A patient, genealogical investigation of the dichotomies that are foundational to the Western philosophical tradition. We are so used to distinguishing between the possible and the real, between essence and existence that we do not realize that these distinctions, which seem so obvious to us, are the result of a long and laborious process that has led to the splitting of being--the "matter" of thought--into two fragments that are both conflicting and intimately intertwined. This book argues that the ontological-political machine of the West is based on the splitting of this "matter," without which neither science nor politics would be possible. Without the partition of reality into essence and existence and into possibility and actuality, neither scientific knowledge nor the ability to control human action--which characterizes the historical power of the West--would have been possible. If we could not suspend the exclusive concentration of our attention on what immediately exists (as animals seem to do), to think and define its essence, Western science and technology would not have experienced the advances that characterize them. And if the dimension of possibility disappeared entirely, neither plans nor projects would be thinkable, and human actions could be neither directed nor controlled. The incomparable power of the West has one of its essential presuppositions in this ontological machine.
A rare autobiographical glimpse into the life and influences of one of Europe's greatest living philosophers. This book's title, Self-Portrait in the Studio--a familiar iconographic subject in the history of painting--is intended to be taken literally: the book is a self-portrait, but one that comes into view for the reader only by way of patient scrutiny of the images, photographs, objects, and paintings present in the studios where the writer has worked and still works. That is to say, Giorgio Agamben's wager is to speak of himself solely and uniquely by speaking of others: the poets, philosophers, painters, musicians, friends, passions--in short, the meetings and encounters that have shaped his life, thought, and writing, from Martin Heidegger to Elsa Morante, from Herman Melville to Walter Benjamin, from Giorgio Caproni to Giovanni Urbani. For this reason, images are an integral part of the book, images that--like those in a rebus that together form another, larger image--ultimately combine with the written text in one of the most unusual self-portraits that any writer has left of himself: not an autobiography, but a faithful and timeless auto-heterography.
Through seventeen powerful testimonies, Syrian-Palestinian poet Ramy Al-Asheq's Ever SInce I Did Not Die is a poignant autobiographical journey that vividly depicts what it means to live through war. The texts gathered in Ever Since I Did Not Die by Syrian-Palestinian poet Ramy Al-Asheq are a poignant record of a fateful journey. Having grown up in a refugee camp in Damascus, Al-Asheq was imprisoned and persecuted by the regime in 2011 during the Syrian Revolution. He was released from jail, only to be recaptured and imprisoned in Jordan. After escaping from prison, he spent two years in Jordan under a fake name and passport, during which he won a literary fellowship that allowed him to travel to Germany in 2014, where he now lives and writes in exile. Through seventeen powerful testimonies, Ever Since I Did Not Die vividly depicts what it means to live through war. Exquisitely weaving the past with the present and fond memories with brutal realities, this volume celebrates resistance through words that refuse to surrender and continue to create beauty amidst destruction--one of the most potent ways to survive in the darkest of hours.
Some of the most well-known psychoanalysts and literary theorists explore Jacques Lacan's influence on literature. The relationship between literature and psychology is long and richly complex, and no more so than in the work of Jacques Lacan, the most controversial psychoanalyst since Freud. The Literary Lacan: From Literature to "Lituraterre" and Beyond is dedicated to assessing Lacan's significant contribution to literary studies and the contribution, in turn, of literature to Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first essays in this collection provide close readings of Lacan's literature-related work, specifically his work on Hamlet, his homage to Marguerite Duras and Lewis Carroll, his concept of Lituraterre, and his seminar on James Joyce. Other essays examine Lacan's theories in conjunction with the works of major writers such as Samuel Beckett. The book concludes with essays that investigate Lacan and literature more broadly, including the applicability of literature to psychoanalysis. With well-known contributors including Slavoj Zizek, Jacques-Alain Miller, Russell Grigg, and Ellie Ragland, this volume will appeal not only to specialists in literary and Lacanian theory but also to students and enthusiasts of the master and the literature that inspired him.
