|
358 scholarly books by Seagull Books and 20
have author last names that start with A
|
READERS PUBLISHERS STUDENT SERVICES More to explore... |
358 scholarly books by Seagull Books and 20
358 scholarly books by Seagull Books
20 have author last names that start with A have author last names that start with A
20 have author last names that start with A have author last names that start with A
The Law of Inheritance
Yasser Abdellatif
Seagull Books, 2018
This lyrical novel tells the story of a young man living in Egypt in the 1990s, a time of great turmoil. We see student riots at Cairo University, radical politics, and the first steps towards the making of a writer. But his story is not told in isolation: through his experiences and memories Yasser Abdellatif also unfolds the experiences of his Nubian family through the epochal changes the country underwent in the twentieth-century.
The symphonic four-part text presents us with narratives of Egyptian identity, a constant knitting and unravelling that moves us back and forth through time, as the reader slides and leaps across the shifting tectonic plates of Abdellatif’s vignettes, his immaculately limpid prose poetry bringing forth the same questions. Nobody quite belongs in Cairo, it seems, but at the same time none of them belongs anywhere else: a relative emigrates from his Nubian village to the Cairo of the 1930s, where Italian fascists chase him through the streets and into a Maltese exile, only for him to return and make his way back South to the homeland he left. Another relative falls into religious esotericism and later madness, spinning away from Cairo and back to the wasteland of a village relocated after it had been flooded by the Aswan Dam. Meanwhile, in the 1990s, students fight security forces and binge on pills amid the dysfunctional remnants of a centralized state whose gravitational pull uprooted their parents and offered the possibility of assimilation into a national identity.
Through the clear sky of Abdellatif’s novel his characters, the spaces they call home, their way-stations, and even the nation that contains them all are a murmuration of starlings, held together and apart forever.
The symphonic four-part text presents us with narratives of Egyptian identity, a constant knitting and unravelling that moves us back and forth through time, as the reader slides and leaps across the shifting tectonic plates of Abdellatif’s vignettes, his immaculately limpid prose poetry bringing forth the same questions. Nobody quite belongs in Cairo, it seems, but at the same time none of them belongs anywhere else: a relative emigrates from his Nubian village to the Cairo of the 1930s, where Italian fascists chase him through the streets and into a Maltese exile, only for him to return and make his way back South to the homeland he left. Another relative falls into religious esotericism and later madness, spinning away from Cairo and back to the wasteland of a village relocated after it had been flooded by the Aswan Dam. Meanwhile, in the 1990s, students fight security forces and binge on pills amid the dysfunctional remnants of a centralized state whose gravitational pull uprooted their parents and offered the possibility of assimilation into a national identity.
Through the clear sky of Abdellatif’s novel his characters, the spaces they call home, their way-stations, and even the nation that contains them all are a murmuration of starlings, held together and apart forever.
[more]
Without Model
Parva Aesthetica
Theodor W. Adorno
Seagull Books, 2023
Essays by Adorno on art and cinema, available in English for the first time.
In Without Model, Theodor W. Adorno strikingly demonstrates the intellectual range for which he is known. Taking the premise of the title as his guiding principle, that artistic and philosophical thought must eschew preconceptions and instead adapt itself to its time, circumstances, and object, Adorno presents a series of essays reflecting on culture at different levels, from the details of individual products to the social conditions of their production. He shows his more nostalgic side in the childhood reminiscences of ‘Amorbach’, but also his acute sociocultural analysis on the central topic of the culture industry. He criticizes attempts to maintain tradition in music and visual art, arguing against a restorative approach by stressing the modernity and individuality of historical works in the context of their time. In all of these essays, available for the first time in English, Adorno displays the remarkable thinking of one both steeped in tradition and dedicated to seeing beyond it.
In Without Model, Theodor W. Adorno strikingly demonstrates the intellectual range for which he is known. Taking the premise of the title as his guiding principle, that artistic and philosophical thought must eschew preconceptions and instead adapt itself to its time, circumstances, and object, Adorno presents a series of essays reflecting on culture at different levels, from the details of individual products to the social conditions of their production. He shows his more nostalgic side in the childhood reminiscences of ‘Amorbach’, but also his acute sociocultural analysis on the central topic of the culture industry. He criticizes attempts to maintain tradition in music and visual art, arguing against a restorative approach by stressing the modernity and individuality of historical works in the context of their time. In all of these essays, available for the first time in English, Adorno displays the remarkable thinking of one both steeped in tradition and dedicated to seeing beyond it.
