career of Judy Blume, one of the most successful-and most controversial-authors of twentieth century.

In addition to tracing the events of BlooM's life, this engaging biography discusses historic and current censorship issues in classrooms and libraries across the country. Her association with the National Coalition Against Censorship, a group that Blume says changed her life, as did her friendship with the organization's longtime director, Leanne Katz, is examined in detail as well as how libraries, teachers, publishers and grass-roots activists have responded to the ever-growing attempts to censor children's reading material. In-depth chapters are supplemented with a bibliography of print and electronic sources that provide suggested readings for students and general readers alike. Also included is a timeline, photos, and an appendix of free speech resources.

In Catching Fire, the translation of Diamela Eltit's Never Did the Fire unfolds in real time as a conversation between works of art, illuminating both in the process. The problems and pleasures of conveying literature into another language-what happens when you meet a pun? a double entendre?-are met by translator Daniel Hahn's humor, deftness, and deep appreciation for what sets Eltit's work apart, and his evolving understanding of what this particular novel is trying to do.

Although Herman Melville's masterworks Moby-Dick and Benito Cereno have long been the subject of vigorous scholarly examination, the impact of African culture on these works has received surprisingly little critical attention. Presenting a groundbreaking reappraisal of these two powerful pieces of fiction, Sterling Stuckey reveals how African customs and rituals heavily influenced one of America's greatest novelists.
The Melville that emerges in this innovative, intertextual study is one profoundly shaped by the vibrant African-influenced music and dance culture of nineteenth-century America. Drawing on extensive research, Stuckey reveals how celebrations of African culture by black Americans, such as the Pinkster festival and the Ring Shout dance form, permeated Melville's environs during his formative years and found their way into his finest fiction. Also demonstrated is the extent to which the author of Moby-Dick is indebted to Frederick Douglass's depiction of music, especially the blues, in his classic slave narrative. Connections between Melville's work and African culture are also extended beyond America to the African continent itself. With readings of hitherto unexplored chapters in Delano's Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and other nonfiction sources--such as Joseph Dupuis's Journal of a Residence in Ashantee--Stuckey links Benito Cereno and Moby-Dick, pinpointing the sources from which Melville drew to fashion major characters that appear aboard both the Pequod and the San Dominick.
Combining inventive literary and historical analysis, Stuckey shows how myriad aspects of African culture coalesced to create the unique vision conveyed inMoby-Dick and Benito Cereno. Ultimately, African Culture and Melville's Art provides a wealth of insight into the novelist's expressive power and the development of his distinct cross-cultural aesthetic.

A wide-ranging study of the post-1990 fiction of one of America's most respected writers and cultural critics, this volume focuses on three of Don DeLillo's most recent novelsGCoMao II, Underworld, and Falling ManGCothat span pivotal moments in recent history: the end of the Cold War, the millennium, and 9/11. Consisting of original essays written by scholars whose interdisciplinary approachesGCodrawn from art history and religious history, ethnic studies and urban studies, popular culture and political scienceGCoshed new light on DeLillo's work, it investigates DeLillo's portrait of turn-of-the-century America as the nation confronts the defining phenomena of globalism and terrorism. With an eye always on the impact that shifts in historical sensibility produce on aesthetic sensibility, the volume also considers the role that DeLillo sees narrative playing in a world dominated by digital images and provides the first extended analysis of how much faith he has in fiction's ability to convey the trauma of September 11, an event commonly conceived as resistant to all forms of artistic expression.

Classic 19th-century British novels that give full expression to complex ethical problems necessarily project the claims of conflicting or interfering values and thus complicate the strategies for resolving the dilemmas they dramatize. This book reasserts the importance of the ethics of reading. It analyzes a developing dialogue between moral philosophers and literary critics, all of whom in their different ways celebrate literature's capacity to confront us with values in conflict. They agree that a key reason for rereading and arguing about classic novels is that they often hypothesize moral dilemmas in more realistically particularized detail than any abstract, rational discussion of ethics could match. But even if novels provide specifically situated explorations of moral issues, this does not mean that they can resolve the problems they dramatize.

This book considers interfering values in novels by Austen, Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy and the difficulties in interpreting these works. Each novel has caused protracted disputes among critics because of its heroine and its conflicting values. Different readings of these novels reveal how critics engage in interpretive strategies to defend or deplore what they read. But while they try to articulate and limit the reader's responses, the novels break through the frames they would impose, thus enlarging our awareness of the problems of making judgments.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), an Argentine writer of serious avant-garde poetry and prose, often wrote of the humor in the works of contemporaneous authors such as Franz Kafka. In response to this humor, Borges created a comedic tradition all his own. Humor in Borges studies the humor embedded in the fiction of a serious and metaphysical literary figure.