British satirist and cartoonist Martin Rowson's acerbic chronicles of the evolution--or rather, regression--of politics in the last two decades. In 1997, on top of his regular visual contributions to the Tribune, Martin Rowson--the veteran mouthpiece of the Left of the British Labour Party--started writing a monthly column in the paper's "As I Please" section, which was George Orwell's slot fifty years earlier. Through his columns, Rowson chronicled the changing tides and tsunamis in the current political scene, documenting the rise of nationalism and the right-wing in these prescient musings. Over the next two decades, he pondered everything--the ideological battles inside Labour, the psychopathology of the Tory Party, the London Zoo, the British class system, Doctor Who, terrorism--and anything else that came to mind a day or so before the deadline. Here, for the first time, a selection of these columns has been collected alongside Rowson's other textual journalism, from tiny underground magazines in the United States to contributions to the Guardian, the Independent, and many other mainstream publications, on subjects ranging from the Charlie Hebdo massacre to his favorite books.
A collection of previously untranslated stories from a master of twentieth-century Austrian literature, Thomas Bernhard. "The cold increases with the clarity," said Thomas Bernhard while accepting a major literary prize in 1965. That clarity was the postwar realization that the West's last remaining cultural reference points were being swept away by the ever-greater commodification of humankind. Collecting five stylistically transitional tales by Bernhard, all of which take place in sites of extreme cold, this volume extends that bleak vision of the master Austrian storyteller. In "Ungenach," the reluctant heir of an enormous estate chooses to give away his legacy to an assortment of oddballs as he discovers the past of his older brother, who was murdered during a career in futile colonialist philanthropy. In "The Weatherproof Cape," a lawyer tries to maintain a sense of familial solidarity with a now-dead client with the help of an unremarkable piece of clothing. "Midland in Stilfs" casts a jaundiced eye on the laughable efforts of a cosmopolitan foreigner to attain local authenticity on a moribund Alpine farmstead. In "At the Ortler," two middle-aged brothers--one a scientist, the other an acrobat--meditate on their unusual career paths while they climb a mountain to reclaim a long-abandoned family property. And in "At the Timberline," the unexpected arrival of a young couple in a mountain village leads to the discovery of a scandalous crime that casts a shadow on the personal life of the policeman investigating it.
Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben takes a close look at why the sense of taste has not historically been appreciated as a means to know and experience pleasure or why it has always been considered inferior to actual theoretical knowledge. Taste, Agamben argues, is a category that has much to reveal to the contemporary world. Taking a step into the history of philosophy and reaching to the very origins of aesthetics, Agamben critically recovers the roots of one of Western culture's cardinal concepts. Agamben is the rare writer whose ideas and works have a broad appeal across many fields, and with Taste he turns his critical eye to the realm of Western art and aesthetic practice. This volume will not only engage the author's devoted fans in philosophy, sociology, and literary criticism but also his growing audience among art theorists and historians.
This creative, beautifully constructed novel reimagines the final days of this Icelandic hero, providing a wonderful new perspective on the politics and culture of the period. Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic politician, writer, and historian living during the twelfth century. He was a man of great political influence, and his writings are still researched and valued today. Snorri was killed on September 22, 1241, in Reykholt, where he lived the last years of his life, and The Little Horse is a novel about his final five days. Snorri, knowing his end is near, begins to write a saga of his own life. He wants to refute all those who oppose him in Norway and Iceland and defend himself against rumors that he is power-hungry and a deceitful womanizer. He is haunted by the fear that his son Orækja will turn against him, and waits to meet Margaret, the woman he loves, who challenges him in every possible way. Meanwhile, assassins in the distance prepare to carry out their orders to end his life.
A collection of poems, selected by Nooteboom himself from more than a dozen Dutch books. Cees Nooteboom is best known in the English-speaking world for his acclaimed novels, essays, and travel writing; however, Nooteboom has always seen himself first and foremost as a poet. He has said, "without poetry my life would be unthinkable." The poems in Light Everywhere are presented in reverse chronological order, reflecting the poet's contemporary perspective on the productivity of more than half a century. The anthology covers his poetic output up to 2013, with an emphasis on his more recent work. New translations of older poems are crafted by award-winning translator David Colmer, lending a consistent voice to the whole collection. When Nooteboom began writing poetry in the Netherlands in 1956, he was considered an outcast for not abiding by the conventional experimental style popular at the time. Instead, he took to learning from poets abroad, translating work by Wallace Stevens, Eugenio Montale, and Pablo Neruda. Nooteboom's work is lucid and mysterious, evocative and elusive, and it is fitting that the collection begins and ends with poems of travel, moving back in time from an elderly man's entanglement and resignation to the detachment and harsh light of youth, with everything in between.