[more]
When the House Burns Down
From the Dialect of Thought
Giorgio Agamben
Seagull Books, 2022
Giorgio Agamben tackles our crisis-ridden world in a series of powerful philosophical essays.
“Which house is burning?” asks Giorgio Agamben. “The country where you live, or Europe, or the whole world? Perhaps the houses, the cities have already burnt down—who knows how long ago?—in a single immense blaze that we pretended not to see.” In this collection of four luminous, lyrical essays, Agamben brings his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity and poetic intensity to bear on a world in crisis. Whether surveying the burning house of our culture in the title essay, the architecture of pure exteriority in “Door and Threshold,” the language of prophecy in “Lessons in the Darkness,” or the word of the witness in “Testimony and Truth,” Agamben’s insights throw a revealing light on questions both timeless and topical. Written in dark times over the past year, and rich with the urgency of our moment, the essays in this volume also seek to show how what appears to be an impasse can, with care and attention, become the door leading to a way out.
“Which house is burning?” asks Giorgio Agamben. “The country where you live, or Europe, or the whole world? Perhaps the houses, the cities have already burnt down—who knows how long ago?—in a single immense blaze that we pretended not to see.” In this collection of four luminous, lyrical essays, Agamben brings his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity and poetic intensity to bear on a world in crisis. Whether surveying the burning house of our culture in the title essay, the architecture of pure exteriority in “Door and Threshold,” the language of prophecy in “Lessons in the Darkness,” or the word of the witness in “Testimony and Truth,” Agamben’s insights throw a revealing light on questions both timeless and topical. Written in dark times over the past year, and rich with the urgency of our moment, the essays in this volume also seek to show how what appears to be an impasse can, with care and attention, become the door leading to a way out.
[more]
Taste
Giorgio Agamben
Seagull Books, 2017
Our taste buds are a powerful way for humans to know beauty and experience beautiful things. In Taste, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben takes a close look at why the sense of taste has not historically been appreciated as a means to know and experience pleasure or why it has always been considered inferior to actual theoretical knowledge.
Taste, Agamben argues, is a category that has much to reveal to the contemporary world. Taking a step into the history of philosophy and reaching to the very origins of aesthetics, Agamben critically recovers the roots of one of Western culture’s cardinal concepts. Agamben is the rare writer whose ideas and works have a broad appeal across many fields, and with Taste he turns his critical eye to the realm of Western art and aesthetic practice. This volume will not only engage the author’s devoted fans in philosophy, sociology, and literary criticism, but also his growing audience among art theorists and historians.
Taste, Agamben argues, is a category that has much to reveal to the contemporary world. Taking a step into the history of philosophy and reaching to the very origins of aesthetics, Agamben critically recovers the roots of one of Western culture’s cardinal concepts. Agamben is the rare writer whose ideas and works have a broad appeal across many fields, and with Taste he turns his critical eye to the realm of Western art and aesthetic practice. This volume will not only engage the author’s devoted fans in philosophy, sociology, and literary criticism, but also his growing audience among art theorists and historians.
[more]
The Kingdom and the Garden
Giorgio Agamben
Seagull Books, 2020
What happened to paradise after Adam and Eve were expelled? The question may sound like a theological quibble, or even a joke, but in The Kingdom and the Garden, Giorgio Agamben uses it as a starting point for an investigation of human nature and the prospects for political transformation. In a tour-de-force reinterpretation of the Christian tradition, Agamben shows that the Garden of Eden has always served as a symbol for humanity’s true nature. Where earlier theologians viewed the expulsion as temporary, Augustine’s doctrine of original sin makes it permanent, reimagining humanity as the paradoxical creature that has been completely alienated from its own nature. From this perspective, there can be no return to paradise, only the hope for the messianic kingdom. Yet there have always been thinkers who rebelled against this idea, and Agamben highlights two major examples. The first is the early medieval philosopher John Scotus Eriugena, who argued for a radical unity of humanity with all living things. The second is Dante, whose vision of the earthly paradise points towards the possibility of a genuine human happiness in this world. In place of the messianic kingdom, which has provided the model for modern revolutionary movements, Agamben contends that we should place our hopes for political change in a return to our origins, by reclaiming the earthly paradise.
