Author: Ishmael Reed Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press ISBN: 9781564782250 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 174
Book Description
"For all the talk of the black aesthetic, few black novelists have broken sharply with the traditional devices of the realistic novel. One writer who departs from such conventions, however, is Ishmael Reed. . . . The Free-Lance Pallbearers uses an explosive combination of straightforward English prose, exaggerated black dialect, hip jargon, advertising slogans and long, howling uppercase screams." Newsweek
Author: Steven Weisenburger Publisher: University of Georgia Press ISBN: 9780820316680 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
Drawing on more than thirty novels by nineteen writers, Fables of Subversion is both a survey of mid-twentieth century American fiction and a study of how these novels challenged the conventions of satire. Steven Weisenburger focuses on the rise of a radically subversive mode of satire from 1930 to 1980. This postmodern satire, says Weisenburger, stands in crucial opposition to corrective, normative satire, which has served a legitimizing function by generating, through ridicule, a consensus on values. Weisenburger argues that satire in this generative mode does not participate in the oppositional, subversive work of much twentieth-century art. Chapters focus on theories of satire, early subversions of satiric conventions by Nathanael West, Flannery O'Connor, and John Hawkes, the flowering of "Black Humor" fictions of the sixties, and the forms of political and encyclopedic satire prominent throughout the period. Many of the writers included here, such as Vladimir Nabokov, William Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Coover, and Thomas Pynchon, are acknowledged masters of contemporary humor. Others, such as Mary McCarthy, Chester Himes, James Purdy, Charles Wright, and Ishmael Reed, have not previously been considered in this context. Posing a seminal challenge to existing theories of satire, Fables of Subversion explores the iconoclastic energies of the new satires as a driving force in late modern and post-modern novel writing.
Author: Henry Louis Gates Jr. Chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies and W.E.B. DuBois Professor of the Humanities Harvard University Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199729174 Category : African Americans in literature Languages : en Pages : 350
Book Description
"The originality, brilliance, and scope of the work is remarkable.... Gates will instruct, delight, and stimulate a broad range of readers, both those who are already well versed in Afro-American literature, and those who, after reading this book, will eagerly begin to be."--Barbara E. Johnson, Harvard University. "A critical enterprise of the first importance.... Gates promises to lead and to show the way in boldness of conception, in vigor of execution, and in vitality and pertinence of expression."--James Olney, Louisiana State University. Recently awarded Honorable Mention from the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize Committee of the American Studies Association, Figures in Black takes a provocative new look at how we analyze and define black literature. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., attacks the notion that the dominant mode of Afro-American literature is, or should be, a kind of social realism, evaluated primarily as a reflection of the "Black Experience." Instead, Gates insists that critics turn to the language of the text and bring to their work the close, methodical analysis of language made possible by modern literary theory. But his goal in this volume is not merely to "apply" contemporary theory to black texts. Indeed, as he ranges from 18th-century poet Phillis Wheatley to modern writers Ishmael Reed and Alice Walker, he attempts to redefine literary criticism itself, moving it away from a Eurocentric notion of a hierarchical canon--mostly white, Western, and male--to foster a truly comparative and pluralisic notion of literature. In doing so, he provides critics with a powerful tool for the analysis of black art and, more important, reveals for all readers the brilliance and depth of the Afro-American tradition.
Author: Ishmael Reed Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1453287973 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 358
Book Description
DIVDIVIshmael Reed’s inspired fable of the ragtime era, in which a social movement threatens to suppress the spread of black culture—hailed by Harold Bloom as one of the five hundred greatest books of the Western canon/divDIV In 1920s America, a plague is spreading fast. From New Orleans to Chicago to New York, the “Jes Grew” epidemic makes people desperate to dance, overturning social norms in the process. Anyone is vulnerable and when they catch it, they’ll bump and grind into a frenzy. Working to combat the Jes Grew infection are the puritanical Atonists, a group bent on cultivating a “Talking Android,” an African American who will infiltrate the unruly black communities and help crush the outbreak. But PaPa LaBas, a houngan voodoo priest, is determined to keep his ancient culture—including a key spiritual text—alive. /divDIV /divDIVSpanning a dizzying host of genres, from cinema to academia to mythology, Mumbo Jumbo is a lively ride through a key decade of American history. In addition to ragtime, blues, and jazz, Reed’s allegory draws on the Harlem Renaissance, the Back to Africa movement, and America’s occupation of Haiti. His style throughout is as avant-garde and vibrant as the music at its center./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author./div/div
Author: Ishmael Reed Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press ISBN: 9781564782366 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 194
Book Description
"The Last Days of Louisiana Red blends paradox, hyperbole, understatement and signifyin' so expertly you can almost hear a droll black voice telling the tales as you read it." The New Republic
Author: J. J. Phillips Publisher: W. W. Norton ISBN: 9780393030563 Category : Poetry Languages : en Pages : 429
Book Description
Collects the poetry from the last decade of American Book Awards that best reflects the multicultural interests and accomplishments in American literature
Author: Ishmael Reed Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1453287981 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
DIVIshmael Reed’s parody of slave narratives—the classical literature of the African American tradition—which redefined the neo-slave genre and launched a lucrative academic industry/divDIV Some parodies are as necessary as the books they answer. Such is the case with Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed’s scathing, offbeat response to conventional anti-slavery novels such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Though Flight to Canada has been classified by some as a “post race” novel, the villains and the heroes are clear./divDIV /divDIVThree slaves are on the run from the Swille plantation. Among them, the most hotly pursued is Raven Quickskill, a poet who seeks freedom in Canada, and ultimately hopes to return and liberate others. But this particular Civil War–era landscape is littered with modern elements, from Xerox copiers to airplanes, and freely reimagines historic figures as sacred as Abraham Lincoln. A comedy flashing with insight, Flight to Canada poses serious questions about history and the complex ways that race relations in America are shaped by the past. /divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author./div
Author: Ishmael Reed Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press ISBN: 1564787443 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 194
Book Description
"Folks. This here is the story of the Loop Garoo Kid. A cowboy so bad he made a working posse of spells phone in sick. A bullwhacker so unfeeling he left the print of winged mice on hides of crawling women. A desperado so onery he made the Pope cry and the most powerful of cattlemen shed his head to the Executioner's swine." And so begins the HooDoo Western by Ishmael Reed, author of Mumbo Jumbo and one of America's most innovative and celebrated writers. Reed demolishes white American history and folklore as well as Christian myth in this masterful satire of contemporary American life. In addition to the black, satanic Loop Garoo Kid, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down features Drag Gibson (a rich, slovenly cattleman), Mustache Sal (his nymphomaniac mail-order bride), Thomas Jefferson and many others in a hilarious parody of the old Western.
Author: Ishmael Reed
Author: Steven Weisenburger
Author: Henry Louis Gates Jr. Chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies and W.E.B. DuBois Professor of the Humanities Harvard University
Author: Ishmael Reed
Author: Ishmael Reed
Author: Ishmael Reed
Author: J. J. Phillips
Author: Ishmael Reed
Author: Rick Paulas
Author: Ishmael Reed