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 ]
Earlier this week, Club 8-bit, one of Ukraine’s largest privately-owned computer museums, was destroyed during the siege of Mariupol. Kotaku spotted news of the event after its owner, Dmitry Cherepanov, took to Facebook to share the fate of Club 8-bit.It has been reported that the Mariupol... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2022-03-27 15:41:09 UTC ]
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Three authors joined author/moderator Emma Straub in a thought-provoking keynote panel, “Storytelling in the Cultural Moment,” to begin the third day of ABA's Snow Days online conference. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-03-11 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Statue of renowned Kurdish historian, author, and poet Mastoureh Ardalan (1805–1848) in Erbil / Photo by Levi Meir Clancy / Unsplash Even though they appear to have a lot to say about the historical, political, cultural, and literary... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-02-23 21:05:41 UTC ]
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Literary novelists are struggling with whether, and how, to incorporate Covid into their fiction. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-02-20 22:17:31 UTC ]
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After previous seminars showcased work from Scotland and Wales, this year the focus is on writing from Northern Ireland. Chaired by novelist and non-fiction writer Glenn Patterson, director at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast – a familiar and popular name for British... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2022-02-16 12:14:57 UTC ]
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A veteran journalist, she also edited a forthcoming compilation of the journals of Alice Walker, thus illuminating African American women of letters from the Harlem Renaissance to the present day. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-02-15 23:55:19 UTC ]
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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” –Arthur Ashe * Years ago, when I was still a budding fiction writer, I published an essay about how hard skateboarding is to write about. I focused on a few novelists who had skater characters in their books but who clearly didn’t skate […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-02-09 09:55:45 UTC ]
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‘The Snow Child’ is the shortest tale in The Bloody Chamber. Indeed, it is not even two pages long, but in a few hundred words, the British author Angela Carter incorporates a number of elements from different snow-themed fairy tales, but its most important influence was a grisly tale collected […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-01-28 15:00:10 UTC ]
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More than 100 writers, artists, comedians and musicians will voice James Joyce’s seminal novel in celebration of its publication a century agoOne hundred years ago, in February 1922, Sylvia Beach, owner of the Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company, published James Joyce’s Ulysses, in full, for... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-01-20 09:30:55 UTC ]
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Who is Elena Ferrante? One of the most widely-acclaimed and beloved contemporary novelists is also the most unknown. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-12-29 11:33:00 UTC ]
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‘On Girlhood,’ edited by Glory Edim, pulls together the work of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and more. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-12-23 12:00:13 UTC ]
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When it comes to great novels, this year felt like an embarrassment of riches. The books collected here are ambitious—in intellect, in scope, in subject matter, and in size. Some are perfect encapsulations of the unique problems of our time, while others illuminate the human threads that connect... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-16 12:05:00 UTC ]
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It’s safe to say that in general, 2021 was an improvement on 2020—but that doesn’t mean it was a big one. Among the many disappointments of this year was the fact that we lost far too many members of the literary community, from poets to novelists to editors to critics to publishers. To them, we […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-12-15 09:49:46 UTC ]
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In addition to being a prolific novelist, Toni Morrison was a prolific editor. She was committed to championing Black writers, both through her role as senior editor at Random House and her work with writing collectives like The Sisterhood (which included literary giants like June Jordan, Alice... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-12-10 18:40:25 UTC ]
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Are there certain books with topics you avoid? That you fear may leave you a little worse for wear? Here's what may happen if you read them. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-12-07 11:38:00 UTC ]
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Novelists and short-story writers have created some classic narratives about man’s best friend, the dog. But what are the very best stories and novels about dogs? Where should we begin in assessing the classic, canonical literature that features dogs? From Homer’s Odyssey onwards – where the... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-03 15:00:29 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood is being celebrated for her contributions to Canadian literature with a special stamp, unveiled on Thursday. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2021-11-25 20:33:03 UTC ]
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The following first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. * While writing my first novel, I was hungry for advice, like many young writers, and soaked up tenets like write every day or wake up before work to go to your desk or hit 1000 words every session. But these... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-11-12 09:55:05 UTC ]
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Toni Morrison’s 1987 classic has sparked debate in the Virginia governor’s race about what public school students should read. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-10-27 12:53:39 UTC ]
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News and Events (c) Rama, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr NORMAN, OKLA. – World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, announced late Tuesday evening that Boubacar Boris Diop is the 27th... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-26 21:56:54 UTC ]
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