[more]
Pinocchio
The Adventures of a Puppet, Doubly Commented Upon and Triply Illustrated
Giorgio Agamben
Seagull Books, 2023
A richly illustrated analysis from one of Europe’s greatest living philosophers.
In Pinocchio, Giorgio Agamben turns his keen philosopher’s eye to the famous nineteenth-century novel by Carlo Collodi. To Agamben, Pinocchio’s adventures are a kind of initiation into life itself. Like us, the mischievous puppet is caught between two worlds. He is faced with the alternatives of submitting to authority or of carrying on, stubbornly indulging his way of being. From Agamben’s virtuoso interpretation of this classic story, we learn that we can harbor the mystery of existence only if we are not aware of it, only if we manage to cohabit with an area of non-knowledge, immemorial and very near. Richly illustrated with images from three early editions of Collodi’s novel, this new volume will delight enthusiasts of both literature and philosophy.
In Pinocchio, Giorgio Agamben turns his keen philosopher’s eye to the famous nineteenth-century novel by Carlo Collodi. To Agamben, Pinocchio’s adventures are a kind of initiation into life itself. Like us, the mischievous puppet is caught between two worlds. He is faced with the alternatives of submitting to authority or of carrying on, stubbornly indulging his way of being. From Agamben’s virtuoso interpretation of this classic story, we learn that we can harbor the mystery of existence only if we are not aware of it, only if we manage to cohabit with an area of non-knowledge, immemorial and very near. Richly illustrated with images from three early editions of Collodi’s novel, this new volume will delight enthusiasts of both literature and philosophy.
[more]
Hölderlin's Madness
Chronicle of a Dwelling Life, 1806–1843
Giorgio Agamben
Seagull Books, 2023
One of Europe’s greatest living philosophers, Giorgio Agamben, analyzes the life and work of one of Europe’s greatest poets, Friedrich Hölderlin.
What does it mean to inhabit a place or a self? What is a habit? And, for human beings, doesn’t living mean—first and foremost—inhabiting? Pairing a detailed chronology of German poet Friedrich Hölderlin’s years of purported madness with a new examination of texts often considered unreadable, Giorgio Agamben's new book aims to describe and comprehend a life that the poet himself called habitual and inhabited.
Hölderlin’s life was split neatly in two: his first 36 years, from 1770 to 1806; and the 36 years from 1807 to 1843, which he spent as a madman holed up in the home of Ernst Zimmer, a carpenter. The poet lived the first half of his existence out and about in the broader world, relatively engaged with current events, only to then spend the second half entirely cut off from the outside world. Despite occasional visitors, it was as if a wall separated him from all external events and relationships. For reasons that may well eventually become clear, Hölderlin chose to expunge all character—historical, social, or otherwise—from the actions and gestures of his daily life. According to his earliest biographer, he often stubbornly repeated, “nothing happens to me.” Such a life can only be the subject of a chronology—not a biography, much less a clinical or psychological analysis. Nevertheless, this book suggests that this is precisely how Hölderlin offers humanity an entirely other notion of what it means to live. Although we have yet to grasp the political significance of his unprecedented way of life, it now clearly speaks directly to our own.
What does it mean to inhabit a place or a self? What is a habit? And, for human beings, doesn’t living mean—first and foremost—inhabiting? Pairing a detailed chronology of German poet Friedrich Hölderlin’s years of purported madness with a new examination of texts often considered unreadable, Giorgio Agamben's new book aims to describe and comprehend a life that the poet himself called habitual and inhabited.
Hölderlin’s life was split neatly in two: his first 36 years, from 1770 to 1806; and the 36 years from 1807 to 1843, which he spent as a madman holed up in the home of Ernst Zimmer, a carpenter. The poet lived the first half of his existence out and about in the broader world, relatively engaged with current events, only to then spend the second half entirely cut off from the outside world. Despite occasional visitors, it was as if a wall separated him from all external events and relationships. For reasons that may well eventually become clear, Hölderlin chose to expunge all character—historical, social, or otherwise—from the actions and gestures of his daily life. According to his earliest biographer, he often stubbornly repeated, “nothing happens to me.” Such a life can only be the subject of a chronology—not a biography, much less a clinical or psychological analysis. Nevertheless, this book suggests that this is precisely how Hölderlin offers humanity an entirely other notion of what it means to live. Although we have yet to grasp the political significance of his unprecedented way of life, it now clearly speaks directly to our own.
