Ann Marie reads fragments of her dead husband's unfinished book, and the many love letters he sent her, and in them the social and political events of the time. As she ponders over the writing and the years that the brilliant Jithendran squandered working for a toy company that makes drum-playing monkeys, the narrative gives way to the sweeping saga of a village by the river Periyar. Grappling with issues of equality, love, caste, religion and politics, Thachanakkara is a microcosm of twentieth-century Kerala. Told through the history of three generations of a feudal Nair family, this sprawling story is reminiscent of the craft of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and has the scale of Sunil Gangopadhyay's Those Days. Manushyanu Oru Amukham is an artistic meditation on human existence and is a contemporary classic.
This study referred to as a "preface" is given this designation because its basic aim is not to offer an up-to-date overall assessment of Dryden's translation of Virgil's Æneid but, rather, to provide a relevant basis for such an assessment ?thus allowing for a wide range of readership. The relevance of this approach rests on two basic premises: that of R. A. Brower, who maintains "that no translation can be understood or properly evaluated apart from the conditions of expression under which it was made," supported by Dryden's expressed intention "to make Virgil speak such English, as he wou'd himself have spoken, if he had been born in England, and in this present age," together providing a genuinely relevant basis for an understanding of Dryden's translation, "the conditions of expression" here allowing the inclusion of all the possible implications this phrase includes.
Paul Robeson was one of the most famous people in the world; to his enemies he was also one of the most dangerous. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the African American singer was the voice of the people, both on stage and as a political activist who refused to be silenced as he fought for the rights of the oppressed. His message of peace, equality and justice was understood as much on the streets of Manchester, Moscow, Johannesburg and Bombay as it was in Harlem and Washington, DC. Jordan Goodman tells the story of Robeson during the tumultuous Cold War when the United States government became so worried by his impact abroad that it tried to silence him. Drawing on extensive new archival material from Robeson's FBI, State Department, MI6 and KGB files, he shows the major international scope of this effort.
Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’s debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world. With a new introduction by Joshua Ferris and a new author’s note by Saunders himself, this edition is essential reading for those seeking to discover or revisit a virtuosic, disturbingly prescient voice. Praise for George Saunders and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline “It’s no exaggeration to say that short story master George Saunders helped change the trajectory of American fiction.”—The Wall Street Journal “Saunders’s satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it’s also ferocious and very funny.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “George Saunders is a writer of arresting brilliance and originality, with a sure sense of his material and apparently inexhaustible resources of voice. [CivilWarLand in Bad Decline] is scary, hilarious, and unforgettable.”—Tobias Wolff “Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless.”—Jonathan Franzen “Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.”—Zadie Smith “An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.”—Thomas Pynchon
The most incisive comment on politics to day is indifference. When men and women begin to feel that elections and legislatures do not matter very much, that politics is a rather distant and unimportant exercise, the reformer might as well put to himself a few searching doubts. Indifference is a criticism that cuts beneath oppositions and wranglings by calling the political method itself into question. Leaders in public affairs recognize this. They know that no attack is so disastrous as silence, that no invective is so blasting as the wise and indulgent smile of the people who do not care. I have put forward a preliminary sketch for a theory of politics, a preface to thinking. Like all speculation about human affairs, it is the result of a grapple with problems as they appear in the experience of one man. For though a personal vision may at times assume an eloquent and universal language, it is well never to forget that all philosophies are the language of particular men.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.
Lean Logic is David Fleming's masterpiece, the product of more than thirty years' work and a testament to the creative brilliance of one of Britain's most important intellectuals. A dictionary unlike any other, it leads readers through Fleming's stimulating exploration of fields as diverse as culture, history, science, art, logic, ethics, myth, economics, and anthropology, being made up of four hundred and four engaging essay-entries covering topics such as Boredom, Community, Debt, Growth, Harmless Lunatics, Land, Lean Thinking, Nanotechnology, Play, Religion, Spirit, Trust, and Utopia. The threads running through every entry are Fleming's deft and original analysis of how our present market-based economy is destroying the very foundations--ecological, economic, and cultural-- on which it depends, and his core focus: a compelling, grounded vision for a cohesive society that might weather the consequences. A society that provides a satisfying, culturally-rich context for lives well lived, in an economy not reliant on the impossible promise of eternal economic growth. A society worth living in. Worth fighting for. Worth contributing to. The beauty of the dictionary format is that it allows Fleming to draw connections without detracting from his in-depth exploration of each topic. Each entry carries intriguing links to other entries, inviting the enchanted reader to break free of the imposed order of a conventional book, starting where she will and following the links in the order of her choosing. In combination with Fleming's refreshing writing style and good-natured humor, it also creates a book perfectly suited to dipping in and out. The decades Fleming spent honing his life's work are evident in the lightness and mastery with which Lean Logic draws on an incredible wealth of cultural and historical learning--from Whitman to Whitefield, Dickens to Daly, Kropotkin to Kafka, Keats to Kuhn, Oakeshott to Ostrom, Jung to Jensen, Machiavelli to Mumford, Mauss to Mandelbrot, Leopold to Lakatos, Polanyi to Putnam, Nietzsche to Næss, Keynes to Kumar, Scruton to Shiva, Thoreau to Toynbee, Rabelais to Rogers, Shakespeare to Schumacher, Locke to Lovelock, Homer to Homer-Dixon--in demonstrating that many of the principles it commends have a track-record of success long pre-dating our current society. Fleming acknowledges, with honesty, the challenges ahead, but rather than inducing despair, Lean Logic is rare in its ability to inspire optimism in the creativity and intelligence of humans to nurse our ecology back to health; to rediscover the importance of place and play, of reciprocity and resilience, and of community and culture. ------ Recognizing that Lean Logic's sheer size and unusual structure could be daunting, Fleming's long-time collaborator Shaun Chamberlin has also selected and edited one of the potential pathways through the dictionary to create a second, stand-alone volume, Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy. The content, rare insights, and uniquely enjoyable writing style remain Fleming's, but presented at a more accessible paperback-length and in conventional read-it-front-to-back format.
First published in the year 1912, 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a young biracial man, referred to as the "Ex-Colored Man", living in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
