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The cast-offs of modern urban society are driven out onto the edges of the city and left to make a life there for themselves. They are not, however, in any natural wilderness, but in a world of refuse and useless junk - a place which denies any form of sustainable life. Here, the unemployed, the homeless, the old and the bereft struggle to build shelters out of old tin cans, scavenge for food and fight against insuperable odds. There is the mysterious great wind that flattens their homes every night and cripples their children; the industrial pollution from the factory which slowly disfigures them. Some of the lucky ones find work, but are ruthlessly exploited, denied everything except their pitiful wages. All attempts at asserting their dignity are doomed to failure, either by the outside world of cops, lawyers, thugs and businessmen, or by their own frustration and anger. And yet somehow they survive: it seems that society thrives on the garbage hills because it has always been built on one. In this dark fairy tale full of scenes taken from what has increasingly become a way of life for many inhabitants on this planet, Latife Tekin has written a grim parable of human destiny.
'If you read one book about India, read this one.' Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of The Cure 'Mountain Tales is a remarkable feat of immersive reporting and story-telling, a deeply-felt exploration of ideas, and a gripping chronicle of the fates of the garbage-pickers of Mumbai ... I loved this book.' Suzy Hansen, author of Notes on a Foreign Country All of Mumbai's memories and castaway possessions come to die at the Deonar garbage mountains. And among these vast, teetering piles of discarded things - medical waste, rotten food, old clothes, broken glass and twisted metal - a small, forgotten community lives and works. Scouring the dump for whatever can be resold or recycled, waste pickers also mark the familiar milestones of babies born, love found, illnesses suffered and recovered from. Like a mirror image, their stories are shaped by the influx of unwanted things from the world outside. But now, as Deonar's toxic halo becomes undeniable, a change is coming. And as officials try to close it, the lives that the pickers have built on the Mountain seem more fragile than ever.
The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their school disappears, vanishing into the wasteland of the old chemical plant. Nobody knows where these boys go, or whether they are alive or dead, and without evidence the authorities claim they are simply runaways. The town policeman, Morrison knows otherwise. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder, and he believes all the boys have been killed. Though he is seriously compromised, he would still like to find out the killer's identity. The local children also want to know and, in their fear and frustration, they turn on Rivers, a sad fantasist and suspected paedophile living alone at ...
Right to the City Novels in Turkish Literature from the 1960s to the Present analyses the representation of rural migration to Istanbul in literature, placing Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the right to the city at the centre of the argument. Using a framework of critical urban theory, the book examines Orhan Kemal’s Gurbet Kuşları [The Homesick Birds] (1962); Muzaffer İzgü’s Halo Dayı ve İki Öküz [Uncle Halo and Two Oxen] (1973); Latife Tekin’s Berci Kristin Çöp Masalları [Berji Kristin: Tales From the Garbage Hills] (1984); Metin Kaçan’s Ağır Roman [Heavy Roman(i)] (1990); Ayhan Geçgin’s Kenarda [On the Periphery] (2003); Hatice Meryem’s İnsan Kısım Kısım, Ye...
'A nihilistic wit reminiscent of Samuel Beckett.'-The Independent
A bizarre, magical narrative from one of Turkey's leading feminist writers.
Readers will fall for a side of Italy rarely seen with the just-turned-forty Peter Moore rattling around the country on the back of an ageing Vespa scooter — like himself, a little rough around the edges, and a bit slow in the mornings perhaps, but basically still OK.
The domination of single subjects in academic programmes and institutions has recently been called into question. Literary studies are currently opening themselves up to the epistemological renewal that other fields can offer. They are increasingly borrowing theoretical tools from other subjects in order to analyse the historical, socio-political and institutional conditions of the production of literary texts, to identify the general discursive circumstances in which they emerge, and to study the relationship between literature and other media. Similarly, while subjects such as sociology, history, and political science have always been closely related – if not literally spinoffs from one ...
One of the original 12 Little Golden Books, The Poky Little Puppy has sold nearly 15 million copies since 1942, making it one of the most popular children’s books of all time. Now this curious little puppy is ready to win the hearts and minds of a new generation of kids.
Reconfiguring the lines between literature and psychoanalysis, this book argues that to alleviate poverty we engage with its psychic life.