[more]
Studiolo
Giorgio Agamben
Seagull Books, 2021
A brief study of select Western art from Italy’s foremost philosopher.
In Renaissance palaces, the studiolo was a small room to which the prince withdrew to meditate or read, surrounded by paintings he particularly loved. This book is a kind of studiolo for its author, Giorgio Agamben, as he turns his philosophical lens on the world of Western art.
Studiolo is a fascinating take on a selection of artworks created over millennia; some are easily identifiable, others rarer. Though they were produced over an arc of time stretching from 5000 BCE to the present, only now have they achieved their true legibility. Agamben contends that we must understand that the images bequeathed by the past are really addressed to us, here and now; otherwise, our historical awareness is broken. Notwithstanding the attention to details and the critical precautions that characterize the author’s method—they provoke us with a force, even a violence, that we cannot escape. When we understand why Dostoevsky feared losing his faith before Holbein’s Body of the Dead Christ, when Chardin’s Still Life with Hare is suddenly revealed to our gaze as a crucifixion or Twombly’s sculpture shows that beauty must ultimately fall, the artwork is torn from its museological context and restored to its almost prehistoric emergence. These artworks are beautifully reproduced in color throughout Agamben’s short but significant addition to his scholarly oeuvre in English translation.
In Renaissance palaces, the studiolo was a small room to which the prince withdrew to meditate or read, surrounded by paintings he particularly loved. This book is a kind of studiolo for its author, Giorgio Agamben, as he turns his philosophical lens on the world of Western art.
Studiolo is a fascinating take on a selection of artworks created over millennia; some are easily identifiable, others rarer. Though they were produced over an arc of time stretching from 5000 BCE to the present, only now have they achieved their true legibility. Agamben contends that we must understand that the images bequeathed by the past are really addressed to us, here and now; otherwise, our historical awareness is broken. Notwithstanding the attention to details and the critical precautions that characterize the author’s method—they provoke us with a force, even a violence, that we cannot escape. When we understand why Dostoevsky feared losing his faith before Holbein’s Body of the Dead Christ, when Chardin’s Still Life with Hare is suddenly revealed to our gaze as a crucifixion or Twombly’s sculpture shows that beauty must ultimately fall, the artwork is torn from its museological context and restored to its almost prehistoric emergence. These artworks are beautifully reproduced in color throughout Agamben’s short but significant addition to his scholarly oeuvre in English translation.
[more]
At No Time
Scenes and Dialogues
Ilse Aichinger
Seagull Books, 2023
Dramatic sketches full of surprising, unpredictable twists and turns from a major twentieth-century German-language author.
A member of the Gruppe 47 writers’ group which sought to renew German-language literature after World War II, Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) achieved great acclaim as a writer of fiction, poetry, prose, and radio drama. The vignettes in At No Time each begin in recognizable situations, often set in Vienna or other Austrian cities, but immediately swerve into bizarre encounters, supernatural or fantastical situations. Precisely drawn yet disturbingly skewed, they are both naturalistic and disjointed, like the finest surrealist paintings. Created to be experienced on the page or on the radio rather than the stage, they echo the magic realism of her short stories. Even though they frequently take a dark turn, they remain full of humor, agility, and poetic freedom.
A member of the Gruppe 47 writers’ group which sought to renew German-language literature after World War II, Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) achieved great acclaim as a writer of fiction, poetry, prose, and radio drama. The vignettes in At No Time each begin in recognizable situations, often set in Vienna or other Austrian cities, but immediately swerve into bizarre encounters, supernatural or fantastical situations. Precisely drawn yet disturbingly skewed, they are both naturalistic and disjointed, like the finest surrealist paintings. Created to be experienced on the page or on the radio rather than the stage, they echo the magic realism of her short stories. Even though they frequently take a dark turn, they remain full of humor, agility, and poetic freedom.
[more]
Squandered Advice
Ilse Aichinger
Seagull Books, 2022
The first English translation of a major work of postwar German poetry.