Rene de Costa shows how Borges was concerned with making the embedded humor in his work more apparent without abandoning the essential story line. De Costa examines the ways in which Borges transformed established modes of writing -- the chronicle, the book review, the obituary, the detective story -- into genre parodies. He looks at Borges's canonical collections, identifying the humor in such simple things as a footnote, a false epigraph, or a postscript. He also considers the Universal History of Infamy and the techniques Borges used to rework serious stories and poems into overt comedy that ridiculed the notion of high and low culture.

Humor in Borges couples elegant scholarship with a comedic edge and is both accessible and enjoyable to read. Scholars and students of twentieth-century Spanish and Latin American literature will delight in this fascinating look at laughter in the work of Jorge Luis Borges.

This ninth volume presents about 1,100 letters, many unpublished, from the years 1859 to 1861. It records the writing of two major novels, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations; the planning and writing of a substantial amount of the three Christmas numbers of this period, `A Haunted House', `A Message from the Sea', and `Tom Tiddler's Ground'; and the establishment of All the Year Round as a new journal to succeed Household Words. It also shows Dickens's delight with his new Kentish home, Gad's Hill.

This anthology hosts a collection of essays examining the role of comics as portals for historical and academic content, while keeping the approach on an international market verses the American one. Few resources currently exist showing the cross-disciplinary aspects of comics. Some of the chapters examine the use of Wonder Woman during World War II, the development and culture of French comics, and theories of Locke and Hobbs in regards to the state of nature and the bonds of community. More so, the continual use of comics for the retelling of classic tales and current events demonstrates that the genre has long passed the phase of for children's eyes only. Additionally, this anthology also weaves graphic novels into the dialogue with comics.

This book of interdisciplinary essays serves to situate the original Sherlock Holmes, and his various adaptations, in a contemporary cultural context. This collection is prompted by three main and related questions: firstly, why is Sherlock Holmes such an enduring and ubiquitous cultural icon; secondly, why is it that Sherlock Holmes, nearly 130 years after his birth, is enjoying such a spectacular renaissance; and, thirdly, what sort of communities, imagined or otherwise, have arisen around this figure since the most recent resurrections of Sherlock Holmes by popular media? Covering various media and genres (TV, film, literature, theatre) and scholarly approaches, this comprehensive collection offers cogent answers to these questions.

Best known as the author of "Heart of Darkness" (1899), Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) is one of the most widely taught writers in English. His mastery of the English language is especially notable, for he was born in a Ukrainian area of Poland under Czarist Russian rule and began a sea career in France. He joined the British merchant fleet, and his travels took him to European imperial outposts throughout Asia, South America, and Africa. To pass the monotonous time on land between journeys, he began to write fiction in English. Never quite at home anywhere, he spoke a thickly accented mix of English, Polish, and French. He sometimes posed as a flirtatious Frenchman, a fallen Polish nobleman, and an English country squire and man of letters. Like many writers, his works reflect his experiences. Interest in his writings has become especially strong, in light of their relationship to marginality and postcolonialism.

As a reference book, this volume is a comprehensive guide to Conrad's troubled life and enduring literary legacy. An opening biographical chapter tells the story of his difficulties, adventures, and achievements. It also summarizes the current state of biographical research on Conrad and provides a useful context for approaching his works. The chapter that follows builds on the biography by discussing the importance of Conrad's letters to our understanding of his life and writings. Additional chapters examine each of his major works, while others address clusters of his later novels, his short fiction, and his essays and memoirs. Each chapter is written by an expert contributor and offers a combination of summary and original scholarship. Thus the volume provides important biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information to those readers new to Conrad, while it simultaneously gives experienced readers a wealth of fresh critical perspectives.

Poised between the Mediterranean and the Mitteleuropa, crossroads of civilizations and seat of vibrant cultural and literary life, Trieste is now acknowledged as enjoying unrivalled cultural status amongst Italian cities. This volume, the first comprehensive study of Triestine literature in English, originally reassesses Triestes literary identity, paying particular attention to the period between 1918 and 1954 when local writing became intensely aware of its local specificity and some of its central motifs came prominently to the fore. Triestes singular border identity, mirrored in a variegated literary output, emerges here as laden with complexities and ambiguities, such as the controversial notion of triestinita, the ambiguous relation with nationalism, specifically in its Fascist inflection, and the anxieties generated by repeated re-definitions of the areas historical borders.

This book examines dystopian fiction's recent paradigm shift towards urban dystopias. It links the dystopian tradition with the literary history of the novel, spatio-philosophical concepts against the backdrop of the spatial turn, and systems-theory. Five dystopian novels are discussed in great detail: China Mieville's Perdido Street Station (2000) and The City & The City (2009), City of Bohane (2011) by Kevin Barry, John Berger's Lilac and Flag (1992), and Divided Kingdom (2005) by Rupert Thomson. The book includes chapters on the literary history of the dystopian tradition, the referential interplay of maps and literature, urban spaces in literature, borders and transgressions, and on systems-theory as a tool for charting dystopian fiction. The result is a detailed overview of how dystopian fiction constantly adapts to - and reflects on - the actual world.

