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This book focuses on traditions and transformations in contemporary Irish short fiction, covering pivotal issues such as gender, sexuality, abortion, the body, nostalgia, identity, and migration. In separate chapters, it introduces readers to important writers such as Maeve Binchy, Colm Tóibín, Edna O’Brien, Emma Donoghue, Gish Jen, and Donal Ryan. Given its focus, the book benefits researchers and students who are interested in Irish literature and culture, especially those who want to learn about important traditions in Irish literature, the changing face of these conventions, and the implications. The book, which received the First Book Prize 2019 awarded by The Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities, offers a unique window on Irish culture and a good read for fans of these acclaimed writers who want to learn about interesting issues concerning their short fiction.
This Open access book is a collection of essays and offers an in-depth analysis of silence as an aesthetic practice and a textual strategy which paradoxically speaks of the unspoken nature of many inconvenient hidden truths of Irish society in the work of contemporary fiction writers. The study acknowledges Ireland’s history of damaging silences and considers its legacies, but it also underscores how silence can serve as a valuable, even productive, means of expression. From a wide range of critical perspectives, the individual essays address, among other issues, the conspiracies of silence in Catholic Ireland, the silenced structural oppression of Celtic Tiger Ireland, the recovery of sil...
Fairytales with a twist from the Man Booker and Orange prize-shortlisted author of Room. In Kissing the Witch, Emma Donoghue unwinds thirteen fairy tales and writes them anew: Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother, Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror, and Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire. In these stories, Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances – sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.
The Tang dynasty, lasting from 618 to 907, was the high point of medieval Chinese history, featuring unprecedented achievements in governmental organization, economic and territorial expansion, literature, the arts, and religion. Many Tang practices continued, with various developments, to influence Chinese society for the next thousand years. For these and other reasons the Tang has been a key focus of Western sinologists. This volume presents English-language reprints of fifty-seven critical studies of the Tang, in the three general categories of political history, literature and cultural history, and religion. The articles and book chapters included here are important scholarly benchmarks that will serve as the starting-point for anyone interested in the study of medieval China.
Introduction by Paula Arai. This is the first collection to offer selections from the foundational texts of the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Zen traditions in a single volume. Through representative selections from their poetry, letters, sermons, and visual arts, the most important Zen Masters provide students with an engaging, cohesive introduction to the first 1200 years of this rich -- and often misunderstood -- tradition. A general introduction and notes provide historical, biographical, and cultural context; a note on translation, and a glossary of terms are also included.
Tells the story of the growing Chinese Navy - The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) - and its expanding capabilities, evolving roles and military implications for the USA. Divided into four thematic sections, this special collection of essays surveys and analyzes the most important aspects of China's navel modernization.