Austrian writer Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) was a member of the Gruppe 47 writers’ group, which sought to renew German-language literature after World War II. From a wide-ranging literary career that encompassed all genres, Squandered Advice was Aichinger’s sole poetry collection. The book gathers poems written over several decades, yet Aichinger’s poetic voice remains remarkably consistent, frequently addressing us or a third party, often in the imperative, with many poems written in the form of a question. Even though they use free verse throughout, the poems are still tightly structured, often around sounds or repetition, using spare language. Phrases are often fragmentary, torn off, and juxtaposed as if in a collage. Isolated and haunting, the images are at times everyday, at other times surreal, suggesting dreams or memories. The tone ranges from reassuring and gentle to disjointed and disturbing, but the volume was carefully composed by the author into an integral whole, not chronological but following its own poetic logic. This new translation makes Aichinger’s critically acclaimed book, which has inspired poets in the German-speaking world for decades, available to English-language readers for the first time.
Austrian writer Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) was a member of the Gruppe 47 writers’ group, which sought to renew German-language literature after World War II. From a wide-ranging literary career that encompassed all genres, Squandered Advice was Aichinger’s sole poetry collection. The book gathers poems written over several decades, yet Aichinger’s poetic voice remains remarkably consistent, frequently addressing us or a third party, often in the imperative, with many poems written in the form of a question. Even though they use free verse throughout, the poems are still tightly structured, often around sounds or repetition, using spare language. Phrases are often fragmentary, torn off, and juxtaposed as if in a collage. Isolated and haunting, the images are at times everyday, at other times surreal, suggesting dreams or memories. The tone ranges from reassuring and gentle to disjointed and disturbing, but the volume was carefully composed by the author into an integral whole, not chronological but following its own poetic logic. This new translation makes Aichinger’s critically acclaimed book, which has inspired poets in the German-speaking world for decades, available to English-language readers for the first time.
[more]
Bad Words
Selected Short Prose
Ilse Aichinger
Seagull Books, 2018
A moving work of fiction from one of the most important writers of postwar Austrian and German literature.
Born in 1921 to a Jewish mother, Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) survived World War II in Vienna, while her twin sister Helga escaped with one of the last Kindertransporte to England in 1938. Many of their relatives were deported and murdered. Those losses make themselves felt throughout Aichinger’s writing, which since her first and only novel, The Greater Hope, in 1948, has highlighted displacement, estrangement, and a sharp skepticism toward language. By 1976, when she published Bad Words in German, her writing had become powerfully poetic, dense, and experimental. This volume presents the whole of the original Bad Words in English for the first time, along with a selection of Aichinger’s other short stories of the period; together, they demonstrate her courageous effort to create and deploy a language unmarred by misleading certainties, preconceived rules, or implicit ideologies.
Born in 1921 to a Jewish mother, Ilse Aichinger (1921–2016) survived World War II in Vienna, while her twin sister Helga escaped with one of the last Kindertransporte to England in 1938. Many of their relatives were deported and murdered. Those losses make themselves felt throughout Aichinger’s writing, which since her first and only novel, The Greater Hope, in 1948, has highlighted displacement, estrangement, and a sharp skepticism toward language. By 1976, when she published Bad Words in German, her writing had become powerfully poetic, dense, and experimental. This volume presents the whole of the original Bad Words in English for the first time, along with a selection of Aichinger’s other short stories of the period; together, they demonstrate her courageous effort to create and deploy a language unmarred by misleading certainties, preconceived rules, or implicit ideologies.
[more]
A Thousand Cranes for India
Reclaiming Plurality Amid Hatred
Pallavi Aiyar
Seagull Books, 2020
In Japan there is a legend that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will have their wishes realized. But folding cranes, and the meditative, solemn care that it involves, has come to mean more than just an exercise in wish making. Origami cranes have become a symbol of renewal, atonement, and warning. Their symbolism may have emerged out of Japan’s particular mythology and history, but they do not belong to any one nation. The crane is a migratory bird that crosses borders and makes its home with scant regard to the blood-soaked lines that humans have drawn on maps.
This anthology uses origami cranes as a way for some of India’s best-known writers, poets, and artists to form a shared civic space for a conversation about the fault lines in India at a time of darkness. The twenty-three pieces collected here encompass reportage, stories, poems, memoir, and polemic—the kind of complex and enriching diversity that India demands and deserves. The paper crane becomes a motif of connection, beauty, and reclamation in an otherwise degraded country, enabling those who fight with words to become the best army they can be.
