A Goyen Companion


Book Description

Goyen's writing. The essays offer close but accessible readings of individual novels and stories, while the appreciations give tantalizing personal glimpses of the author and his method of working.




It Starts with Trouble


Book Description

William Goyen was a writer of startling originality and deep artistic commitment whose work attracted an international audience and the praise of such luminaries as Northrop Frye, Truman Capote, Gaston Bachelard, and Joyce Carol Oates. His subject was the land and language of his native East Texas; his desire, to preserve the narrative music through which he came to know his world. Goyen sought to transform the cherished details of his lost boyhood landscape into lasting, mythic forms. Cut off from his native soil and considering himself an “orphan,” Goyen brought modernist alienation and experimentation to Texas materials. The result was a body of work both sophisticated and handmade—and a voice at once inimitable and unmistakable. It Starts with Trouble is the first complete account of Goyen’s life and work. It uncovers the sources of his personal and artistic development, from his early years in Trinity, Texas, through his adolescence and college experience in Houston; his Navy service during World War II; and the subsequent growth of his writing career, which saw the publication of five novels, including The House of Breath, nonfiction works such as A Book of Jesus, several short story collections and plays, and a book of poetry. It explores Goyen’s relationships with such legendary figures as Frieda Lawrence, Katherine Anne Porter, Stephen Spender, Anaïs Nin, and Carson McCullers. No other twentieth-century writer attempted so intimate a connection with his readers, and no other writer of his era worked so passionately to recover the spiritual in an age of disabling irony. Goyen’s life and work are a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling and the absolute necessity of narrative art.




A Companion to Magical Realism


Book Description

The Companion to Magical Realism provides an assessment of the world-wide impact of a movement which was incubated in Germany, flourished in Latin America and then spread to the rest of the world. It provides a set of up-to-date assessments of the work of writers traditionally associated with magical realism such as Gabriel Garc a M rquez in particular his recently published memoirs], Alejo Carpentier, Miguel ngel Asturias, Juan Rulfo, Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel and Salman Rushdie, as well as bringing into the fold new authors such as W.B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Jos Saramago, Dorit Rabinyan, Ovid, Mar a Luisa Bombal, Ibrahim al-Kawni, Mayra Montero, Nakagami Kenji, Jos Eustasio Rivera and Elias Khoury, discussed for the first time in the context of magical realism. Written in a jargon-free style, and with all quotations translated into English, this book offers a refreshing new interdisciplinary slant on magical realism as an international literary phenomenon emerging from the trauma of colonial dispossession. The companion also has a Guide to Further Reading. Stephen Hart is Professor of Hispanic Studies, University College London and Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru. Wen-chin Ouyang lectures in Arabic Literature and Comparative Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. CONTRIBUTORS: Jonathan Allison, Michael Berkowitz, John D. Erickson, Robin Fiddian, Evelyn Fishburn, Stephen M. Hart, David Henn, Stephanie Jones, Julia King, Efra n Kristal, Mark Morris, Humberto N ez-Faraco, Wen-Chin Ouyang, Lois Parkinson Zamora, Helene Price, Tsila A. Ratner, Kenneth Reeds, Alejandra Rengifo, Lorna Robinson, Sarah Sceats, Donald L. Shaw, Stefan Sperl, Philip Swanson, Jason Wilson.







Into The Tunnel


Book Description

During its twenty-five years as a work-in-progress, William H. Gass's mammoth magnum opus became a legend of the literary world, the Sasquatch of contemporary American fiction. Along with an included interview with the author, the contributors to this study help situate Gass's challenging narrative within the remarkable career of a notable philosopher, essayist, and author of fiction. Contributors examine the book's quarrel with history, its engagement with issues of ethics and aesthetics, its representation of personality, its distinctive style and structure, its sophisticated metafictional texture, along with much else. What is going on in The Tunnel is not always immediately apparent, but the essays included in here tease out its secrets and concentrate our attention on details of an exasperating and exhilarating literary achievement.







Companion Encyclopedia of Geography


Book Description

This revised edition takes the theme of place as the unifying principle for a full account of the discipline at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The work comprises 64 substantial essays addressing human and physical geography, and exploring their inter-relations. The encyclopedia does full justice to the enormous growth of social and cultural geography in recent years. Leading international academics from ten countries and four continents have contributed, ensuring that differing traditions in geography around the world are represented. In addition to references, the essays also have recommendations for further reading. As with the original work, the new Companion Encyclopedia of Geography provides a state-of-the-art survey of the discipline and is an indispensable addition to the reference shelves of libraries supporting research and teaching in geography.




William Goyen


Book Description

Proclaimed "one of the great American writers of short fiction" by the New York Times Book Review, William Goyen (1915-1983) had a quintessentially American literary career, in which national recognition came only after years of struggle to find his authentic voice, his audience, and an artistic milieu in which to create. These letters, which span the years 1937 to 1983, offer a compelling testament to what it means to be a writer in America. A prolific correspondent, Goyen wrote regularly to friends, family, editors, and other writers. Among the letters selected here are those to such major literary figures as W. H. Auden, Archibald MacLeish, Joyce Carol Oates, William Inge, Elia Kazan, Elizabeth Spencer, and Katherine Anne Porter. These letters constitute a virtual autobiography, as well as a fascinating introduction to Goyen's work. They add an important chapter to the study of American and Texas literature of the twentieth century.




Going to See the Elephant


Book Description

"Going to See the Elephant is a safari into the wilds of the mind of George Garrett, and a more interesting place to explore is hard to imagine. Whether he (or his beleaguered alter-ego, John Towne) is examining the writing life, tipping his hat to other writers, or fulminating about the sorry state of the world we live in, he is well worth a listen - both for the sheer pleasure of it and for the wisdom to be found in it." —R.H.W. Dillard, author of Understanding George Garrett




Unsteadily marching on


Book Description

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