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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Literary
George Orwell remains an iconic figure today - even though he died
in 1950. His dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a Big
Brother society in which the state intrudes into the most intimate
details of people's lives - and, not surprisingly, it became a
constant reference point after Edward Snowden's revelations. The
word "Orwellian" is constantly in the media - used either as a
pejorative adjective to evoke totalitarian terror or as a
complimentary adjective to mean "displaying outspoken intellectual
honesty". Interest in Orwell's life and writings - globally -
continues unabated. Beginning with a preface by Richard Blair,
Orwell's son, George Orwell Now! brings together thirteen chapters
by leading international scholars in four thematic sections: *
Peter Marks on Orwell and the history of surveillance studies;
Florian Zollmann on Nineteen Eighty-Four in 2014; Henk Vynckier on
Orwell's collecting project; and Adam Stock on 'Big Brother's
Literary Offspring' * Paul Anderson "In Defence of Bernard Crick";
Luke Seaber on the "London Section of Down and Out in Paris and
London"; John Newsinger on "Orwell's Socialism"; and Philip Bounds
on "Orwell and the Anti-Austerity Left in Britain" * Marina Remy on
the "Writing of Otherness in Burmese Days and Keep the Aspidistra
Flying"; Sreya Mallika Datta and Utsa Mukherjee on "Reassessing
Ambivalence in Orwell's Burma"; and Shu-chu Wei on Orwell's Animal
Farm alongside Chen Jo-his's Mayor Yin * Tim Crook on "Orwell and
the Radio Imagination"; and editor Richard Lance Keeble on "Orwell
and the War Reporter's Imagination" Peter Stansky, in an afterword,
argues that Orwell is now more relevant than ever before.
This is not a book about Laurie Lee, still less a biography. It is
about the spirit of the man and the spirit of a place. A Thousand
Laurie Lees is a poetic reassessment of the Slad Valley, a memoir
from a different age rooted in the same idyllic landscape that
inspired Cider with Rosie. A year after Lee's death in 1997, a
handful of locals dressed up as him for an epic, drunken cycle ride
right through the heart of Laurie Lee country. They called it The
Night of a Thousand Laurie Lees and stopped off at all the pubs on
the way, signing books, singing and carousing. Taking this as a
starting point, poet Adam Horovitz reaches back through myth,
memory and literature to explore Laurie Lee's impact on the Slad
Valley and its people. Lyrically evoking his own childhood there
sixty years after Lee, he explores the connections between family,
the valley and learning to write, and examines what has changed
since Lee's day and what remains the same.
Following a turbulent upbringing, a history of addiction and a
committal to an asylum, the teachings of Malcolm X changed Hakim
Jamal's life. He became an eloquent, rousing spokesperson for the
Nation of Islam movement, moved to London, began a relationship
with Gale Benson - the daughter of a British MP - and published a
book about Malcolm X, with Diana Athill. Before long, however, he
began behaving erratically again, and believed himself to be God.
Raw and unflinching, Make Believe is a memoir of friendship, love,
mania and injustice. A witness to his struggles, Athill reflects on
her relationship with Hakim with characteristic empathy and
candour, whilst charting the events that led to Gale's - and not
long after, Hakim's - murder.
Readers and students of Ayn Rand will value seeing in this
collection of interviews how Ayn Rand applied her philosophy and
moral principles to the issues of the day. Objectively Speaking
includes half a century of print and broadcast interviews drawn
from the Ayn Rand Archives. The thirty-two interviews in this
collection, edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz, include
print interviews from the 1930s and edited transcripts of radio and
television interviews from the 1940s through 1981. Selections are
included from a remarkable series of radio broadcasts over a
four-year period (1962-1966) on Columbia University's station WKCR
in New York City and syndicated throughout the United States and
Canada. Ayn Rand's unusual and strikingly original insights on a
vast range of topics are captured by prominent interviewers in the
history of American television broadcasting, such as Johnny Carson,
Edwin Newman, Mike Wallace, and Louis Rukeyser. The collection
concludes with an interview of Dr. Leonard Peikoff on his radio
program in 1999, recalling his 30-year personal and professional
association with Ayn Rand and discussing her unique intellectual
and literary achievements. Ayn Rand is the best-selling author of
Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, and We the Living. Fifty
years or more after publication, sales of these novels continue to
increase.
Paul Leautaud was both one of the oddest characters in French
literature and, as a staff member of the review Mercure de France,
at the centre of Parisian literary life for over half a century.