This anthology uses origami cranes as a way for some of India’s best-known writers, poets, and artists to form a shared civic space for a conversation about the fault lines in India at a time of darkness. The twenty-three pieces collected here encompass reportage, stories, poems, memoir, and polemic—the kind of complex and enriching diversity that India demands and deserves. The paper crane becomes a motif of connection, beauty, and reclamation in an otherwise degraded country, enabling those who fight with words to become the best army they can be.
[more]
Ever Since I Did Not Die
Ramy Al-Asheq
Seagull Books, 2020
“I gathered these texts like someone collecting body parts. Here are the pieces of my body, haphazardly brought together in a paper bag. It looks like me with all my madness and sickness—how the revolution made me grow up, what the war broke inside me, and what exile chipped away.”
The texts gathered in Ever Since I Did Not Die by Syrian-Palestinian poet Ramy Al-Asheq are a poignant record of a fateful journey. Having grown up in a refugee camp in Damascus, Al-Asheq was imprisoned and persecuted by the regime in 2011 during the Syrian Revolution. He was released from jail, only to be recaptured and imprisoned in Jordan. After escaping from prison, he spent two years in Jordan under a fake name and passport, during which he won a literary fellowship that allowed him to travel to Germany in 2014, where he now lives and writes in exile.
Through seventeen powerful testimonies, Ever Since I Did Not Die vividly depicts what it means to live through war. Exquisitely weaving the past with the present and fond memories with brutal realities, this volume celebrates resistance through words that refuse to surrender and continue to create beauty amidst destruction—one of the most potent ways to survive in the darkest of hours.
The texts gathered in Ever Since I Did Not Die by Syrian-Palestinian poet Ramy Al-Asheq are a poignant record of a fateful journey. Having grown up in a refugee camp in Damascus, Al-Asheq was imprisoned and persecuted by the regime in 2011 during the Syrian Revolution. He was released from jail, only to be recaptured and imprisoned in Jordan. After escaping from prison, he spent two years in Jordan under a fake name and passport, during which he won a literary fellowship that allowed him to travel to Germany in 2014, where he now lives and writes in exile.
Through seventeen powerful testimonies, Ever Since I Did Not Die vividly depicts what it means to live through war. Exquisitely weaving the past with the present and fond memories with brutal realities, this volume celebrates resistance through words that refuse to surrender and continue to create beauty amidst destruction—one of the most potent ways to survive in the darkest of hours.
[more]
The Algerian Memoirs
Days of Hope and Combat
Henri Alleg
Seagull Books, 2012
The personal history of journalist Henri Alleg is tied inextricably to the history of the French-Algerian Conflict. Best known for his book The Question, a first-hand account of his torture by French troops during the Algerian war for independence, Alleg is famous both for having brought the issue of French torture to the public eye and for his passionate work as a writer, a newspaperman, and a communist activist.
Beginning with his arrival in Algiers in 1939, when he fell immediately in love with the vibrant city, to his departure in 1965, after Boumédienne seized power, this is a critical work of history made devastatingly personal. Algerian Memoirs recounts his experience under the Vichy regime and such watershed moments in colonial history as the infamous Battle of Algiers. In these pages, he relives the violence and the summary executions, the communist struggle, and his party’s strained relations with the National Liberation Front. And, of course, he revisits in stark detail his arrest and torture by the French, his years in prison, and eventual escape to Czechoslovakia.
In the telling of his own story, Alleg explores some of the key events in the history of Europe and North Africa and in the history of the radical press. This is an irreplaceable document of colonialism and its tragic aftermath.
[more]
The Fate of Rural Hell
Asceticism and Desire in Buddhist Thailand
Benedict Anderson
Seagull Books, 2012
In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world’s most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and torturous scenes that showcase what hell may be like. Over the next few decades, Anderson, who is best known for his work, Imagined Communities, found himself transfixed by this unusual amalgamation of objects, returning several times to see attractions like the largest metal-cast Buddha figure in the world and the Palace of a Hundred Spires. The concrete statuaries and perverse art in Luang Phor’s personal museum of hell included, “side by side, an upright human skeleton in a glass cabinet and a life-size replica of Michelangelo’s gigantic nude David, wearing fashionable red underpants from the top of which poked part of a swollen, un-Florentine penis,” alongside dozens of statues of evildoers being ferociously punished in their afterlife.
