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A collection celebrating the Centennial of seminal modernist
Macedonian poet Aco šopov. This substantive collection represents
Ĺ opov's creative career, starting with his first book of
poetry in 1944, when he was fighting in the Yugoslav resistance to
the German occupation. In the early 1950s, he published two
collections that signaled a new direction for Macedonian poetry as
a whole, announcing the arrival of new form “intimate
lyricism”. Over the next 25 years, Šopov's work deepened
further, acquiring a philosophical cosmic dimension and at times
venturing into surrealism. The Long Coming of the Fire shares the
work of a consummate craftsman little-known in the Anglophone
world, achieving a “penetrating, resonant, and melodic” poetic
language with “a lively and pregnant imagery that binds together
the experience of the author and reader” (Graham W. Reid).
The Hidden Handshake uses four distinct, yet intertwined essays to
address the questions surrounding our notions of citizenship,
national identity, and cosmopolitan belonging. The violent
disintegration of Yugoslavia and the undercurrent of EU enlargement
stand out as two contrasting movements that highlight the
importance of having a national identification while also defying
it to avoid both the rigidity of nationalist exclusivism and the
blithe nonsense of "global citizenship." Through the exploration of
sociohistorical material and artistic visions as well as the
author's layered identity as a Slovene, a Yugoslav, a Central
European, and a European, Ale? Debeljak tries to show that it is
possible to remain faithful to geography, history, and community
even as one fosters links to global cultural movements. Not
surprisingly, the book itself shares some of this hybrid identity.
It uses not only theoretical concepts and empirical data, but also
historical sketches on art, national life, and society, along with
poetic autobiographical reminiscences and personal anecdotes.
Ultimately, the book calls for an adoption of liberal nationalism,
which is commensurate with democratic order, and for a more
ecumenical understanding of artistic visions that does not
discriminate on the grounds of one's place of origin.
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Dry Season (Paperback)
Babnik Gabriela; Translated by Rawley Grau
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R313
R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
Save R56 (18%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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With a global perspective, Babnik takes on the themes of racism,
the role of women in modern society and the loneliness of the human
condition. Dry Season is a record of an unusual love affair. Anna
is a 62-year-old designer from Slovenia and Ismael, a 27-year-old
man from Burkino Faso who has grownup on the street, often the
victim of abuse. What unites them is the loneliness of their
bodies, a tragic childhood and the hamartan dry season, during
which neither nature nor love is able to flourish. Anna soon
realizes that the emptiness between them is not really caused by
their skin colour and age difference, but predominantly by her
belonging to the Western culture in which she has lost or abandoned
all the preordained roles of daughter, wife and mother. Sex does
not outstrip the loneliness and repressed secrets from the past
surface into a world she relsies ismuch crueller than she thought
and, at the same time, more innocent than her own. Cleverly written
as an alternating narrative of both sides in the relationship, the
novel is interlaced with magic realism.
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Blind Man (Paperback)
Mitija Cander; Translated by Rawley Grau
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R264
Discovery Miles 2 640
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The main character and narrator of Blind Man is a successful book
editor and critic with severely impaired vison, although he has
never had much to do with the visually impaired community and
doesn't really feel like he is one of them. But when he is offered
a chance to enter the world of politics, he is "blinded" by the
lure of power, and this easy-going, level-headed husband and
soon-to-be father gradually turns into a self-absorbed careerist.
Author Mitja Cander, without pontificating and with a measured dose
of humour, paints a critical, unsparing portrait of a small
European country and through it a convincing satire on the
psychological state of contemporary European society. What, or who,
do we still believe in today, and who should we trust? Politicians,
apparatchiks, the media? Speeches laden with buzzwords and
grandiose promises break down the flimsy facade, as the
protagonist's own insecurity suggests that things are not always
what they seem. In the end, social blindness is worse than any
physical impairment, and worst of all is to be blinded by your own
ego.
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