Literature: History & Criticism

Written by a Principal Lecturer in English with over ten years' experience in teaching literary and cultural theory, Literary Theory: A Complete Introduction gives you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It outlines the basics in clear, jargon-free English, and prov...ides added-value features like key ideas and memorable quotations.
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Kneel like a prayer full of lynching This is my God-given white 'Savage is as savage does. And we're all implicated. Avia breaks the colonial lens wide open. We peer through its poetic shards and see a savage world - outside, inside. With characteristic savage and stylish w...it, Avia holds the word-blade to our necks and presses with a relentless grace. At the end, you'll feel your pulse anew.' -Selina Tusitala Marsh, New Zealand Poet Laureate 2017-19 The voices of Tusiata Avia are infinite. She ranges from vulnerable to forbidding to celebratory with forms including pantoums, prayers and invocations. And in this electrifying new work, she gathers all the power of her voice to speak directly into histories of violence.
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Fifteen years after graduating from Harvard, five close friends on the cusp of middle age are still pursuing an elusive happiness and wondering if they've wasted their youthful opportunities. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways... but won't share what is haunting her. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life and starting to regret prioritising meaning over wealth in their careers. Eloise, now a professor who studies the psychology of happiness, is troubled by her younger wife's radical politics. And Jomo, founder of a luxury jewellery company, has been carrying an engagement ring around for months, unsure whether his girlfriend is the one. The soul searching begins in earnest at their much-anticipated college reunion weekend on the Harvard campus, when the most infamous member of their class, Frederick - senior advisor and son of the recently elected and loathed US President - turns up dead. Old friends often think they know everything about one another, but time has a way of making us strangers to those we love - and to ourselves . . .
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I thought about being too small for so much, but that no one told you when you were big enough, how many centimetres on the doorpost that was, and I asked God if he please couldn't take my brother Matthies instead of my rabbit.

Compelling and wonderfully descriptive, Irish veterinarian, Austin Donnelly, recalls his life experiences as a vet travelling from his native Ireland, to the far reaches of Australia and New Zealand.