In The Fate of Rural Hell, Anderson unravels the intrigue of this strange setting, endeavoring to discover what compels so many Thai visitors to travel to this popular spectacle and what order, if any, inspired its creation. At the same time, he notes in Wat Phai Rong Wua the unexpected effects of the gradual advance of capitalism into the far reaches of rural Asia.
Both a one-of-a-kind travelogue and a penetrating look at the community that sustains it, The Fate of Rural Hell is sure to intrigue and inspire conversation as much as Wat Phai Rong Wua itself.
[more]
The Nameless Day
Friedrich Ani
Seagull Books, 2018
Now in paperback, the thrilling, psychological tale of a twenty-year-old cold case and the detective committed to solving it.
After years on the job, police detective Jakob Franck has retired. Finally, the dead—with all their mysteries—will no longer have any claim on him.
Or so he thinks. On a cold autumn afternoon, a case he thought he’d long put behind him returns to his life—and turns it upside down. The Nameless Day tells the story of that twenty-year-old case, which began with Franck carrying the news of the suicide of a seventeen-year-old girl to her mother, and holding her for seven hours as, in her grief, she said not a single word. Now her father has appeared, swearing to Franck that his daughter was murdered. Can Franck follow the cold trail of evidence two decades later to see whether he’s telling the truth? Could he live with himself if he didn’t?
A psychological crime novel certain to thrill fans of Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, The Nameless Day is a masterpiece, a tightly plotted story of contemporary alienation, loss, and violence.
After years on the job, police detective Jakob Franck has retired. Finally, the dead—with all their mysteries—will no longer have any claim on him.
Or so he thinks. On a cold autumn afternoon, a case he thought he’d long put behind him returns to his life—and turns it upside down. The Nameless Day tells the story of that twenty-year-old case, which began with Franck carrying the news of the suicide of a seventeen-year-old girl to her mother, and holding her for seven hours as, in her grief, she said not a single word. Now her father has appeared, swearing to Franck that his daughter was murdered. Can Franck follow the cold trail of evidence two decades later to see whether he’s telling the truth? Could he live with himself if he didn’t?
A psychological crime novel certain to thrill fans of Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, The Nameless Day is a masterpiece, a tightly plotted story of contemporary alienation, loss, and violence.
[more]
Killing Happiness
Friedrich Ani
Seagull Books, 2021
German author Friedrich Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in his latest crime novel.
Happiness is extinguished completely one cold November night when eleven-year-old Lennard Grabbe fails to return home. Thirty-four days later, he is found to have been murdered, and former inspector Jakob Franck, the protagonist of Friedrich Ani’s previous novel The Nameless Day, is entrusted with delivering the most horrible news any parent could ever dream of, setting off a chain reaction of grief among family and friends.
As the special task force is unable to make any progress in the case and the family is unable to deal with the loss, Franck—driven by the need to bring them clarity but also by the painful memories of all the unsolved murder cases from when he was still on active duty—buries himself in witness statements and reports up to the point of exhaustion. He spends hours at the crime scene and employs his special technique of “thought sensitivity,” an abstract, intuitive process that may very well lead him to the “fossil”—that crucial piece of information he needs to solve the case.
Once again, Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in a novel whose melancholy can hardly be surpassed.
Happiness is extinguished completely one cold November night when eleven-year-old Lennard Grabbe fails to return home. Thirty-four days later, he is found to have been murdered, and former inspector Jakob Franck, the protagonist of Friedrich Ani’s previous novel The Nameless Day, is entrusted with delivering the most horrible news any parent could ever dream of, setting off a chain reaction of grief among family and friends.
As the special task force is unable to make any progress in the case and the family is unable to deal with the loss, Franck—driven by the need to bring them clarity but also by the painful memories of all the unsolved murder cases from when he was still on active duty—buries himself in witness statements and reports up to the point of exhaustion. He spends hours at the crime scene and employs his special technique of “thought sensitivity,” an abstract, intuitive process that may very well lead him to the “fossil”—that crucial piece of information he needs to solve the case.
Once again, Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in a novel whose melancholy can hardly be surpassed.
[more]
24 Hours with Gaspar
Sabda Armandio
Seagull Books, 2023
A breathtakingly imaginative futuristic crime thriller.
Decades into the future, Indonesia’s crowded capital city is underwater. A mysterious novelist searches what remains of the metropolis for the story of an old, infamous crime. He combs the streets for traces of Gaspar: private-eye-cum-criminal-mastermind who plotted a seemingly simple robbery of a jewelry store. Far from just unlocking riches, however, the heist unearths a series of interlinking conflicts that have haunted Gaspar since childhood.
