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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > From 1900 > Reportage & collected journalism
Winner of the Victor Villasenor Best Latino Focused Nonfiction Book
Award - English, from the 2022 International Latino Book Awards
What defines the boundary between fact and fabrication, fiction and
nonfiction, literature and journalism? Latin American Documentary
Narratives unpacks the precarious testimonial relationship between
author and subject, where the literary journalist, rather than the
subject being interviewed, can become the hero of a narrative in
its recording and retelling. Latin American Documentary Narratives
covers a variety of nonfiction genres from the 1950s to the 2000s
that address topics such as social protests, dictatorships, natural
disasters, crime and migration in Latin America. This book analyzes
- and includes an appendix of interviews with - authors who have
not previously been critically read together, from the early and
emblematic works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Elena Poniatowska to
more recent authors, like Leila Guerriero and Juan Villoro, who are
currently reshaping media and audiences in Latin America. In a
world overwhelmed by data production and marked by violent acts
against those considered 'others', Liliana Chavez Diaz argues that
storytelling plays an essential role in communication among
individuals, classes and cultures.
This all began quite unexpectedly one rainy autumn evening a couple of years in a fairground near to the centre of Nottingham...`In amongst the bright lights and bumper cars,Nick Davies noticed two boys,no more than twelve years old,oddly detached from the fun of the scene.Davies discovered they were part of a network of chidren sellingthemselves on the streets of the city,running a nightly gaunlet of dangers-pimps,punters,the Vice Squad,disease,drugs. This propelled Davies into a journey of discovery through the slums and ghettoes of our cities. He found himself in crack houses and brothels,he be- friended street gangs and drug dealers Nick Davies`s journey into the hidden realm is powerful,disturbing and impressive,and is bound torouse controversy and demands for change. Davies unravels threads of Britain`s social fabric as he travels deeper and deeper into the country of poverty ,towards the dark heart of British society.
The United States is the richest country on earth, yet has more
poverty than any other advanced democracy. One in seven Americans
live below the poverty line, a line which hasn't shifted over the
last fifty years, despite the efforts of successive governments and
extensive relief programs. Why is there so much scarcity in this
land of dollars? In Poverty, by America, acclaimed sociologist
Matthew Desmond examines the nature of American poverty today and
the stories we tell ourselves about it. Spanning racism, social
isolation, mass incarceration, the housing crisis, domestic
violence, crack and opioid epidemics, welfare cuts and more,
Desmond argues that poverty does not result from a lack of
resources or good policy ideas. We already know how to eliminate
it. The hard part is getting more of us to care. To do so, we need
a new story. As things stand, liberals explain poverty through
insurmountable structural issues, whereas conservatives highlight
personal failings and poor life choices. Both analyses abdicate
responsibility, and ignore the reality that the advantages of the
rich only come at the expense of the poor. It is time better-paid
citizens put themselves back in the narrative, recognizing that the
depth and expanse of poverty in any nation reflects our failure to
look out for one another. Poverty must ultimately be met by
community: all this suffering and want is our doing, and we can
undo it.
Everything Must Change! brings together prominent commentators from
around the world to present a rich and nuanced weighing of
progressive possibilities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In
these pages you'll encounter influential voices across the left,
ranging from Roger Waters to Noam Chomsky, Slavoj Zizek to Saskia
Sassen. Gael Garcia Bernal, Brian Eno, and Larry Charles examine
the pandemic's more cultural and artistic consequences, touching on
topics of love, play, comedy, dreaming, and time. Their words sit
alongside analyses of the paradoxes and possibilities of debt,
internationalism, and solidarity by Astra Taylor, David Graeber,
Vijay Prashad, and Stephanie Kelton. Burgeoning surveillance and
control measures in the name of public health are a concern for
many of the contributors here, including Shoshana Zuboff and Evgeny
Morozov, as are the opportunities presented by the crisis for
exploitation by financiers, technocrats, and the far right. Against
a return to the normal and, indeed, the notion that there ever was
such a thing, these conversations insist that urgent, systemic
change is needed to tackle not only the pandemics arising from the
human destruction of nature, but also the ceaseless debilitations
of contemporary global capitalism. Contributors: Tariq Ali, David
Adler, Gael Garcia Bernal, Larry Charles, Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno,
Daniel Ellsberg, Kenneth Goldsmith, David Graeber, Johann Hari,
Maja Kantar, Stephanie Kelton, Stefania Maurizi, Evgeny Morozov,
Maja Pelevic, Vijay Prashad , Angela Richter, Saskia Sassen, Sasa
Savanovic, Jeremy Scahill, Richard Sennett, John Shipton, Astra
Taylor, Ece Temelkuran, Yanis Varoufakis, Roger Waters, Slavoj
Zizek, and Shoshana Zuboff.
A panoramic revisionist portrait of the nineteenth-century
invention that is transforming the twenty-first-century world. 'The
real feat of this book is that it takes us on a ride-across the
centuries and around the globe, through startling history and vivid
first-person reporting.' - Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times
bestselling author of Empire of Pain The bicycle is a vestige of
the Victorian era, seemingly out of pace with our age of
smartphones and ridesharing apps and driverless cars. Yet across
the world, more people travel by bicycle than by any other form of
transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike - and nearly
everyone does. In Two Wheels Good, writer and critic Jody Rosen
reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous machine, an
ever-present force in humanity's life and dreamlife, and a
flashpoint in culture wars for more for than two hundred years.
Combining history, reportage, travelogue, and memoir, Rosen unfolds
the bicycle's saga from its invention in 1817 to its present-day
renaissance as a 'green machine' in a world afflicted by pandemic
and climate change. Readers meet unforgettable characters: feminist
rebels who steered bikes to the barricades in the 1890s, a
Bhutanese king who races mountain bikes in the Himalayas,
astronauts who ride a floating bicycle in zero gravity aboard the
International Space Station. Two Wheels Good examines the bicycle's
past and peers into its future, challenging myths and cliches,
while uncovering cycling's connection to colonial conquest and the
gentrification of cities. But the book is also a love letter: a
reflection on the sensual and spiritual pleasures of bike riding
and an ode to an engineering marvel - a wondrous vehicle whose
passenger is also its engine. 'Love for two-wheeled transport runs
through every sentence in the book' - Economist 'The best thing
I've ever read on a single subject' - Lauren Collins, author of
When in French 'This is social history as it ought to be written:
funny, precise, surprising, anti-dogmatic and unafraid of following
a story' - Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon
For avid readers and the uninitiated alike, this is a chance to
reengage with classic literature and to stay inspired and
entertained. The concept of the magazine is simple: the first half
is a long-form interview with a notable book fanatic and the second
half explores one classic work of literature from an array of
surprising and invigorating angles.
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