Striding the Borderlands: Charles Ferdinand Ramuz’s Great Fear on the Mountain, by Alice-Catherine Carls Book Reviews [email protected] Thu, 09/05/2024 - 14:03 Caroline Cingria, C. F. Ramuz, pastel (1903) / Images courtesy of Noël CordonierLumen Obscurum Light and darkness are a major part of the global human experience; their contrast is a foundation of life and has always been the source of meditations and rituals. In Genesis, the creation of night and day separated order from chaos. Absolute light and darkness exist at the two extreme ends of a prism. St. Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the Cross defined both as the presence/absence of God. The brain responds to light and darkness. The Latin poet Virgil coined the term lumen obscurum (dark light), which the French playwright Pierre Corneille phrased as obscure clarté and the Polish poet Joanna Pollakówna as avare clarté.[1] The Polish poet Aleksander Wat and the German artist Anselm Kiefer titled one of their works Lumen obscurum. In his newly translated 1926 novel, Great Fear on the Mountain (Archipelago, 2024), Swiss-French writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878–1947) uses the term obscure lumière—rendered by translator Bill Johnston as “dim light.” Merging light and darkness indicates a tension between seeing and not seeing, feeling and not feeling, knowing and not knowing. It indicates a pause during which fate hangs in the balance. It contains a vortex similar to the... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2024-09-05 19:03:58 UTC ]
Interviews Emilio Fraia’s Sevastopol, out this summer from New Directions, is the sort of book that beguiles and dazzles in equal measure. Consisting of three disparate stories—of a mountain climber attempting to scale Mt. Everest, a mysterious loner... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-08-09 20:31:30 UTC ]
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Seeking out the best new Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers, this year’s finalists range across continents to show ‘the best of what stories can do’The fallout from civil war invades the London home of a high-flying Sri Lankan couple. An elderly Jamaican woman faces up bravely to the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-07-29 11:00:30 UTC ]
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In her latest Graphic Content column, Hillary Chute looks at new books from Kristen Radtke and Lizzy Stewart, as well as a first graphic novel from Anne Carson. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-07-29 09:00:05 UTC ]
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How Richard Lange went from literary short stories to crime fiction and his new gothic horror tale, 'Rovers,' about a '70s vampire biker gang. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-07-26 13:00:38 UTC ]
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Short stories, to me, are sparked by desire. I don’t mean they’re all love stories, though they certainly can be. I mean they are collisions or conflagrations, small or spectacular traffic accidents in which the desires of one person bump up against the impossible—whether in the form of some... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-26 11:00:00 UTC ]
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In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle ponders the links between famous writers and advertising slogans Fay Weldon, author of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983), is one of several famous novelists who started out in the field of advertising. In this connection... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-07-23 14:00:03 UTC ]
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It can be too easy to write villains— people stunted and incapable of love or compassion—when we write about opponents of our politics, especially in short stories, which have so much less space to detail nuance. Sometimes writing about villains and pointing the finger is necessary in a world... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-07-16 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A debut and a long-honored veteran of short stories take the 2021 top honors provided by the Washington-based PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The post Two PEN/Faulkner Foundation Award Winners: Deesha Philyaw and Charles Baxter appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-07-02 18:54:49 UTC ]
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The new agreement with Bookwire will see the distribution of some 30,000 ebooks and 1,200 audiobooks from Planeta's Spanish-language catalogue. The post Germany’s Bookwire in Distribution Deal with Spain’s Editorial Planeta appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-07-01 20:14:07 UTC ]
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Lit Lists Earlier this spring, the editors of WLT invited twenty-one writers to nominate a single book, published since the year 2000, that has had a major influence on their own work, along with a brief statement explaining their choice. We published... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-06-28 13:32:05 UTC ]
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The writer’s signature style of ending—a final, thrilling note—has the touch of magic that distinguishes the form at its best. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2021-06-28 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Red Arrow Studios has co-development rights with Playground for all 75 novels and 28 short stories about the French detective Jules Maigret. The post Maigret Rides Again: Playground Entertainment Options Georges Simenon’s Books appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-06-25 18:59:14 UTC ]
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At the Rumpus, Xuan Juliana Wang discusses the art of the short story in a round table that includes Kimberly King Parsons, Dantiel W. Moniz, Mary South, and Ashley Wurzbacher. The panel shares their thoughts on crafting a collection, along with what draws them to short stories in the first... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2021-06-24 20:30:14 UTC ]
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Historical fiction was once considered a fusty backwater. Now the genre is having a renaissance, attracting first-rank novelists and racking up major prizes. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-06-13 09:00:02 UTC ]
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‘The Circular Ruins’, first published in 1940, is one of the most richly symbolic short stories by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. One of his most powerful and suggestive explorations of the nature of reality and dreams, ‘The Circular Ruins’ can variously be interpreted as a story... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-06-05 14:00:43 UTC ]
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‘The Dead’ is the most critically acclaimed and widely studied story in James Joyce’s Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories written by James Joyce and published in 1914. As we’ve remarked before, Dubliners is now regarded as one of the landmark texts of modernist literature, but initially... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-05-29 14:00:07 UTC ]
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Romance novelists make their picks for the season, and they run the gamut from sexy to sweet to a little bit murderous. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-05-27 13:00:00 UTC ]
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From Sally Rooney to Raven Leilani, female novelists have captured the literary zeitgeist, with more buzz, prizes and bestsellers than men. But is this cultural shift something to celebrate or rectify?In March, Vintage, one of the UK’s largest literary fiction divisions, announced the five debut... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-05-16 06:00:48 UTC ]
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Created in 2011, Sci-Hub is the largest free repository of scholarly articles in the world. Or rather, it is the largest shadow library of pirated articles that exists. And its creator, Kazakh researcher Alexandra Elbakyan deserves a Nobel Prize for her work as a modern Robin Hood. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-05-04 12:32:57 UTC ]
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Two big novelists take sharp turns in new books: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie mourns in "Notes on Grief"; Jhumpa Lahiri writes a novel, "Whereabouts," in Italian. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-04-30 14:00:38 UTC ]
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