Mu Cao is a bold, pioneering Chinese novelist who dares to challenge the status quo--living openly gay in China and shedding a strong light on the plight of everyday Chinese. This is a humorous, magical realist novel that explores the exploitation of the young living in China's poor countryside. "Those who know me call me Old He, and they also know that I've worked in a crematorium for my entire life." Here begins Mu Cao's novel In the Face of Death We Are Equal, an unrelentingly realistic portrait of working-class gay men in the underbelly of Chinese society. He Donghai is days away from his sixtieth birthday and long-awaited retirement from his job as a corpse burner at a Beijing crematorium. As he approaches the momentous day, he reflects on his life and his relationship with a special group of young men who live and love on the margins of Chinese society. One of them is Ah Qing, a young migrant worker who leaves his village in Henan Province to earn a living in cities--and who has an unexpected personal connection to He. Through a disrupted and nonlinear narrative technique, and alternating between first, second, and third person, In the Face of Death We Are Equal tells the story of Ah and other young men like him. Sometimes enraging, often humorous, but always powerful, this novel explores the economic and sexual exploitation of young men and women from China's impoverished countryside who seek survival in the shadow of China's economic "miracle." Deftly translated by Scott E. Myers, it is the first title in Seagull's new Pride List, which showcases important queer writing from around the world. Written in Mu Cao's trademark earthy, sometimes graphic, idiom, In the Face of Death We Are Equal will be a valuable addition to queer and Chinese literature in translation.
Exploring the social, political, cultural, artistic, and religious significance of Muharram rituals for millions of global observers. Over the centuries, observances of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, have traveled far from their origins at Karbala--a windswept desert plain that is now a town in present-day Iraq--where, according to tradition, Hussein, the beloved grandson of Prophet Muhammad, was brutally put to death together with seventy-two of his male companions on the tenth day of the month. For this reason, Muharram is synonymous with both the first month and the tenth day. Hussein's passion and death are considered the ultimate example of sacrifice for Shia Muslims and scores of rituals devoted to Muharram have developed during the last thirteen centuries, especially in Iran where Twelver Shi'ism became the state religion in the sixteenth century. As the essays describe in Eternal Performance, many of these rituals were exported to other lands over time. They crossed boundaries and cultures from Iran and Iraq to Lebanon, the Indian subcontinent, North America, and the Caribbean. Yet all Muharram rituals, no matter where or how they are performed, have their origins in Karbala. The transformation and transmission of these observances to their present-day forms around the world are the result of the intersection of multiple races, religions, and artistic traditions. Eternal Performance explores the social, political, cultural, artistic, and religious significance of Muharram rituals for millions of global observers.
Agamben is the rare writer whose ideas and works have a broad appeal across many fields, and Nymphs will engage not only the author's devoted fans in philosophy, legal theory, sociology, and literary criticism but also his growing audience among art theorists and historians as well. In 1900, art historians André Jolles and Aby Warburg constructed an experimental dialogue in which Jolles supposed he had fallen in love with the figure of a young woman in a painting: "A fantastic figure--shall I call her a servant girl, or rather a classical nymph?...what is the meaning of it all?...Who is the nymph? Where does she come from?" Warburg's response: "in essence she is an elemental spirit, a pagan goddess in exile," serves as the touchstone for this wide-ranging and theoretical exploration of female representation in iconography. In Nymphs, the newest translation of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's work, the author notes that academic research has lingered on the "pagan goddess," while the concept of "elemental spirit," ignored by scholars, is vital to the history of iconography. Tracing the genealogy of this idea, Agamben goes on to examine subjects as diverse as the aesthetic theories of choreographer Domineco da Piacenza, Friedrich Theodor Vischer's essay on the "symbol," Walter Benjamin's concept of the dialectic image, and the bizarre discoveries of photographer Nathan Lerner in 1972. From these investigations, there emerges a startlingly original exploration of the ideas of time and the image.
