Based on the life of the middle class intellectuals of Calcutta, it is an unforgettable story of a Bohemian brother and his two sisters caught in the cross-currents of changing social values. In many ways the story reflects a vivid picture of India's social transition - a phase in which the older elements are not altogether dead, and the emergent ones not fully evolved.
From one of Italy’s greatest writers, a stunning novel “filled with shimmering, risky, darting observation” (Colm Tóibín) After WWII, a small Italian town struggles to emerge from under the thumb of Fascism. With wit, tenderness, and irony, Elsa, the novel’s narrator, weaves a rich tapestry of provincial Italian life: two generations of neighbors and relatives, their gossip and shattered dreams, their heartbreaks and struggles to find happiness. Elsa wants to imagine a future for herself, free from the expectations and burdens of her town’s history, but the weight of the past will always prove unbearable, insistently posing the question: “Why has everything been ruined?”
City Voices is the first showcase of postwar Hong Kong literature originating in English. Fiction, poetry, essays and memoirs from more than 70 authors are featured to demonstrate 'the rich variety and vitality of the city's literary production'. Together with work from established authors, both bilingual writers who choose to write in English and expatriate authors who have made Hong Kong their home, a section of 'New Voices' introduces the work of unknown and young writers who are part of today's surge of new creativity.
This book breaks new ground in its representation of the voices of people in a superdiverse city as they go about their everyday lives. Poetic, polyphonic, and compelling, it places the reader at the heart of the market hall, surrounded by the translanguaging voices of people from all over the world. Based on four years of ethnographic research, the book is a gift to the senses, evoking the smells, sights, and sounds of the multilingual city. This is a book that reimagines the conventions of both ethnographic writing and academic discourse.
“Timely . . . [the collection] paints intimate portraits of neglected places that are often used as political talking points. A good companion piece to J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.”—Booklist The essays in Voices from the Rust Belt "address segregated schools, rural childhoods, suburban ennui, lead poisoning, opiate addiction, and job loss. They reflect upon happy childhoods, successful community ventures, warm refuges for outsiders, and hidden oases of natural beauty. But mainly they are stories drawn from uniquely personal experiences: A girl has her bike stolen. A social worker in Pittsburgh makes calls on clients. A journalist from Buffalo moves away, and misses home.... A father gives his daughter a bath in the lead-contaminated water of Flint, Michigan" (from the introduction). Where is America's Rust Belt? It's not quite a geographic region but a linguistic one, first introduced as a concept in 1984 by Walter Mondale. In the modern vernacular, it's closely associated with the "Post-Industrial Midwest," and includes Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York. The region reflects the country's manufacturing center, which, over the past forty years, has been in decline. In the 2016 election, the Rust Belt's economic woes became a political talking point, and helped pave the way for a Donald Trump victory. But the region is neither monolithic nor easily understood. The truth is much more nuanced. Voices from the Rust Belt pulls together a distinct variety of voices from people who call the region home. Voices that emerge from familiar Rust Belt cities—Detroit, Cleveland, Flint, and Buffalo, among other places—and observe, with grace and sensitivity, the changing economic and cultural realities for generations of Americans.
[FOR HISTORY CATALOGS]Drawing on the pronouncements of public commentators, this book portrays the 20th century history of U.S. cities, focusing specifically on how commentators crafted a discourse of urban decline and prosperity peculiar to the post-World War II era. The efforts of these commentators spoke to the foundational ambivalence Americans have toward their cities and, in turn, shaped the choices Americans made as they created and negotiated the country's changing urban landscape. [FOR GEOG/URBAN CATALOGS]Freely crossing disciplinary boundaries, this book uses the words of those who witnessed the cities' distress to portray the postwar discourse on urban decline in the United States. Up-dated and substantially re-written in stronger historical terms, this new edition explores how public debates about the fate of cities drew from and contributed to the choices made by households, investors, and governments as they created and negotiated America's changing urban landscape.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Martin Dressler: sixteen new stories—“spellbinding, masterly, sublime” (The New York Times Book Review)—that delve into the secret lives and desires of ordinary people, alongside retellings of myths and legends that highlight the aspirations of the human spirit. Beloved for the lens of the strange he places on small town life, Steven Millhauser further reveals in Voices in the Night the darkest parts of our inner selves to brilliant and dazzling effect. Here are stories of wondrously imaginative hyperrealism, stories that pose unforgettably unsettling what-ifs, or that find barely perceivable evils within the safe boundaries of our towns, homes, and even within our bodies. Here, too, are stories culled from religion and fables: Samuel, who hears the voice of God calling him in the night; a young, pre-enlightenment Buddha, who searches for his purpose in life; Rapunzel and her Prince, who struggle to fit the real world to their dream. Heightened by magic, the divine, and the uncanny, shot through with sly and winning humor, Voices in the Night seamlessly combines the whimsy and surprise of the familiar with intoxicating fantasies that take us beyond our daily lives, all done with the hallmark sleight of hand and astonishing virtuosity of one of our greatest contemporary storytellers.
This book breaks new ground in its representation of the voices of people in a superdiverse city as they go about their everyday lives. Poetic, polyphonic, and compelling, it places the reader at the heart of the market hall, surrounded by the translanguaging voices of people from all over the world. Based on four years of ethnographic research, the book is a gift to the senses, evoking the smells, sights, and sounds of the multilingual city. This is a book that reimagines the conventions of both ethnographic writing and academic discourse.
