Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429930780
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 50
Book Description
On December 7, 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel lLecture is a resounding tribute to fiction's power to inspire readers to greater ambition, to dissent, and to political action. "We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist," Vargas Llosa writes. "Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute—the foundation of the human condition—and should be better." Vargas Llosa's lecture is a powerful argument for the necessity of literature in our lives today. For, as he eloquently writes, "literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression."
In Praise of Reading and Fiction
Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429930780
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 50
Book Description
On December 7, 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel lLecture is a resounding tribute to fiction's power to inspire readers to greater ambition, to dissent, and to political action. "We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist," Vargas Llosa writes. "Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute—the foundation of the human condition—and should be better." Vargas Llosa's lecture is a powerful argument for the necessity of literature in our lives today. For, as he eloquently writes, "literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression."
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429930780
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 50
Book Description
On December 7, 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel lLecture is a resounding tribute to fiction's power to inspire readers to greater ambition, to dissent, and to political action. "We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist," Vargas Llosa writes. "Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute—the foundation of the human condition—and should be better." Vargas Llosa's lecture is a powerful argument for the necessity of literature in our lives today. For, as he eloquently writes, "literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression."
Many Subtle Channels
Author: Daniel Levin Becker
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674065271
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Main description: What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau-and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literature's quirkiest movements. An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literature's possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for 0workshop for potential literature0) is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perec's novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipo's mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Becker's love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batuman's delight in Russian literature in The Possessed. In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives: the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconic-and iconoclastic-group.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674065271
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Main description: What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau-and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literature's quirkiest movements. An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literature's possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for 0workshop for potential literature0) is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perec's novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipo's mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Becker's love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batuman's delight in Russian literature in The Possessed. In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives: the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconic-and iconoclastic-group.
Light While There Is Light
Author: Keith Waldrop
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564788385
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
One of the unheralded masterpieces of twentieth-century American fiction, Light While There Is Light is acclaimed poet Keith Waldrop's autobiographical novel about the myriad ghosts left behind by his family. Born to a deeply religious mother, the narrator and his siblings are led across the US as she searches for the "right" religious sect—a trip that ends with her speaking in tongues, and finally her total isolation. But no synopsis can do justice to the beauty of Keith Waldrop's measured, wise, and unembroidered prose, illuminating the fear, madness, and destruction within hearth and home—though never repudiating his love for same. In a tradition that stretches back through Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner to Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe, Keith Waldrop and Light While There Is Light are American treasures.
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564788385
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
One of the unheralded masterpieces of twentieth-century American fiction, Light While There Is Light is acclaimed poet Keith Waldrop's autobiographical novel about the myriad ghosts left behind by his family. Born to a deeply religious mother, the narrator and his siblings are led across the US as she searches for the "right" religious sect—a trip that ends with her speaking in tongues, and finally her total isolation. But no synopsis can do justice to the beauty of Keith Waldrop's measured, wise, and unembroidered prose, illuminating the fear, madness, and destruction within hearth and home—though never repudiating his love for same. In a tradition that stretches back through Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner to Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe, Keith Waldrop and Light While There Is Light are American treasures.
In Praise of Poetry
Author: Olʹga Sedakova
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781940953021
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
At an early age, Olga Sedakova began writing poetry and, by the 1970s, had joined up with other members of Russia's underground second culture' to create a vibrant literary movement - one that was at odds with the political powers that be. This conflict prevented Sedakova's books from being published in the U.S.S.R., they were only available as hand written books. But now Sedakova has published 27 volumes of verse and prose. This is a unique introduction to her work, bringing together a memoir-essay and two poetic works.'
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781940953021
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
At an early age, Olga Sedakova began writing poetry and, by the 1970s, had joined up with other members of Russia's underground second culture' to create a vibrant literary movement - one that was at odds with the political powers that be. This conflict prevented Sedakova's books from being published in the U.S.S.R., they were only available as hand written books. But now Sedakova has published 27 volumes of verse and prose. This is a unique introduction to her work, bringing together a memoir-essay and two poetic works.'