One of Europe's greatest living philosophers, Giorgio Agamben, analyzes the life and work of one of Europe's greatest poets, Friedrich Hölderlin. What does it mean to inhabit a place or a self? What is a habit? And, for human beings, doesn't living mean--first and foremost--inhabiting? Pairing a detailed chronology of German poet Friedrich Hölderlin's years of purported madness with a new examination of texts often considered unreadable, Giorgio Agamben's new book aims to describe and comprehend a life that the poet himself called habitual and inhabited. Hölderlin's life was split neatly in two: his first 36 years, from 1770 to 1806; and the 36 years from 1807 to 1843, which he spent as a madman holed up in the home of Ernst Zimmer, a carpenter. The poet lived the first half of his existence out and about in the broader world, relatively engaged with current events, only to then spend the second half entirely cut off from the outside world. Despite occasional visitors, it was as if a wall separated him from all external events and relationships. For reasons that may well eventually become clear, Hölderlin chose to expunge all character--historical, social, or otherwise--from the actions and gestures of his daily life. According to his earliest biographer, he often stubbornly repeated, "nothing happens to me." Such a life can only be the subject of a chronology--not a biography, much less a clinical or psychological analysis. Nevertheless, this book suggests that this is precisely how Hölderlin offers humanity an entirely other notion of what it means to live. Although we have yet to grasp the political significance of his unprecedented way of life, it now clearly speaks directly to our own.
An introduction for English-language readers to Georges Bataille's postwar philosophical and critical writings. In the aftermath of World War II, French thinker and writer Georges Bataille forged a singular path through the moral and political impasses of his age. In 1946, animated by "a need to live events in an increasingly conscious way," and to reject any compartmentalization of intellectual life, Bataille founded the journal Critique. Continuing the publication of his postwar writings, this second book in a three-volume collection of Bataille's work collects his essays and reviews from the years 1949 to 1951. In this period of intellectual isolation and intense reflection, Bataille developed and refined his genealogy of morality through a sustained reflection on the fate of the sacred in the modern world. He offered a critique of the limits of existing morality, especially in its denial of excess, while sketching the lineaments of a new hyper-morality. Bataille's wide-ranging reflections are true to the intellectual mission of Critique, which he founded as a space open to the broadest considerations of the present. As well as discussing significant figures like Samuel Beckett, André Gide, and René Char, Bataille also offers fascinating reflections on American politics, Nazism, existentialism, materialism, and play. The connecting thread in these diverse essays remains Bataille's concern with the extremes of human experience and the possibilities of transcending the limits of societies founded on utility and restraint. His writings remain a provocative incitement to rethink the boundaries we impose on expression and existence.
Reflections on the evolution and philosophical depth of Gieve Patel's art, adorned with illustrations of his paintings. To Break and to Branch is a collection of six essays on the artist Gieve Patel (1940-2023), written by poet, cultural theorist, and curator Ranjit Hoskote over nearly two decades, gathered together for the first time and accompanied by over fifty illustrations of Patel's paintings. In an introductory essay written especially for this edition, Hoskote looks back over the long friendship he shared with Patel, contextualizing it within the vibrant artistic milieu that was once special to Bombay, their home city: a milieu premised on a mutual curiosity that brought the arts together, hospitable to poetry, painting, theater, cinema, music, and architecture. Embodying this spirit, Hoskote engages with Patel's evolving oeuvre as a painter and his experiments with sculpture, while connecting them to his investments in poetry, theater, and his growing philosophical awareness of the more-than-human. Hoskote's writings trace both the constant preoccupations and the changing interests that gave Patel's art its distinctive character and reflect on the aesthetic, philosophical, and political dimensions of Patel's gradual movement from a human-centric understanding of the world to a more holistic view as generated and sustained by interrelationships across orders of being.
A queer memoir that takes place at the messy intersection between gender and desire, challenging stereotypes and embracing the nuance of identity. When Valentijn must undergo a mastectomy because of a gene defect, he makes the decision not to have implants and adopts an in-between gender identity that feels more natural. He shaves his head and discards his wardrobe of women's clothes, even the perfect dress his mother was so fond of. But all of this causes friction: not only are Valentijn's doctors stumped, but friends, family, and lovers too. His trans ex helps him feel more comfortable in his new guise--not a girl, not a boy, but an antiboy--while his boyfriend draws away from the relationship. Encircled by grief and loss, Valentijn searches for the ultimate freedom to be allowed to be himself and tries to rebuild the relationships with those around him. A refined, poetic autobiographical essay about adopting a new and truer identity, Antiboy is poignant without ever being sentimental. Valentijn finds new emotional depth and complexity in his personal relationships, providing readers with a rich and empathetic reading experience. Antiboy goes beyond the author's own journey, becoming a nuanced exploration of human connections amid transformation.
