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Boasting a notorious thief as one of their ancestors, the Scorta family are met by indifference and general opprobrium in the small town in southern Italy where they live. Yet despite these testing circumstances, the family finds pride in its roots and discovers happiness despite the abject poverty in which they are forced to live.
A moving fable about luck, persistence, and hope, grounded in the often tragic reality of modern-day immigration, by the winner of the 2004 Prix Goncort. Captain Salvatore Piracci has sailed along the Italian coast for the last twenty years, intercepting boats with clandestine African immigrants who have risked everything in the hope of reaching the new Eldorado. But when Piracci is confronted by a woman haunted by the death of her son, killed during an illegal crossing, he is forced to question the validity of his border-patrolling mission. Meanwhile, two brothers prepare to leave Sudan and make the dangerous passage to Europe. Separated mid-voyage, Suleiman, the youngest, vows to make it to the promised land and find the means to reunite with his ailing elder brother. At a time when debates over immigration and national identity dominate headlines in the United States and Europe, best-selling author Laurent Gaudé offers a unique portrait of the individuals who compromise their dreams and endanger their lives in search of a better existence.
A son recounts the epic story of his late mother’s life in this mythic novel of love, family, hatred, and revenge. When Salina dies, it falls to her youngest son to tell her story, a story of violence and suffering, vengeance and passion. Exiled three times, the first time as a newborn abandoned outside a village by a mysterious horseman, Salina was taken in and raised by a clan that only ever saw her as a stranger and an enemy to be defeated. Three times a mother, her children born from strife, Salina never knew love, and revenge became her reason to live. To gain admittance to the cemetery, to a place of peace at last, Salina’s son must face up and tell the tale of Salina’s ordealsâ€...
A novel about the horrors of war and its aftermath from one of Europe’s most brilliant authors Award-winning author António Lobo Antunes returns to the subject of the Portuguese colonial war in Angola with a vigorous account of atrocity and vengeance. Drawing on his own bitter experience as a soldier stationed for twenty-seven months in Angola, Lobo Antunes tells the story of a young African boy who is brought to Portugal by one of the soldiers who destroyed the child’s village, and of the boy’s subsequent brutal murder of this adoptive father figure at a ritual pig killing. Deftly framing the events through an assembly of interwoven narratives and perspectives, this is one of Lobo Antunes’s most captivating and experimental books. It is also a timely consideration of the lingering wounds that remain from the conflict between European expansionism and its colonized victims who were forced to accept the norms of a supposedly superior culture.
A fable about the blindness of war, from a popular writer dubbed "le chouchou des libraires'" ("the darling of the booksellers") by the French press.
From the author of The Red Notebook, described as 'Parisian perfection' by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, Red is My Heart is a stunning collection of words and images in collaboration with Parisian street artist, Le Sonneur, about how to mend a broken heart. 'Enchanting' Washington Post How can you mend a broken heart? Do you write a letter to the woman who left you – and post it to an imaginary address? Buy a new watch, to reset your life? Or get rid of the jacket you wore every time you argued, because it was in some way … responsible? Combining the wry musings of a rejected lover with playful drawings in just three colours – red, black and white – bestselling author of The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain, and renowned street artist Le Sonneur have created a striking addition to the literature of unrequited love. Sharp, yet warm, whimsical and deeply Parisian, this is a must for all Antoine Laurain fans.
Hell's Gate is an intense, powerful and thoroughly unnerving' [The Guardian] story of one man's journey to the underworld to bring back his son from the dead. 'An intense contemporary myth' The Irish Times What if death was not the end? A thrilling story of love, loss, revenge and redemption in Naples and beyond. When his son is killed by gangsters’ crossfire on his way to school, Neapolitan taxi driver Matteo is consumed by despair. But just when he feels life has lost all meaning, he encounters a man who claims the living can find ways into the afterlife. And legend says that there’s an entrance to the underworld beneath Naples. What if Matteo had a chance of bringing Pippo back from the dead?
A history of Europe like you've never read before. From the industrial revolution through two world wars and to the birth of the European Union, Our Europe sets in free verse the story of 150 years of growth, confrontation, hope, defeat and passion.
The question of migration has come to dominate the news agenda in many countries, but what does the word ‘migrant’ really mean today and how should we respond to those who are labelled ‘migrants’? In this short book Alain Badiou argues that our way of thinking about migration should be governed both by an ethical duty to welcome the migrant in the name of hospitality and also by the urgent need to put an end to the global capitalist oligarchy that has produced the migrant as a figure of contemporary crisis. For the ‘migrant,’ argues Badiou, is in fact a nomadic proletarian. Today, our homeland is the world, and any meaningful politics must include those who come to us and who represent the universal nomadic proletariat. Writing with the rigor, clarity, and polemical flair that have made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers, and drawing on a rich body of material including contemporary poetry and the words of an anonymous migrant, Badiou develops a powerful riposte to those who have stoked the fear of migrants and exploited the migration question for political ends.
This contemporary translation from the French play is a a meticulous study of human relationships and of the power of contract and rhetoric. First performed at London's the National Theatre.