First published in 1974, this book represents the first full length
biography of Leautaud in any language. The author recreates the
world of a man who, once regarded as a mere eccentric, is now
recognised as a significant figure in contemporary literature. It
traces Leautaud's intimate friendships with many famous writers of
the time and gives a lively panorama of the French literary scene
and its vivid characters.
Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman,
1929-1937 is an edited selection, published here for the first
time, of the diaries kept by American poet and novelist Coleman
during her years as an expatriate in the modernist hubs of France
and England. During her time abroad, Coleman developed as a
surrealist writer, publishing a novel, The Shutter of Snow, and
poems in little magazines like transition. She also began her life
s work, her diary, which was sustained for over four decades. This
portion of the diary is set against the cultural, social, and
political milieu of the early twentieth century in the throes of
industrialization, commercialization, and modernization. It
showcases Coleman s often larger-than-life, intense personality as
she interacted with a multitude of literary, artistic, and
intellectual figures of the period like Djuna Barnes, Peggy
Guggenheim, Antonia White, John Holms, George Barker, Edwin Muir,
Cyril Connolly, Arthur Waley, Humphrey Jennings, Dylan Thomas, and
T.S. Eliot. The book offers Coleman s lively, raw, and often
iconoclastic account of her complex social network. The personal
and professional encouragements, jealousies, and ambitions of her
friends unfolded within a world of limitless sexual longing,
supplies of alcohol, and aesthetic discussions. The diary documents
the disparate ways Coleman celebrated, just as she consistently
struggled to reconcile, her multiple identities as an artistic,
intellectual, maternal, sexual, and spiritual woman. Rough Draft
contributes to the growing modernist canon of life writings of both
female and male participants whose autobiographies, memoirs, and
diaries offer diverse accounts of the period, like Ernest Hemingway
s A Moveable Feast, Gertrude Stein s The Autobiography of Alice B.
Toklas, Sylvia Beach s Shakespeare and Company, and Robert McAlmon
and Kay Boyle s Being Geniuses Together.
This study, a companion to Peter Macardle’s edition of the
"Confabulationes," examines the ways in which the colloquies relate
to their Cologne background, to the major contemporary colloquy
collections (particularly Erasmus’s "Colloquia "and Mosellanus’s
"Paedologia"), and to the humanist renewal of Classical Latin. It
also looks in detail at the documentary traces of Schotten’s
career, and of his networks of friendship and patronage, and tries
to understand how he fitted into the structures of a university
which has often been (wrongly) understood as hostile to humanism.
Based on primary archival material, this is the only full-length
study of this underrated German humanist’s life and work.
At the age of nineteen Arthur Rimbaud committed suicide, not in the
flesh but as a writer. At that point he had composed a body of
poetry now ranked among the classics of France and of the world. He
never wrote another line. He cut himself not only from literature
but from his native country and from European civilization, and
lost himself in the inaccessible mountains of North Africa. When he
reappeared it was to die, in torment, in a hospital on the coast.
Further research has reconstructed the 'lost' life of this
extraordinary man and his amazing second career. Traveling as a
trader under terrible difficulties, he acted unknowingly as a
pioneer agent of the French Empire. The routes he discovered became
military and commercial highways of the French Empire in North
Africa. Jean Marie Carre has written the first complete and
authoritative biography of this genius and adventurer. It opens the
mystery of Rimbaud's renunciation, a profound research into a
tortured soul woven into a powerful narrative of his adventures in
Africa. Also included in this volume is a translation of Rimbaud's
moving spiritual autobiography A Season in Hell.
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY WINNER OF THE PRIX FEMINA
ETRANGER 2020 Following on from the critically acclaimed Things I
Don't Want to Know, discover the powerful second memoir in Deborah
Levy's essential three-part 'Living Autobiography'. 'I can't think
of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about
what it is to be a woman' Observer
_________________________________ 'Life falls apart. We try to get
a grip and hold it together. And then we realise we don't want to
hold it together . . .' The final instalment in Deborah Levy's
critically acclaimed 'Living Autobiography', Real Estate, is
available now. _________________________________ 'I just haven't
stopped reading it . . . it talks so beautifully about being a
woman' Billie Piper on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs 'It is the
story of every woman throughout history who has expended her love
and labour on making a home that turns out to serve the needs of
everyone except herself. Wonderful' Guardian 'Wise, subtle and
ironic, Levy's every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise
. . . a brilliant writer' Daily Telegraph 'A graceful and lyrical
rumination on the questions, "What is a woman for? What should a
woman be?"' Tatler 'Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit
and razor-sharp insights' Financial Times
John Updike's Early Years first examines his family, then places
him in the context of the Depression and World War II. Relying upon
interviews with former classmates, the next chapters examine
Updike's early life and leisure activities, his athletic ability,
social leadership, intellectual prowess, comical pranks, and his
experience with girls. Two chapters explore Updike's cartooning and
drawing, and the last chapter explains how he modeled his
characters on his schoolmates. Lists of Updike's works treating
Pennsylvania, and a compilation of contributions to his school
paper are included, along with profiles of all students, faculty
and administrators during his years at Shillington High School.