A gay novel in which the rural landscapes of Bengal set the stage for a story that transcends the boundaries of tradition and love. Mallar, a shy and introspective sixteen-year-old, finds himself drawn to Srijan, his classmate's enigmatic elder cousin, during a fateful summer in a small-town family home. At first, Mallar's fantasies take shape in secret sketches of Srijan. But soon, their connection becomes a complex play of mutual desire and dominance, which leads to the forging of a unique pact--a promise never to fall in love with each other. As their lives take them from the serene landscapes of Bengal to the vibrant beaches of Chennai, the mysterious alleys of Paris, and the buzzing streets of Bangalore, the two men's unconventional companionship deepens. With each meeting comes a new revelation, a fresh twist to their agreement, and a surprising facet of their identities. Mallar, reviving his childhood passion, embarks on a journey to establish himself as an artist. Collaborating on an art project, Mallar transforms Srijan's body into a living canvas. But what begins as a creative endeavor quickly becomes a voyage into uncharted depths, as the canvas asks questions, challenges their resolve, and unravels hidden truths, culminating in new beginnings. Delving into the intricate layers of two men's lives, their fears, insecurities, hopes, and the mosaic of experiences that shape them, this novel is a testament to the complexities of human connection. One of the first openly gay novels written in Bengali, and the first to be translated into English, Sudipto Pal's Unlove Story is a groundbreaking addition to the canon of queer literature from around the world.
Verses that oscillate between the turmoil of post-communist Eastern Europe to understated reflections on grief and mortality. The sixty-four poems in A Calligraphy of Days reflect Krzysztof Siwczyk's wide-ranging and variegated style. Born in 1977, Siwczyk has lived most of his life in the Silesian city of Gliwice. In 1995, he became a wunderkind of the Polish poetry scene with his debut volume Wild Kids, an edgy and unsentimental narrative of youthful tribulations and urban malaise during Poland's transition from communism to capitalism. Siwczyk's poems careen down the page at great speed, relying on clever turns of phrase or an idea that illuminates a larger meaning. As in calligraphy, a meandering subterranean process connects meaning and memory, thought and verse. Teased to the surface, words and images emerge in rapid, terse, and precise bursts. Throughout his career, Siwczyk has never ceased to challenge our sense of who we are--changing course multiple times in the process. Following several volumes full of expansive lines, his most recent works offer spare meditations on illness and grief. Clipped and understated, these post-Holocaust poems address our inability to speak of death and tragedy.
A unique blend of fiction and biography that explores the fascinating life of early-twentieth-century Czech photographer Frantisek Drtikol. Have you ever wondered what a story written by a beam of light would be like? The story would be ordinary, but the course of events extraordinary. Its hero would be a photographer, a guardian of light. And, naturally, the tale would be full of shadow. A History of Light delves into the fascinating life of Frantisek Drtikol (1883-1961), an important figure in early-twentieth-century photography who is all but forgotten in contemporary times. A dandy from a small mining town, a world-famous photographer whose business went bankrupt, a master of the nude who never had much luck with women, a mystic and a Buddhist who believed in communism--a man whose numerous contradictions were evident externally and synthesized internally. A unique blend of fiction and biography, this novel vividly portrays Drtikol's life, tracing the diverse stages of his career and offering detailed, almost encyclopedic insights into the times and places pivotal to his journey. Acclaimed Czech author Jan Němec narrates the story in the uncommon second-person singular, speaking directly to his subject. Fresco-like, this novel is an artistic and spiritual Bildungsroman that covers over half a century, bringing to life the silver mines of PrÃbram, Jugendstil Munich, and the Bohemianism of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Drtikol's role as a photographer is set against the turbulent history of Central Europe through the two World Wars, and the events of those five decades form a riveting backdrop for an exploration of the artist's work.
An introduction to the work of acerbic Slovak writer Peter Macsovszky. Simon Blef, who comes from "a small, stifling country without a sea" in some corner of Europe, has gone to live in the Netherlands. There he has found a wife and hopes he may yet find work. He is making preparations: he carries around a notebook and jots down his thoughts. One day he would like to write a novel, but in the meantime, he records, embellishes, invents, and combines what he sees with what he dreams: the happy, hard-working Dutch, with their seventy-year-old hippies--the "superannuated generation of rockers"-- and their new "sexless generation," as well as the tourists and immigrants from beyond the seven seas. Set in a single day, Making Skeletons Dance is full of impressionistic musings, in equal measure mordant and humorous. Simon has left his small unhappy country to get away from the past--but how is it that the past is so devilishly resourceful, liable to turn up in any Amsterdam pub? As the afternoon wears on, the drama of his life unfolds in fascinating detail, be it comedy or tragedy, or both.
