Stained Glass Elegies

Stained Glass Elegies
Author: Shūsaku Endō
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 174
Release: 1990
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811211420

The acclaimed short stories of the master Japanese writer.

Elegy

Elegy
Author: David Kennedy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2008-03-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1134209061

Grief and mourning are generally considered to be private, yet universal instincts. But in a media age of televised funerals and visible bereavement, elegies are increasingly significant and open to public scrutiny. Providing an overview of the history of the term and the different ways in which it is used, David Kennedy: outlines the origins of elegy, and the characteristics of the genre examines the psychology and cultural background underlying works of mourning explores how the modern elegy has evolved, and how it differs from ‘canonical elegy’, also looking at female elegists and feminist readings considers the elegy in the light of writing by theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Catherine Waldby looks at the elegy in contemporary writing, and particularly at how it has emerged and been adapted as a response to terrorist attacks such as 9/11. Emphasising and explaining the significance of elegy today, this illuminating guide to an emotive literary genre will be of interest to students of literature, media and culture.

Approaching Silence

Approaching Silence
Author: Mark W. Dennis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1623569834

Shusaku Endo is celebrated as one of Japan's great modern novelists, often described as "Japan's Graham Greene," and Silence is considered by many Japanese and Western literary critics to be his masterpiece. Approaching Silence is both a celebration of this award-winning novel as well as a significant contribution to the growing body of work on literature and religion. It features eminent scholars writing from Christian, Buddhist, literary, and historical perspectives, taking up, for example, the uneasy alliance between faith and doubt; the complexities of discipleship and martyrdom; the face of Christ; and, the bodhisattva ideal as well as the nature of suffering. It also frames Silence through a wider lens, comparing it to Endo's other works as well as to the fiction of other authors. Approaching Silence promises to deepen academic appreciation for Endo, within and beyond the West. Includes an Afterword by Martin Scorsese on adapting Silence for the screen as well as the full text of Steven Dietz's play adaptation of Endo's novel.

The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature

The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature
Author: George Thomas Kurian
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 734
Release: 2010-04-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0810872838

The written word is one of the defining elements of Christian experience. As vigorous in the 1st century as it is in the 21st, Christian literature has had a significant function in history, and teachers and students need to be reminded of this powerful literary legacy. Covering 2,000 years, The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature is the first encyclopedia devoted to Christian writers and books. In addition to an overview of the Christian literature, this two-volume set also includes 40 essays on the principal genres of Christian literature and more than 400 bio-bibliographical essays describing the principal writers and their works. These essays examine the evolution of Christian thought as reflected in the literature of every age. The companion volume also features bibliographies, an index, a timeline of Christian Literature, and a list of the greatest Christian authors. The encyclopedia will appeal not only to scholars and Christian evangelicals, but students and teachers in seminaries and theological schools, as well as to the growing body of Christian readers and bibliophiles.

Shadowlife

Shadowlife
Author: Martin Grzimek
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1991
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811211529

A detective novel which offers a gripping overview of the purpose and function of poetic fiction in the twenty-first century.

Three Italian Chronicles

Three Italian Chronicles
Author: Stendhal
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 212
Release: 1991
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811211505

Three novellas of Italian passion by the great French author tell of the infamous trial of a young Roman noblewoman for the murder of her father, the illicit liaison and subsequent trial of an abbess, and the fortunes of a Roman aristocrats daughter who falls in love with a wounded soldier.

The Bluebird Cafe

The Bluebird Cafe
Author: Carmel Bird
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1991
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811211550

The world of Australian writer Carmel Bird is one in which no hard line is drawn between everyday reality and unvarnished fantasy. Her new novel, The Bluebird Café, is a delectable concoction. In the brew are an Historic Museum Village (a Tasmanian Disneyland under an enormous glass dome), a verdant horizontal forest, the mysterious disappearance of midget child Lovelygod, anorexic teenager and later famous writer Virginia O'Day who pens letters to long-deceased Charles Dickens, a Japanese student's research paper, recipes for Heavenly Tart and Cherry Ripe Slices, information about aborigines and thylacenes. Ms. Bird describes her books as being in some sense a meditation on extinction--of races of people, species of animals and plants, language meanings, the human spirit. Equally it is a celebration of the hope that continues to burn in human hearts, of delight and wonder that still abound.