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Much of the critical writing on the fiction of Alice Munro has explored and emphasized Munro's 'realism'. But her stories frequently turn on what has been left out; they are rife with unsent (unfinished) letters, with things people mean to, but do not, say or tell. Ajay Heble's study focuses on Munro's involvement with a 'discourse of absence' and suggests that our understanding of these texts often depends not only on what happens in the fiction, but also on what might have happened. Munro's stories confer their meaning not simply by referring to an outer reality, but also by bestowing upon the reader a stimulating wealth of possibilities taken from what we might call a potential or absent ...
The Canadian author Alice Munro, recognized as one of the world’s finest short story writers, published some seventeen books between 1968 and 2014, and was awarded the third Man Booker International Prize in 2009 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. This worldwide recognition of her career calls for a look back at her very first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades, published in 1968 and composed of fifteen stories written between 1953 and 1967. Some forty-five years after the publication of this first volume, worldwide specialists of her work examine the first steps of a great writer, and offer new critical perspectives on a debut collection that already foreshadows some of the patterns and themes of later stories. Contributors adopt a variety of approaches from the fields of narratology, gender studies, psychoanalysis, and genetic criticism, amongst others, to illuminate the main stylistic features, narrative strategies, literary traditions, modes of writing and generic traits of the stories in Dance of the Happy Shades.
Although the short story has existed in various forms for centuries, it has particularly flourished during the last hundred years. Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English includes alphabetically-arranged entries for 50 English-language short story writers from around the world. Most of these writers have been active since 1960, and they reflect a wide range of experiences and perspectives in their works. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes biography, a review of existing criticism, a lengthier analysis of specific works, and a selected bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The volume begins with a detailed introduction to the short story genre and concludes with an annotated bibliography of major works on short story theory.
What in terms of Alice Munro’s creative artistry and creative power allowed her to become the first and only short story writer, the first and only Canadian, and just the thirteenth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? And exactly when during Munro’s career did her artistry and power advance to ensure that she would earn such world-wide renown? The answers lie in studying the boldly innovative yet greatly under-examined group of her four mid-career breakthrough books. Our volume therefore provides a carefully orchestrated analysis of Munro’s subtle yet potent handling of form, technique and style both within individual stories and across these special collections. Reading Alice Munro’s Breakthrough Books: A Suite in Four Voices not only addresses a significant vacancy in Munro criticism – and, by extension, in all short story criticism – but, equally importantly, offers an exciting new model for how criticism can be collectively written.
Dr. Ann Webster Bunch delves into the enigmatic disappearance of William Morgan, a 19th-century figure whose threat to expose Masonic secrets led to his mysterious vanishing, igniting political turmoil and leaving a case that remains unresolved nearly 200 years later. William Morgan was last seen in Batavia, New York, in September 1826, down on his luck and haunting the local pubs. An elusive local citizen, he had recently threatened to publish purported Masonic secrets. He was later arrested that same month in Canandaigua for petty theft and eventually transported and held in Fort Niagara. From there Morgan seems to have disappeared forever. The local Freemasons were accused of his demise. ...
There are few parts of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack that embody the magic and appeal of the game more than Cricket Round the World. Elk Stopped Play is a carefully-chosen selection of stories from twenty years of one of Wisden's most-loved sections. Combining the highlights of two decades of the Almanack's coverage of the game's further reaches, as well as original material that places the stories in context and expands upon the incidents and personalities involved, it is an original and eccentric examination of the sport's enduring worldwide appeal. There are extraordinary matches, great individual performances, stories of exceptional pioneering dedication and quirky incidents from all over the world, from games staged on tiny, far-flung Pacific islands to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic, from cricketers dodging mortars in Baghdad to Indonesian mud wickets on converted buffalo paddocks via fractured French skulls, Antarctic barbecues and untimely interruptions by Finnish elk. The perfect book to dip into either during the cricket season or during the long wait for the end of April to come round again, Elk Stopped Play is a fantastic addition to the Wisden bookshelf.
Imagining Care brings literature and philosophy into dialogue by examining caregiving in literature by contemporary Canadian writers alongside ethics of care philosophy. Through close readings of fiction and memoirs by Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ignatieff, Ian Brown, and David Chariandy, Amelia DeFalco argues that these narratives expose the tangled particularities of relations of care, dependency, and responsibility, as well as issues of marginalisation on the basis of gender, race, and class. DeFalco complicates the myth of Canada as an unwaveringly caring nation that is characterized by equality and compassion. Caregiving is unpredictable: one person’s altruism can be another’s narcissism; one’s compassion, another’s condescension or even cruelty. In a country that conceives of itself as a caring society, these texts depict in stark terms the ethical dilemmas that arise from our attempts to respond to the needs of others.
In 1851 Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lif...