Stories that entwine the mundane with the mystical, written by a cult favorite Slovakian writer. An unhappily married woman is impregnated by her elderly neighbor who lives in a building across the street and with whom she has never had any physical contact. Just as his attention creates life within her, his own life waxes and wanes with her gaze and attention. A man finds himself trapped in a pub on a sweltering afternoon after refusing to buy a beer with his cigarettes. Guarded by a vigilante bartender and his beer-obsessed patrons, his every attempt at escape is foiled until their life-giving elixir, the beer, runs out. This collection introduces English-language readers to the work of Dusan Mitana, a cult figure in contemporary Central European literature. In Mitana's stories, appearing in English for the first time, the rational and the irrational are indistinguishable. His tales infect a banal, quotidian realism with mystical and supernatural distortions. Tinged with Hitchcockian paranoia and full of unexpected turns, the seventeen stories collected here offer a glimpse into Mitana's trademark absurdist style.
This novel seamlessly blends the intellectual musings of Thomas Mann with a Hungarian folktale exploring the boundaries of reality and fantasy. In this captivating and whimsical novel, the German novelist and critic Thomas Mann is visiting his tailor, Klaus, to be measured for a new overcoat, but his mind is full of thoughts of his new novel and meditations on the state of Europe after World War I. His tailor, though, entraps him in wily dialogue with mysterious claims about angels threading a strand of their hair through all of God's creations. Mann becomes further entangled with this provocative artisan through a mysterious dream in which he is asked to draft a contract for the Rights of Devils. At the same time, the impoverished mother of five-year-old Marci Tamás, living in a tiny Hungarian village, struggles to find the little boy a winter coat. Marci has stopped growing, so the coat she finds--belonging to a former circus dwarf--should suffice for life. Only the coat has a life of its own, as Marci soon finds out. That's not all: he discovers a mysterious little white elephant in the family courtyard, which no one else can see. Determined to save the family's three piglets from being slaughtered, he enlists this strange creature in a daring collective escape. Written by one of Hungary's most audacious literary voices, Thomas Mann's Overcoat is at once a homage to the great German novelist as well as an Ars Poetica that embraces excess, whimsy, and folk poetry and refuses the strictures of realism.
A rich, layered narrative that explores the indomitable human spirit against the backdrop of Romania's complex history in the 1950s and '60s. A rural area not far from the city of Cluj-Napoca, a former Hungarian province that has been part of Romania since 1920. World War II has ended and the region is under the firm clasp of Stalinist collectivization. In the atmospheric village of Kolozsvár, Omertà unfolds a riveting tale through four poignant perspectives, each peeling back the layers of its central characters' lives against the backdrop of a tumultuous Eastern Europe in the mid-twentieth century. Kali, a peasant woman, escapes an abusive marriage to embark on a transformative journey to Kolozsvár, seeking refuge and purpose. She is employed as a maid by Vilmos, a reluctant Communist Party member with an unwavering dedication to his garden. As Vilmos's botanical brilliance attracts the state's attention, a clash between personal desires and political obligations ensues. Annush, the third narrator, a lovestruck teenager, becomes entangled in a complex web of emotions, grappling with love, loss, and the evolving landscape of her homeland. The tale deepens with Eleonora, who, seeking solace in a monastery, becomes a casualty of political purges and the suppression of religious faith under Romania's oppressive regime. In this epic novel, Romanian-born Hungarian author Andrea Tompa skillfully intertwines these tales, shedding light on the injustices and corruption of a regime that sought to extinguish cultural identities. The lives of Kali, Vilmos, Annush, and Eleonora weave a tapestry of love, resilience, the virtue of roses, and the quiet strength required to endure in the face of political turmoil.
A collection showcasing the latest poems of the Kurdish-Syrian maestro of Arabic style. Salim Barakat, the captivating Kurdish-Syrian poet and novelist known for his mastery of Arabic style, is hailed as an enigmatic and intricate figure in contemporary Arabic literature. In The Universe, All at Once, he curates, in collaboration with translator Huda J. Fakhreddine, a selection from his later works, considering them the pinnacle of his poetic career. Drawn from pieces composed between 2021 and 2023, the poems in this collection vary from excerpts of an expansive book-length poem to concise, intense fragments. Fakhreddine expertly renders his writing in English, a courageous and praiseworthy attempt to challenge the barriers of the untranslatable. This volume not only showcases the prolific author's poetic evolution but also features a comprehensive interview with Barakat. Conducted by Fakhreddine, the interview delves into Barakat's early influences, hobbies, talents, reader expectations, and reflections on displacement, childhood, and interpersonal connections. Together, The Universe, All at Once presents the best of Barakat's latest poetry to his readers and allows invaluable insight into the writing processes and motivations of a visionary modern poet.