In this brilliant twist of genres, this book combines noir with a laugh-out-loud detective and touches of surreal science fiction. The book’s eclectic blend of allusions and narrative strategies opens new horizons for literary crime fiction while also painting a fresh, postmodern portrait of Jakarta. In a city webbed by roadways and canals, personal vendettas trace back to political crimes and social ills. First impressions can’t be trusted, meta-literary motorbikes possess free will, and a senile witness might be a police detective’s best bet at finding the true whodunnit—if we are to believe that a single truth exists at all. It is a chess game in which your knight no longer moves in the shape of an L, and Gaspar intends to win.
Decades into the future, Indonesia’s crowded capital city is underwater. A mysterious novelist searches what remains of the metropolis for the story of an old, infamous crime. He combs the streets for traces of Gaspar: private-eye-cum-criminal-mastermind who plotted a seemingly simple robbery of a jewelry store. Far from just unlocking riches, however, the heist unearths a series of interlinking conflicts that have haunted Gaspar since childhood.
In this brilliant twist of genres, this book combines noir with a laugh-out-loud detective and touches of surreal science fiction. The book’s eclectic blend of allusions and narrative strategies opens new horizons for literary crime fiction while also painting a fresh, postmodern portrait of Jakarta. In a city webbed by roadways and canals, personal vendettas trace back to political crimes and social ills. First impressions can’t be trusted, meta-literary motorbikes possess free will, and a senile witness might be a police detective’s best bet at finding the true whodunnit—if we are to believe that a single truth exists at all. It is a chess game in which your knight no longer moves in the shape of an L, and Gaspar intends to win.
[more]
Bending into the Light
Alice Attie
Seagull Books, 2023
A beautiful and timely collection of poems written during the pandemic.
The poems in Alice Attie’s new volume, Bending into the Light, are poised on an ever-shifting threshold where words “up and down, side to side” appear as “figures in the distance approaching, each a declaration, each persisting”. Beings, things, ideas, present or vanishing, flow through the vessel of language wherein each exudes “its own aura, its own being, its own disappearance.” Attie’s voice is intricate and intimate, shaping and reshaping the space of being and the space of non-being. These contemplative poems, interspersed with a few haunting photographs and artworks, extol, and mourn, melding the quotidian with the philosophical where we are formed and transformed in the profound knowledge that “the voice has no center.”
The poems in Alice Attie’s new volume, Bending into the Light, are poised on an ever-shifting threshold where words “up and down, side to side” appear as “figures in the distance approaching, each a declaration, each persisting”. Beings, things, ideas, present or vanishing, flow through the vessel of language wherein each exudes “its own aura, its own being, its own disappearance.” Attie’s voice is intricate and intimate, shaping and reshaping the space of being and the space of non-being. These contemplative poems, interspersed with a few haunting photographs and artworks, extol, and mourn, melding the quotidian with the philosophical where we are formed and transformed in the profound knowledge that “the voice has no center.”
[more]
Whose Liberty is it Anyway?
Europe at the Crossroads
Stefan Auer
Seagull Books, 2012
Europe's turn of fortune is humbling, humiliating and, perhaps, irreversible. What went wrong, and when? Europe's most audacious moment occurred sometime between 1989 and 1991, a brief period that encapsulated both the demise of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the bold steps forward on the path towards an 'ever-closer union' in Western Europe. Twenty years later, the dramatic failures of economic and political integration have forced Europeans to re-consider the underpinnings of their project. The economic crisis of 2010-11 also manifested itself as a crisis of European democracy. Old questions acquired new meaning: Is it possible to maintain conditions for self-government while undermining the nation-state? What are the limits of solidarity? Can Europe be truly united through its common history, or its common currency? Is further unity in Europe even desirable?
In Whose Liberty Is It Anyway? Stefan Auer exposes the limits of the current European project by interrogating some of its many incongruities, particularly when it comes to its commitment to freedom. The author argues that the calls for more European solidarity are not convincing when Europe's poor are asked to pay for the mistakes of those who are more fortunate. Europe's unity, Auer asserts, can only be maintained by accepting its limitations and by beginning to fulfill some of its many promises.
[more]
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2023
The University of Chicago Press