Al-Jahiz: In Praise of Books
Author: James E. Montgomery
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 074868333X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
Edinburgh University Press will publish two self-contained guides to reading al-Jahiz that also shed light on his society and its writings. This first volume, 'In Praise of Books', is devoted to bibliomania and al-Jahiz's bibliophilia. Volume 2, In Censure of Books, explores Al-Jahiz's bibliophobia. Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. He advised, argued and rubbed shoulders with the major power brokers and leading religious and intellectual figures of his day, and crossed swords in debate and argument with the architects of the Islamic religious, theological, philosophical and cultural canon. His many, tumultuous writings engage with these figures, their ideas, theories and policies. They give us an invaluable but much-neglected window onto the values and beliefs of this cosmopolitan elite.
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 074868333X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 592
Book Description
Edinburgh University Press will publish two self-contained guides to reading al-Jahiz that also shed light on his society and its writings. This first volume, 'In Praise of Books', is devoted to bibliomania and al-Jahiz's bibliophilia. Volume 2, In Censure of Books, explores Al-Jahiz's bibliophobia. Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. He advised, argued and rubbed shoulders with the major power brokers and leading religious and intellectual figures of his day, and crossed swords in debate and argument with the architects of the Islamic religious, theological, philosophical and cultural canon. His many, tumultuous writings engage with these figures, their ideas, theories and policies. They give us an invaluable but much-neglected window onto the values and beliefs of this cosmopolitan elite.
Faint Praise
Author: Gail Pool
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826217273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
"Pool's behind-the-scenes look at the institution of book reviewing analyzes how it works and why it often fails, describes how editors choose books for review and assign them to reviewers, examines the additional roles played by publishers, authors, and readers and contrasts traditional reviewing with newer, alternative book coverage"--Provided by publisher.
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826217273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182
Book Description
"Pool's behind-the-scenes look at the institution of book reviewing analyzes how it works and why it often fails, describes how editors choose books for review and assign them to reviewers, examines the additional roles played by publishers, authors, and readers and contrasts traditional reviewing with newer, alternative book coverage"--Provided by publisher.
Love in English
Author: Maria E. Andreu
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062996533
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
A fresh, joyful YA novel that is layered with themes of immigration, cultural identity, and finding your voice in any language. Sixteen-year-old Ana is a poet and a lover of language. Except that since she moved to New Jersey from Argentina, she can barely find the words to express how she feels. At first Ana just wants to return home. Then she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class, and discovers the universal language of racing hearts. But when she begins to spend time with Neo, the Greek Cypriot boy from ESL, Ana wonders how figuring out what her heart wants can be even more confusing than the grammar they’re both trying to master. After all, the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love. With playful and poetic breakouts exploring the idiosyncrasies of the English language, Love in English is witty and effervescent, while telling a beautifully observed story about what it means to become “American.”
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062996533
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
A fresh, joyful YA novel that is layered with themes of immigration, cultural identity, and finding your voice in any language. Sixteen-year-old Ana is a poet and a lover of language. Except that since she moved to New Jersey from Argentina, she can barely find the words to express how she feels. At first Ana just wants to return home. Then she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class, and discovers the universal language of racing hearts. But when she begins to spend time with Neo, the Greek Cypriot boy from ESL, Ana wonders how figuring out what her heart wants can be even more confusing than the grammar they’re both trying to master. After all, the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love. With playful and poetic breakouts exploring the idiosyncrasies of the English language, Love in English is witty and effervescent, while telling a beautifully observed story about what it means to become “American.”
