Böcker av Frank McCourt

McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning look back at his childhood. "e;It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while..."e;"e;When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.People everywhere brag or whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying shcoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all we were wet..."e;So begins Frank McCourt's stunning memoir of his childhood in Ireland and America, a recollection of unvarnished truth and no self pity, of grinding poverty and indomitable spirit that will live in the memory long after the tape has ended.Now a major film directed by Alan Parker and starring Robert Carlyle and Emily Watson.

Frank McCourt's sequel to his Pulitzer Prize winning memoir Angela's Ashes, focussing on the "e;great country"e;, AmericaAngela's Ashes was a publishing phenomenon. Frank McCourt's critically acclaimed, lyrical memoir of his Limerick childhood won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Los Angeles Times Award amongst others, and rapidly became a word-of-mouth bestseller topping all charts worldwide for over two years. It left readers and critics alike eager to hear more about Frank McCourt's incredible, poignant life.'Tis is the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant with rotten teeth, infected eyes and no formal education to brilliant raconteur and schoolteacher.

A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers 'Angela's Ashes' and ''Tis'. In 'Teacher Man', Frank McCourt details his illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy years as an English teacher in the public high schools of New York City.Frank McCourt arrived in New York as a young, impoverished and idealistic Irish boy - but who crucially had an American passport, having been born in Brooklyn. He didn't know what he wanted except to stop being hungry and to better himself. On the subway he watched students carrying books. He saw how they read and underlined and wrote things in the margin and he liked the look of this very much. He joined the New York Public Library and every night when he came back from his hotel work he would sit up reading the great novels.Building his confidence and his determination, he talked his way into NYU and gained a literature degree and so began a teaching career that was to last thirty years, working in New York's public high schools. Frank estimates that he probably taught 12,000 children during this time and it is on this relationship between teacher and student that he reflects in 'Teacher Man', the third in his series of memoirs.The New York high school is a restless, noisy and unpredictable place and Frank believes that it was his attempts to control and cajole these thousands of children into learning and achieving something for themselves that turned him into a writer. At least once a day someone would put up their hand and shout 'Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt, tell us about Ireland, tell us about how poor you were...' Through sharing his own life with these kids he learnt the power of narrative storytelling, and out of the invaluable experience of holding 12,000 people's attention came 'Angela's Ashes'.Frank McCourt was a legend in such schools as Stuyvesant high school - long before he became the figure he is now, he would receive letters from former students telling him how much his teaching influenced and inspired them - and now in 'Teacher Man' he shares his reminiscences of those thirty years as well as revealing how they led to his own success with 'Angela's Ashes' and ''Tis'.

SO BEGINS THE LUMINOUS MEMOIR OF FRANK MCCOURT, BORN IN DEPRESSION-ERA BROOKLYN TO RECENT IRISH IMMIGRANTS AND RAISED IN THE SLUMS OF LIMERICK, IRELAND. FRANK'S MOTHER, ANGELA, HAS NO MONEY TO FEED THE CHILDREN SINCE FRANK'S FATHER, MALACHY, RARELY WORKS, AND WHEN HE DOES HE DRINKS HIS WAGES. YET MALACHY - EXASPERATING, IRRESPONSIBLE AND BEGUILING - DOES NURTURE IN FRANK AN APPETITE FOR THE ONE THING HE CAN PROVIDE: A STORY. FRANK LIVES FOR HIS FATHER'S TALES OF CUCHULAIN, WHO SAVED IRELAND, AND OF THE ANGEL ON THE SEVENTH STEP, WHO BRINGS HIS MOTHER BABIES. PERHAPS IT IS STORY THAT ACCOUNTS FOR FRANK'S SURVIVAL. WEARING RAGS FOR DIAPERS, BEGGING A PIG'S HEAD FOR CHRISTMAS DINNER AND GATHERING COAL FROM THE ROADSIDE TO LIGHT A FIRE, FRANK ENDURES POVERTY, NEAR STARVATION AND THE CASUAL CRUELTY OF RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS - YET LIVES TO TELL HIS TALE WITH ELOQUENCE, EXUBERANCE AND REMARKABLE FORGIVENESS. ANGELA'S ASHES, IMBUED ON EVERY PAGE WITH FRANK MCCOURT ASTOUNDING HUMOR AND COMPASSION, IS A GLORIOUS BOOK THAT BEARS ALL THE MARKS OF A CLASSIC. AS MARY BREASTED, AUTHOR OF WHY SHOULD YOU DOUBT ME NOW, SAID: ''FRANK MCCOURT'S BOOK IS DEEPLY MOVING, FOR HIS SEARING STORY IS TRUE. NO ONE HAS EVER WRITTEN ABOUT POVERTY OR CHILDHOOD LIKE THIS. THAT FRANK MCCOURT LIVES TO TELL THE TALE IS AMAZING. THAT HE COULD CREATE OUT OF SUCH SQUALOR AND MISERY A FLAWLESS MASTERPIECE IS NOTHING SHORT OF MIRACULOUS.'' आयर्लंडच्या स्वातंत्र्यलढ्याच्या पोकळ अभिमानात रमणाऱ्या आणि सतत वाढणाऱ्या पोरवड्याकडे दुर्लक्ष करून दारूत बुडालेल्या वडिलांमुळे वयाच्या चौथ्या वर्षापासूनच लिमरिकच्या गलिच्छ झोपडपट्टीत दैन्यावस्थेत हातातोंडाची गाठ घालण्यासाठी धडपडून आईला मदत करणाऱ्या- अमेरिकेत जाण्याचे स्वप्न उराशी बाळगणाऱ्या फ्रॅंकच्या संघर्षमय बालपणाची कहाणी.

A play written by brothers Frank and Malachy McCourt about growing up in Limerick, Ireland, and their journey to Brooklyn, New York, where they learn to incorporate the lessons learned from their hard Irish past.