Inspired by a vivid dream, Stephenie Meyer, a stay-at-home mom,
wrote a manuscript that started a worldwide sensation that has yet
to abate. In 2005 her debut novel, Twilight, crashed onto the shore
of teen literature like a literary tsunami. Four books later, she
had become the top-selling author in the world. When the final book
in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, was released in 2008, more
than a million copies were sold on the first day alone. The popular
culture phenomenon of Stephenie Meyer and her writing is much more
than the sum total of her weeks on the bestseller list, however.
Stephenie Meyer: In the Twilight looks at the life and work of this
author, beginning with her childhood and covering her teen years
and life before stardom. This volume also profiles Meyer's world
since becoming a cultural icon. In addition to discussing Meyer's
writing style, the chapters also explore each of her books, with a
final chapter focusing on her presence in social media and public
events. As young and old continue to devour her every word, this
volume puts into perspective the work and impact that Meyer has
around the world. Stephenie Meyer: In the Twilight will be of
interest to teachers and librarians, as well as to middle and high
school students-not to mention adults-who are interested in
learning more about their favorite author.
Among the greatest of poets, TS Eliot protected his privacy while
publicly associated with three women: two wives and a church-going
companion. This presentation concealed a life-long love for an
American: Emily Hale, a drama teacher to whom he wrote (and later
suppressed) over a thousand letters. Hale was the source of "memory
and desire" in The Waste Land; she is the Hyacinth Girl. Drawing on
the dramatic new material of the only recently unsealed 1,131
letters Eliot wrote to Hale, leading biographer Lyndall Gordon
reveals a hidden Eliot. Emily Hale now becomes the first and
consistently important woman of life -- and his art. Gordon also
offers new insight into the other spirited women who shaped him:
Vivienne, the flamboyant wife with whom he shared a private
wasteland; Mary Trevelyan, his companion in prayer; and Valerie
Fletcher, the young disciple to whom he proposed when his
relationship with Emily foundered. Eliot kept his women apart as
each ignited his transformations as poet, expatriate, convert, and,
finally, in his latter years, a man `made for love.' Emily Hale was
at the centre of a love drama he conceived and the inspiration for
the lines he wrote to last beyond their time. To read Eliot's
twice-weekly letters to Emily during the thirties and forties is to
enter the heart of the poet's art.
'Utterly, agonisingly compulsive ... a masterpiece' Liz Jensen,
Guardian Following one woman's journey from a troubled girlhood in
working-class Copenhagen through her struggle to live on her own
terms, The Copenhagen Trilogy is a searingly honest, utterly
immersive portrayal of love, friendship, art, ambition and the
terrible lure of addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated
twentieth-century writers. 'Sharp, tough and tender ... wrenching
sadness and pitch-black comedy ... Ditlevsen can pivot from
hilarity to heartbreak in a trice' Boyd Tonkin Spectator
'Astonishing, honest, entirely revealing and, in the end,
devastating. Ditlevsen's trilogy is remarkable not only for its
honesty and lyricism; these are books that journey deep into the
darkest reaches of human experience and return, fatally wounded,
but still eloquent' Observer 'The best books I have read this year.
These volumes slip in like a stiletto and do their work once
inside. Thrilling' New Statesman
Beatrix Potter is one of the world's bestselling, most cherished
authors, whose books have enchanted generations of children for
over a hundred years. Yet how she achieved this legendary status is
just one of several stories of Beatrix Potter's remarkable and
unexpected life. Inspired by the twenty-three 'tales', Matthew
Dennison takes a selection of quotations from Potter's stories and
uses them to explore her multi-faceted life and character:
repressed Victorian daughter; thwarted lover; artistic genius;
formidable countrywoman. They chart her transformation from a young
girl with a love of animals and fairy tales into a bestselling
author and canny businesswoman, so deeply unusual for the Victorian
era in which she grew up. Embellished with photographs of Potter's
life and her own illustrations, this short biography will delight
anyone who has been touched by Beatrix Potter's work.