In Praise of Flattery
Author: Willis Goth Regier
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803239696
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Where would we be without flattery? Hobbes deemed it an honorable duty and Meredith called it the ?finest of the arts.? Alexander the Great applied it as imperial policy; Caesar and Cleopatra were masters of it; and Napoleon devoured it like candy. But flattery also has influential enemies. Cicero called flattery ?the handmaid of vice? and Tacitus compared it to poison.ø ø In a work as erudite as it is entertaining, Willis Goth Regier looks into flattery as an element as flammable (and as taken for granted) as oxygen. Giving flattery light, attention, and care, Regier treats readers to hundreds of historical examples drawn from the highest social circles in politics, romance, and religion, from the courts of Byzantium and China to Paris, Rome, and Washington, DC. ø Because flattery must please, it is playful and creative, and Regier?s book makes the most of it, moving with light steps, now and then pausing to take in the view. Ambitious flatterers even seek to flatter God, a practice Regier treats with trepidation. This is a book for those who would understand the history, tactics, and pleasures of flattery, not least the thrill of danger. ø ?O, flatter me, for love delights in praises.??Shakespeare ø ?The whole World and the Bus?ness of it, is Manag?d by Flattery and Paradox; the one sets up False Gods, and the other maintains them.??Sir Roger L?Estrange ø ?Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.??Samuel Johnson ø ?In this disorganized society, in which the passions of the people are the sole real force, authority belongs to the party that understands how to flatter.??Hippolyte Taine
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803239696
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Where would we be without flattery? Hobbes deemed it an honorable duty and Meredith called it the ?finest of the arts.? Alexander the Great applied it as imperial policy; Caesar and Cleopatra were masters of it; and Napoleon devoured it like candy. But flattery also has influential enemies. Cicero called flattery ?the handmaid of vice? and Tacitus compared it to poison.ø ø In a work as erudite as it is entertaining, Willis Goth Regier looks into flattery as an element as flammable (and as taken for granted) as oxygen. Giving flattery light, attention, and care, Regier treats readers to hundreds of historical examples drawn from the highest social circles in politics, romance, and religion, from the courts of Byzantium and China to Paris, Rome, and Washington, DC. ø Because flattery must please, it is playful and creative, and Regier?s book makes the most of it, moving with light steps, now and then pausing to take in the view. Ambitious flatterers even seek to flatter God, a practice Regier treats with trepidation. This is a book for those who would understand the history, tactics, and pleasures of flattery, not least the thrill of danger. ø ?O, flatter me, for love delights in praises.??Shakespeare ø ?The whole World and the Bus?ness of it, is Manag?d by Flattery and Paradox; the one sets up False Gods, and the other maintains them.??Sir Roger L?Estrange ø ?Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.??Samuel Johnson ø ?In this disorganized society, in which the passions of the people are the sole real force, authority belongs to the party that understands how to flatter.??Hippolyte Taine
Floating in a Most Peculiar Way
Author: Louis Chude-Sokei
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 1328841588
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 243
Book Description
A gutting, gorgeous memoir of a pan-African childhood that tracks the author's migrations from the short-lived African nation known as Biafra, to Jamaica, to Los Angeles' harshest streets
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 1328841588
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 243
Book Description
A gutting, gorgeous memoir of a pan-African childhood that tracks the author's migrations from the short-lived African nation known as Biafra, to Jamaica, to Los Angeles' harshest streets
The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure
Author: C. D. Rose
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 161219379X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A darkly comic, satirical reference book about writers who never made it into the literary canon A signal event of literary scholarship, The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure compiles the biographies of history’s most notable cases of a complete lack of literary success. As such, it is the world’s leading authority on the subject. Compiled in one volume by C. D. Rose, a well-educated person universally acknowledged in parts of England as the world’s pre-eminent expert on inexpert writers, the book culls its information from lost or otherwise ignored archives scattered around the globe, as well as the occasional dustbin. The dictionary amounts to a monumental accomplishment: the definitive appreciation of history’s least accomplished writers. Thus immortalized beyond deserving and rescued from hard-earned obscurity, the authors presented in this historic volume comprise a who’s who of the talentless and deluded, their stories timeless litanies of abject psychosis, misapplication, and delinquency. It is, in short, a treasure.
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 161219379X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A darkly comic, satirical reference book about writers who never made it into the literary canon A signal event of literary scholarship, The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure compiles the biographies of history’s most notable cases of a complete lack of literary success. As such, it is the world’s leading authority on the subject. Compiled in one volume by C. D. Rose, a well-educated person universally acknowledged in parts of England as the world’s pre-eminent expert on inexpert writers, the book culls its information from lost or otherwise ignored archives scattered around the globe, as well as the occasional dustbin. The dictionary amounts to a monumental accomplishment: the definitive appreciation of history’s least accomplished writers. Thus immortalized beyond deserving and rescued from hard-earned obscurity, the authors presented in this historic volume comprise a who’s who of the talentless and deluded, their stories timeless litanies of abject psychosis, misapplication, and delinquency. It is, in short, a treasure.