From the shock and awe of labour to domestic isolation, a wave of recent novels captures the transformative nature of being a motherThey say nothing prepares you. Before having my baby, I approached the literature of motherhood as though I were about to sit an exam. If my studies tempered the shock of birth and early parenthood, then I didn’t notice. The sheer physical and emotive force of the experience left me profoundly shaken. Words felt insufficient. And yet I kept reading – everything I could get my hands on. I wanted answers. I wanted to feel recognised. I wanted this untranslatable experience to be translated into language. Most of all, I think, I wanted restitution for all the maternal stories that had been left untold by centuries of silencing and minimising, not just for myself, but for all of us.Books about motherhood come in waves: the recent spate only the latest in a long line of literary endeavours. In the 1950s there was Shirley Jackson’s Life Among the Savages. The 1960s wave saw Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, alongside Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique; the 1970s The Women’s Room by Marilyn French, Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born, and In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker. In the 1980s writing about motherhood became even more transgressive and imaginative, with Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. The early 2000s saw an... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-20 11:00:01 UTC ]
Petina Gappah’s “Out of Darkness, Shining Light” is the latest example of a new generation of African novelists reinventing historical fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-10-03 17:21:24 UTC ]
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Petina Gappah’s “Out of Darkness, Shining Light” is the latest example of a new generation of African novelists reinventing historical fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-10-03 17:21:00 UTC ]
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Petina Gappah’s “Out of Darkness, Shining Light” is the latest example of a new generation of African novelists reinventing historical fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-10-03 17:21:00 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments (Vintage) has spent a third week in the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, selling 23,078 copies through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-01 11:27:57 UTC ]
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In 2012, a colleague and I decided to curate an interview series for the website where we then worked; we boldly and cleverly titled said series The Future of American Fiction. Yes, imagine it in (internet) lights. Per the title, we asked a handful of young and formally or thematically... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-09-30 08:48:58 UTC ]
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The shorlist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which awards C$100,000 for the best Canadian work of fiction, includes four authors previously in contention. Among them are David Bezmozgis and Alix Ohlin, but no Margaret Atwood. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-09-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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In part 3 of "steal these screenwriting secrets," we delve into marketing and query letters. In other words, these are screenwriting secrets to steal after you write and specifically related to crafting killer query letters. The post Psst: Novelists – Steal These Screenwriting Secrets! Part 3... Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2019-09-30 01:46:56 UTC ]
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The 2019 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature's 15-title longlist includes seven debut novelists and was chosed from 90 submissions this year. The post DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Releases Its Longlist appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-09-27 11:30:31 UTC ]
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For the Record, the former PM’s account of his time in office sold close to 21,000 copies in its first week, behind Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, which topped 100,000Almost 21,000 people rushed out to buy a copy of David Cameron’s memoir in its first week on sale, placing it second on the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-09-24 14:00:06 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments (Vintage) has reigned atop the UK Official Top 50 for a second week running, selling 36,380 copies in its first full week on sale. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-24 10:29:01 UTC ]
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IF YOU ASK a group of crime novelists to list the most exciting stylists working today, Jamie Mason’s name is bound to come up. In many thrillers, the language is workmanlike — plain, even. The suspense is the point; the sentences are the delivery system. In Jamie’s books, however, the words... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-09-22 19:00:08 UTC ]
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10 novelists make the National Book Awards fiction longlist: Laila Lalami, Colson Whitehead, Ocean Vuong, Julia Phillips and more. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-09-20 18:20:50 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Testaments’ and Stephen King’s “The Institute’ are the top-selling books in the country; each moved more than 100,000 print units in its first week on sale. Other new releases include the memoir ‘The Education of an Idealist’ by Samantha Power and ‘She Said’ by... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-09-20 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood's The Testaments (Vintage) has held the Amazon Charts Most-Sold: Fiction number one for a second week, as former prime minister David Cameron makes his debut in the Most-Sold: Non Fiction chart on pre-orders alone. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-18 09:32:13 UTC ]
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First, can we all agree that it should be “lit-fluencer”? Moving on: 1. “Gertrude Stein had time to read books. But do moms?” 2. “Owens’s dinner will be in a decidedly lower key: a gingham tablecloth, uniformed servers passing out pigs in blankets, Zibby’s kids popping in occasionally to whisper... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-09-17 19:31:52 UTC ]
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Novelist’s return to the dystopia of Gilead sold more than 100,000 copies in hardback in its first week on sale in the UKA hardback copy of Margaret Atwood’s follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, was sold every four seconds in the UK last week, according to sales figures that show... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-09-17 14:57:57 UTC ]
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Interviews Renee H. Shea Monique Truong / Photo © Haruka Sakaguchi Monique Truong, who came to the United States in 1975 as a refugee from Vietnam, began exploring untold and ignored histories in her first novel, The Book of Salt (2003), told through... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-09-17 13:54:26 UTC ]
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The Booker Prize has reassured readers the £50,000 literary award has “not yet been decided” – after a bookshop mistakenly branded copies of Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments with a “winner” sticker. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-17 10:52:14 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments (Vintage) has soared into the UK Official Top 50 number one spot, with 103,177 print copies sold in its first week on sale. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-17 01:57:31 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood's The Testaments has sold a record-breaking 125,000 copies in all combined formats in the US in its first week on sale, according to Penguin Random House US. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-15 23:13:54 UTC ]
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