Charles Corm: An Intellectual Biography of a Twentieth-Century
Lebanese "Young Phoenician" delves into the history of the modern
Middle East and an inquiry into Lebanese intellectual, cultural,
and political life as incarnated in the ideas, and as illustrated
by the times, works, and activities of Charles Corm (1894-1963).
Charles Corm was a guiding spirit behind modern Lebanese
nationalism, a leading figure in the "Young Phoenicians" movement,
and an advocate for identity narratives that are often dismissed in
the prevalent Arab nationalist paradigms that have come to define
the canon of Middle East history, political thought, and
scholarship of the past century. But Charles Corm was much more
than a man of letters upholding a specific patriotic mission. As a
poet and entrepreneur, socialite and orator, philanthropist and
patron of the arts, and as a leading businessman, Charles Corm
commanded immense influence on modern Lebanese political and social
life, popular culture, and intellectual production during the
interwar period and beyond. In many respects, Charles Corm has also
been "the conscience" of Lebanese society at a crucial juncture in
its modern history, as the autonomous sanjak/Mutasarrifiyya (or
Province) of Mount-Lebanon and the Vilayet (State) of Beirut of the
late nineteenth century were navigating their way out of Ottoman
domination and into a French Mandatory period (ca. 1918), before
culminating with the independence of the Republic of Lebanon in
1943.
The memoir of a woman who leaves her faith and her marriage and
sets out to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a newly
mapless world Born and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish
family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and
rituals prescribed by this way of life. After all, to observe was
to be accepted and to be accepted was to be loved. She married a
man from within the fold and quickly began a family. But over the
years, her doubts became noisier than her faith, and at age forty
she could no longer breathe in what had become a suffocating
existence. Even though it would mean the loss of her friends, her
community, and possibly even her family, Tova decides to leave her
husband and her faith. After years of trying to silence the voice
inside her that said she did not agree, did not fit in, did not
believe, she strikes out on her own to discover what she does
believe and who she really is. This will mean forging a new way of
life not just for herself, but for her children, who are struggling
with what the divorce and her new status as "not Orthodox" mean for
them. This is a memoir about what it means to decide to heed your
inner compass at long last. To free the part of yourself that has
been suppressed, even if it means walking away from the only life
you've ever known. Honest and courageous, Tova takes us through her
first year outside her marriage and community as she learns to
silence her fears and seek adventure on her own path to happiness.
William Ellery Leonard was an eccentric poet, professor, and critic
whose romantic ideals were set against a world whose aesthetics
were fast turning away from his own. He lived a life marked by both
success and dramatic failure, both personally and professionally.
His first wife's suicide would haunt him and mark one of his
greatest poems, the sonnet sequence Two Lives; his translations of
Lucretius and Beowulf stood as hallmarks of the craft for decades
after they were published; and his political satires written in
response to the University sphere he lived and worked in remain as
effective today as they once were.
Lieut.-Col. Laurence Austine Waddell (18541938) was a British Army
officer with an established reputation mainly due to a work on the
Buddhism of Tibet, his explorations of the Himalayas, and a
biography which included records of the 19034 military expedition
to Lhasa (Lhasa and its Mysteries). Waddell was also in the
limelight due to his acquisition of Tibetan manuscripts which he
donated to the British Museum. His overriding interest was in Aryan
origins. After learning Sanskrit and Tibetan, and in between
military expeditions together with Col. Younghusband, and gathering
intelligence from the borders of Tibet in the Great Game, Waddell
researched Lamaism. He extended his activities to Archaeology,
Philology and Ethnology, and was credited with discoveries in
relation to Buddha. His personal ambition was to locate records of
ancient civilization in Tibetan lamaseries. Waddell is little known
as an archaeologist and scholar, in contrast with his fame in the
Oriental field, due to the controversial nature of his published
works dealing with Aryan themes. Waddell studied Sumerian and
presented evidence that an Aryan migration fleeing Sargon II
carried Sumerian records to India. He interrupted his comparative
studies of Sumerian and Indian king-lists to publish a work on
Phoenician origins and decipherment of Indus Valley seals, the
inscriptions of which he claimed were similar to Sumerian pictogram
signs cited from G. A. Bartons plates, which are reproduced in this
volume. Waddells life is reconstructed from primary sources, such
as letters from Marc Aurel Stein at the British Museum and
Theophilus G. Pinches, held in the Special Collections at the
University of Glasgow Library. Special attention is paid to the
contemporary reception of his theories, with the objective of
re-evaluating his contribution; they are contrasted to past and
present academic views, in addition to an overview of relevant
discoveries in Archaeology.
Published in 1990: This book tells the life story of Dante, the
poet and his work.
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