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This is the first time that Malama Katulwende has exposed a huge collection of unpublished poetry to the public. His work is a stark reflection of his culture, history, and intellectual environments in which he has been able to create.
Based on real events and written by a young Zambian poet and intellectual, this is one of the most realistic and passionate contemporary novels about the life of young people in today's Africa, .
"The works in this volume present aspects of Zambian aesthetics, art, law. politics, ethnicity, economics and history. Sometimes the articles are really Pan African in character and in that sense appeal to larger audiences."--Acknowledgements.
Howard Sturgis' "All That Was Possible" is a successful psychologic study. Here is one "Mrs." Sibyl Crofts, who discreetly retires to a Welsh countryside after her London "past." She meets Robert Henshaw, a rigidly conventional squireen belonging to the neighborhood. At first he shows open hostility to Sibyl, a beautiful and charming woman, yet, as in time they become closely acquainted, Henshaw, though knowing her history, falls to her fascinations ... (The American Monthly Review of Reviews) --- Howard Overing Sturgis has has handled his subject with great skill and delicacy and with a remorseless logic that compels the reader to recognize the outcome as inevitable. The story is told in the form of letters, which can be used by a clever writer with excellent results. The letters, all written by Sibyl, are used as a vehicle for conveying facts, not as a medium for revealing character. The book is extremely interesting. It is so devoid of any preaching, yet so logical in its conclusions, that no thoughtful person can read it without acquiescing in the lesson it so quietly inculcates.(M. K. Ford; The Critic)
The gentle melancholy of two people coming together in a way which can never lead to full satisfaction, the quiet tragedy of a separation not forced by external powers but by the constant pressure of circumstances-this is what sounds through this splendid story. "Trials and Tribulations" is built entirely on this motive. An honest sturdy young officer and a decent pretty girl get to know each other on an excursion. Unconsciously they drift into a relation where heart meets heart, the breaking of which causes the deepest pain. But both see clearly from the beginning that there is no other end. For they know that the world is stronger than the individual, and the many small moments than the on...
Historical prose translation of the famous Polish verse epic. In the book, Tadeusz tells the story of two feuding noble families; it takes place in a fictional idyllic village, in 1811 and 1812, after the division of Poland-Lithuania between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. --- "No European nation of our day has such an epic as Pan Tadeusz. In it Don Quixote has been fused with the Iliad. ... Pan Tadeusz is a true epic. No more can be said or need be said." (Zygmunt Krasinski) --- "No play of Shakespeare, no long poem of Milton or Wordsworth or Tennyson, is so well known or so well beloved by the English people as is Pan Tadeusz by the Poles. To find a work equally well known one might turn to Defoe's prosaic tale of adventure, Robinson Crusoe; to find a work so beloved would be hardly possible." (George Rapall Noyes)
The Conquest of Plassans (Rougon-Macquart): The Rougon family, in M. Zola's narrative, rises to fortune, and the town of Plassans (really Aix-en-Provence) bows down before its power. But time passes, the revolt of the clergy supervenes, by their influence the town chooses a Royalist Marquis as deputy, and it becomes necessary to conquer it once again. --- Abb Faujas, by whom this conquest is achieved on behalf of the Empire, is a strongly conceived character, perhaps the most real of all the priests that are scattered through M. Zola's books. No other priestly creation of M. Zola's pen vie with the stern, chaste, authoritative, ambitious Faujas, the man who subdues Plassans, and who wrecks t...
In his remarkably interesting novel, Howard Sturgis, with a skilful touch, describes life in the rich and self-indulgent aristocratic society. It traces the career of a young man, Sainty, brought up in the midst of great luxury. Indecision of character is the weakness of Sainty. He allows himself to become the prey of a scheming mother and her worthless daughter, and, in spite of the tremendous advantage of his wealth and position, and a strong desire to benefit his fellow-men, he never accomplishes anything. Sainty is the victim of his surroundings; he makes a few ineffectual struggles before the waters of adverse circumstance close over him. Most of the men and women described in "Belchamber" are hard and grasping if not distinctly vicious, and yet the variety shown is endless. The book is extremely well written, showing marked skill in the delineation of character.---Mary K. Ford
In "The Downfall" Zola tells the story of a terrific land-slide which overwhelmed the French Second Empire: It is a story of war, grim and terrible; of a struggle to the death between two great nations. In it the author has put much of his finest work, and the result is one of the masterpieces of literature. The hero is Jean Macquart, son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise. After the terrible death of his wife, as told in "La Terre" ("The Soil"), Jean enlisted for the second time in the army, and went through the campaign up to the battle of Sedan. After the capitulation he was made prisoner, and in escaping was wounded. When he returned to active service he took part in crushing the excesses of the Commune in Paris... The Downfall has been described as "a prose epic of modern war," and vast though the subject be, it is treated in a manner that is powerful, painful, and pathetic.
Love is necessarily an important element in all imaginative literature, but with Gottfried Keller it does not overshadow all other aspects of life. Great passion we do not find in his works. In "A Village Romeo and Juliet", it is not ill-consuming love that makes the two young people seek death, but the bitter realization of life's law, as they understood it, which made it impossible for them ever to be united. The story is a fine illustration of what a great artist may make out of his raw material. Keller had read in a newspaper a report of the suicide of two young people, the sort of tragedy that we may read almost daily in newspapers; he seized upon the possibilities of the situation and the result was this story, perhaps the best he ever wrote. --- Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) was one of the foremost Swiss novelists and one of the most original figures of German literature since Goethe, a master of style worthy to be classed with the great names of all ages. (John Albrecht Walz)