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Photojournalist Hanna Troy is killing time on a summer walkabout in the city. As the afternoon progresses, her reflections unravel a raw, sometimes sensuous story of darkness and light. It explores a failing relationship, the anguish of a professional trying to become a mother and the complexities of a young and outspoken woman in Ireland's somewhat repressed 1980s. Considering the experiences of her contemporaries and evoking family events long past that still resonate, Hanna is determined that her own resilience will overcome the challenges she faces. When The Light Makers was first published it received widespread acclaim, with critics describing Mary O'Donnell's debut as 'compelling', 'powerful' and 'erotic'. It rated in the Irish best seller listings for weeks and became the Sunday Tribune's choice as 'Best New Irish Novel of 1992.' This is the novel's second edition.
The poems in the first part of Mary O'Donnell's new collection include a journey back to her South Ulster border past, variations on the theme of landscape and travel, and a number of meditative visions of the rituals of love. Other poems praise the heroism and endurance of human experience, both contemporary and historic, which O'Donnell connects to themes of childhood, love and death. At the same time she undertakes her quest with a characteristic sensuousness which will delight new readers, as well as readers of her previous work.
Set in a turbulent British empire, these historical stories brim with energy and emotion, taking readers to the remote reaches of early twentieth century Burma to an Ireland in flux. These interconnected stories are filled with humor, insight, and unexpected moments of revelation.
The Body of Christ is a traumatised body because it is constituted of traumatised bodies. This monograph explores the nature of that trauma and examines the implications of identifying the trauma of this body. Constructing new ways of thinking about the narratives at the heart of the Christian faith, 'Broken Bodies' offers a fresh perspective on Christian theology, in particular the Eucharist, and presents a call to love the body in all its guises. It offers new pathways for considering what it means to ‘be Christian’ and explores the impact that the experience of trauma has on Christian doctrine.
This multidisciplinary volume, the first of its kind, presents an account of China’s contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. In recent decades, Shenzhen has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China’s special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China’s emerging technology industries. Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the contributors explore how the post-Mao Chinese appropriation of capitalist logic led to a dramatic remodeling of the Chinese city and collective life in China today. These essays show how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation through cases of public health, labor, architecture, gender, politics, education, and more. Offering scholars and general readers alike an unprecedented look at one of the world’s most dynamic metropolises, this collective history uses the urban case study to explore critical problems and possibilities relevant for modern-day China and beyond.
'The Ark Builders' is thoughtful, sensuous and witty, combining the topical with the timeless. One of its themes is that of the aging woman.
"Little gems, as observant as anything in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads."--Guardian
The harp became the emblem on Irish coinage in the 16th century. Since then it has been symbolic of Irish culture, music, and politics - finally evolving into a significant marker of national identity in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most important period in this evolution was between 1770 and 1880, when the harp became central to many utopian visions of an autonomous Irish nation, and its metaphoric significance eclipsed its musical one. Mary Louise O'Donnell uses these fascinating years of major social, political, and cultural change as the focus of her study on the Irish harp.
Born Catholic. Raised Catholic. Americans across generations have used these phrases to describe their formative days, but the experience of growing up Catholic in the United States has changed over the last several decades. While the creed and the sacraments remain the same, the context for learning the faith has transformed. As a result of demographic shifts and theological developments, children face a different set of circumstances today from what they encountered during the mid-twentieth-century. Through a close study of autobiographical and fictional texts that depict the experience, Ingrained Habits explores the intimate details of everyday life for children growing up Catholic during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. These literary portrayals present upbringings characterized by an all-encompassing encounter with religion. The adult authors of such writings run the gamut from vowed priests to unwavering atheists and their depictions range from glowing nostalgia to deep-seated resentment; however, they curiously describe similar experiences from their childhood days in the Church.
A provocative imagining of the later years of the mother of Jesus finds her living a solitary existence in Ephesus years after her son's crucifixion and struggling with guilt, anger, and feelings that her son is not the son of God and that His sacrifice was not for a worthy cause.