As one of the only highly praised resources on this important topic, this thoughtfully compiled book examines and suggests picture books and chapter books presenting LGBTQ content to children under the age of 12. Highlighting titles for children from infancy to age 11, Rainbow Family Collections examines over 250 children's picture books, informational books, and chapter books with LGBTQ content from around the world. Each entry in Rainbow Family Collections supplies a synopsis of the title's content, lists awards it has received, cites professional reviews, and provides suggestions for librarians considering acquisition. The book also provides a brief historical overview of LGBTQ children's literature along with the major book awards for this genre, tips on planning welcoming spaces and offering effective library service to this population, and a list of criteria for selecting the best books with this content. Interviews with authors and key individuals in LGBTQ children's book publishing are also featured. A foreword by K.T. Horning of the Cooperative Children's Book Center An extensive bibliography of picture books, easy chapter books, nonfiction books and nonprint materials with LGBTQ content for children ages 12 and under An index of key terms for each title provides easy access to titles representing a specific aspect of LGBTQ culture

This anthology of sixteen seminal studies of Homer's Iliad offers essential insights into the poem's artistry and cultural background. Two of the contributions have been translated for this volume and others have been revised and updated. An authoritative introduction sets the papers in context and explores significant connections between them. All Greek is translated and a glossary of Greek terms is provided.

This book was first published in 2009. A much older genre than is often thought, the historical novel has played a vital role in the development of the novel overall. It began in seventeenth-century France as a distinctive way of combining historical chronologies with fictive narratives. In Romantic Scotland, historical fiction underwent a further transformation, inspired by both antiquarian scholarship and crisis-oriented journalism. The first comprehensive study of its subject for many years, The Historical Novel in Europe highlights both the French invention and Scottish re-invention of historical fiction, showing how these two events prepared the genre's broad popularity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Europe, as well as in the Americas, the historical novel became as much a way of reading and a set of expectations as a memorable collection of books. The main authors discussed include Madame de Lafayette, the abb Pr vost, Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert and Mark Twain.

Rediscover the classics--and share them with readers! The Count of Monte Cristo is a rip-roaring adventure. Pride and Prejudice is an endearing romance. Howard Fast's April Morning is fascinating historical fiction and a moving war story. The list goes on. The trick is to find the right book for the reader. This guide can help. By identifying the genre characteristics of more than 400 classic fiction works, and organizing titles according to these features, this guide helps readers find the type of books they enjoy; and it helps you promote classics to teen (and adult!) readers. Grade 9 through adult. The primary purpose of this book is to provide a readers' advisory tool for those working with teens and preteens in public and school libraries. A secondary purpose is to help educators and librarians promote classic literature to readers of all ages. Teachers in particular will find it a useful complement to college bound and AP reading lists.

This book is a stylistic study of D. H. Lawrence's presentation of narrative viewpoint. The focus is mainly on Lawrence's third novel, Sons and Lovers, occupying a crucial position in his oeuvre and judged by critics to be his first mature piece.While sharing many features typical of nineteenth-century novels, it marks the emergence of a new technique of writing consciousness that functioned as a precursor to the modernist practice of dialogic shifts across viewpoints. Through a detailed linguistic analysis, Sotirova shows that different characters' viewpoints are not simply juxtaposed in the narrative, but linked in a way that creates dialogic resonances between them. The dialogic linking is achieved through the use of devices that have parallel functions in conversational discourse - referring expressions, sentence-initial correctives and repetition. The book uses stylistics to resolve current controversies in narratology and Lawrence criticism.In approaching the study of narrative viewpoint from the angle of discourse, Sotirova arrives at cutting-edge insights into Lawrence's work. This book will be required reading for stylisticians, narratologists, literary linguists and literary studies scholars.

This volume investigates the frameworks that can be applied to reading Caribbean author Jean Rhys. While Wide Sargasso Sea famously displays overt forms of literary influences, Jean Rhys's entire oeuvre is so fraught with connections to other texts and textual practices across geographical boundaries that her classification as a cosmopolitan modernist writer is due for reassessment. Transnational Jean Rhys argues against the relative isolationism that is sometimes associated with Rhys's writing by demonstrating both how she was influenced by a wide range of foreign - especially French - authors and how her influence was in turn disseminated in myriad directions. Including an interview with Black Atlantic novelist Caryl Phillips, this collection charts new territories in the influences on/of an author known for her dislike of literary coteries, but whose literary communality has been underestimated.