A touching and sensitive tale of love and loss that unfolds in a divided Berlin in the 1980s. Against the backdrop of West Berlin in 1987, meet Soja--a skilled typesetter, a refugee from East Germany, and a temporary florist with a generous heart. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she crosses paths with Harry--a tall, free-spirited individual with a quietly determined demeanor, haunted by a complex past and an uncertain future. Their encounter sets in motion a fateful connection that leaves a lasting mark on Soja's life. The remnants of their story are encapsulated in a school notebook, containing precisely eighty-nine undated entries where Harry chronicled his thoughts during their time together. However, conspicuous by its absence in the narrative is Soja herself. Years later, driven by the need to tell their tale and fill the void left by Harry, she embarks on a poignant journey of remembrance. As Soja revisits the man who both impressed her with determination and disconcerted her with a mysterious gift, she finds herself captivated by his childlike essence. Despite Harry's troubled history--ten years in prison, probation violations due to discontinued drug therapy, and the looming threat of immediate imprisonment--Soja remains resolute in her passion for him. Katja Lange-Müller, an acclaimed storyteller, skillfully draws readers into the heart of this novel. With sensitivity, humor, and melancholy, she unfolds the narrative of an unhappy love story that transforms into the greatest happiness in life. Along the way, Lange-Müller paints an atmospherically dense portrait of the divided and stagnant Berlin of the 1980s, creating a captivating and emotionally charged reading experience.
A gripping and emotionally resonant saga that traces the lives of five generations of resilient women from the late nineteenth century to the dawn of the twenty-first. Towards the end of the nineteenth century in East Prussia, a woman named Kazimira strolls the remote shores of the Baltic Sea, bringing home bits of amber that wash up on the beach. Her husband Antas is the region's best carver, and he catches the attention of Moritz Hirschberg, owner of a nearby amber factory. Antas rises through the ranks, but Kazimira has the best ideas for processing and cutting the stones. Although establishing a new mine on such shifting terrain is hazardous, the venture finally pays off. It brings success, but envy and resentment swiftly follow, as antisemitism and nationalism sweep across the German Empire. Kazimira soon learns she must go her own way, as the Hirshbergs are expelled and World War I shatters her son. Three decades later, at the end of World War II, she becomes the last witness of German war crimes committed on West Beach, formerly a place of prosperity and progress. At the dawn of the twenty-first century in Russia, a woman named Nadia operates an excavator in a massive open-pit amber mine until she is told to go sell trinkets alongside all the other shopgirls. In alternating passages weaving together vastly different eras across the span of a century and a half, Svenja Leiber's Kazimira tells the story of the largest amber-mining operation in history, and its lasting effects expose pressing questions: Where do hatred and violence come from? What happens when life is declared worthless? Beginning with Kazimira and her bold struggle for self-determination, this saga follows five generations of women who envision an alternative world.
A chronicle of the diversity and wealth of cultures, predominantly from Eastern Europe, that have played a formative role in shaping contemporary Europe but now risk being forgotten. A Herodotus of Mitteleuropa, cultural historian Karl-Markus Gauà is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the breadth and complexities of cultures and societies in Europe before, during, and after its decades of division in the twentieth century. In this book, Gauà takes his readers on a thirteen-station journey across Europe. From Brussels to Istanbul and from Naples to Opole, Gauà weaves a Sebaldian web of connection and coincidence into a hybrid cultural history. Significantly, GauÃ's metropoles are not the well-trodden, thoroughly explored, and minutely documented megalopolises and cultural capitals that have been mythologized by writers great and small. There are no visits to Berlin, Paris, Rome, or Madrid, although he does make time for Vienna, where he looks not for imperial remnants, but for traces of genius unrecognized by most. GauÃ's lodestars are small but cosmopolitan towns on the periphery, such as Slaghenaufi, Vacaresti, Fontevraud, Dragatus, Vrzdenec, and Sélestat. In these far-flung towns, Gauà assembles a canon of overlooked humanists, expelled or extinguished by political and historical forces that swept the continent.
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