Originally published in 1973, this story of star-crossed lovers spotlights the complex nature of love, freedom, and racism in New Zealand. Samoan writer Albert Wendt's first novel, Sons for the Return Home, has long been out of print. Yet, readers continue to respond to the clarity of vision in this simple, powerful story of cross-cultural encounter.
Essays on African-American politics, literature and music by Sterling A. Brown (1901-1989), which point out the biases against black Americans in white cultural expression and argue for a recognition of the cultural contributions of African Americans.
With over a million copies sold, this classic work is essential reading for all who ask, “Where has my struggle led me?” A chance encounter with a reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son catapulted Henri Nouwen on an unforgettable spiritual adventure. Here he shares the deeply personal and resonant meditation that led him to discover the place within where God has chosen to dwell. As Nouwen reflects on Rembrandt’s painting in light of his own life journey, he evokes a powerful drama of the classic parable in a rich, captivating way that is sure to reverberate in the hearts of readers. Nouwen probes the several movements of the parable: the younger son’s return, the father’s restoration of sonship, the elder son’s resentfulness, and the father’s compassion. The themes of homecoming, affirmation, and reconciliation will be newly discovered by all who have known loneliness, dejection, jealousy, or anger. The challenge to love as God loves, and to be loved as God’s beloved, will be seen as the ultimate revelation of the parable known to Christians throughout time, and is here represented with a vigor and power fresh for our times.
WINNER OF THE 2017 PULITZER PRIZE: from Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hisham Matar, a memoir of his journey home to his native Libya in search of answers to his father's disappearance. In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison. Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballa Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning." Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for biography/autobiography, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, France's Prix du livre étranger, and a finalist for the Orwell Book Prize and the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, The Return is a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power.
As I researched the title of this book, I discovered that there are so many families that were torn apart by their sons or daughters. They were raised with love and compassion, yet they decided to venture out on their own in a far country to live a life free from the authority of their parents. When life doesn't go the way they thought, losing everything they inherit and ending up in low-down situations, they finally come to their senses. What kind of sons return home to their parents?
With an introduction by Rosamund Bartlett and an afterword by Tatiana Tolstaya Turgenev's depiction of the conflict between generations and their ideals stunned readers when Fathers and Sons was first published in 1862. But many could also sympathize with Arkady's fascination with its nihilist hero whose story vividly captures the hopes and regrets of a changing Russia. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.
Paul Dombey is a cold, unbending, pompous merchant, and a widower with two children - Paul and Florence. His chief ambition is to perpetuate the firm-name. He dreams of passing his business on to his son. Dombey dotes on his son, and neglects and mistreats his daughter.The "son" in the title of the book is incapable of ever joining the firm. A sickly and odd child, Paul dies at the age of six. Dombey pours his resentment and anger out on his daughter, whom he pushes away despite her efforts to earn her father's love.Eventually Dombey remarries, after literally acquiring his new wife from her father in a commercial transaction. Dombey is as bad a husband as he is a father and his marriage is loveless. His new bride hates Dombey and eventually runs off with Canker, his business manager. Dombey characteristically blames Florence for this reversal, and strikes her, causing Florence to run away as well.Abandoned by everyone, Dombey loses his business and goes half insane, living in his decaying house. Dombey is eventually reconciled to his daughter, who always a doormat forgives her father........
Into the Deep traces one woman's spiritual odyssey from birthright evangelicalism through postmodern feminism and, ultimately, into the Roman Catholic Church. As a college student, Abigail Favale experienced a feminist awakening that reshaped her life and faith. A decade later, on the verge of atheism, she found herself entering the oldest male-helmed institution on the planet--the last place she expected to be. With humor and insight, Favale describes her gradual exodus from Christian orthodoxy and surprising swerve into Catholicism. She writes candidly about grappling with wounds from her past, Catholic sexual morality, the male priesthood, and an interfaith marriage. Her vivid prose brings to life the wrenching tumult of conversion--a conversion that began after she entered the Church and began to pry open its mysteries. There she discovered the startling beauty of a sacramental cosmos, a vision of reality that upended her notions of gender, sexuality, identity, and authority. This is a thoroughly 21st century conversion, a compelling account of recovering an ancient faith after a decade of doubt.
This mesmerizing literary novel is written with all the emotional precision and intimacy that have won Hisham Matar tremendous international recognition. In a voice that is delicately wrought and beautifully tender, he asks: When a loved one disappears, how does that absence shape the lives of those who are left? “A haunting novel, exquisitely written and psychologically rich.”—The Washington Post Nuri is a young boy when his mother dies. It seems that nothing will fill the emptiness her death leaves behind in the Cairo apartment he shares with his father—until they meet Mona, sitting in her yellow swimsuit by the pool of the Magda Marina hotel. As soon as Nuri sees Mona, the rest of the world vanishes. But it is Nuri’s father with whom Mona falls in love and whom she eventually marries. Their happiness consumes Nuri to the point where he wishes his father would disappear. Nuri will, however, soon regret what he’s wished for. When his father, a dissident in exile from his homeland, is abducted under mysterious circumstances, the world that Nuri and his stepmother share is shattered. And soon they begin to realize how little they knew about the man they both loved. “At once a probing mystery of a father’s disappearance and a vivid coming-of-age story . . . This novel is compulsively readable.”—The Plain Dealer “Studded with little jewels of perception, deft metaphors and details that illuminate character or set a scene.”—The New York Times “One of the most moving works based on a boy’s view of the world.”—Newsweek “Elegiac . . . [Hisham Matar] writes of a son’s longing for a lost father with heartbreaking acuity.”—Newsday Don’t miss the conversation between Hisham Matar and Hari Kunzru at the back of the book. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE Chicago Tribune • The Daily Beast • The Independent • The Guardian • The Daily Telegraph • Toronto Sun • The Irish Times Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men.
