Shows the hidden writing techniques of well-known Russian authors and their placement of subtle clues—how they speak to the reader as a conversational equal.
In this way the reader feels welcomed, or initiated, into the creative process of different great writers such as Turgenev, Chekhov, and Tolstoy. This approach enhances the reader’s appreciation and understanding of six Russian classics that the book includes. As a writer myself, though not of fiction, this book had great educational value.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today.
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Town & Country, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, Thrillist, BookPage • “[A] worship song to writers and readers.”—Oprah Daily
For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian…
An Irish writer who tackles the treacherous and disturbing maltreatment of young orphaned girls. Made into a brilliant film called The Quiet Girl.
Her writing is rightly compared to Chekhov for its suggestive understatement as it explores the psychology of a father who has lost a child with another father who is callous and indifferent to his own. As a devoted, hard working, hands-on father/grandfather myself I found this book deeply moving.
** Adapted into the Oscar-nominated film adaptation, An Cailin Ciuin / The Quiet Girl **
From the author of the Booker-shortlisted Small Things Like These, a heartbreaking, haunting story of childhood, loss and love by one of Ireland's most acclaimed writers.
'A real jewel.' Irish Independent
'A small miracle.' Sunday Times
'A thing of finely honed beauty.' Guardian
'Thrilling.' Richard Ford
'As good as Chekhov.' David Mitchell
It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm, not knowing when she will return home. In the strangers' house, she finds…
There is so much hostility to China across the Western government-media landscape that it is gratifying to find a British diplomat break from the suffocating consensus and acknowledge that many of China’s faults and sins are not all that different from those of their accusers and that there is virtue and value in some of their practices and policies.
It is also refreshing to find someone working in the modern field paying attention to the traditional aspects of Chinese culture, as I myself have (translating various classics). Having taught Chinese language and Asian history in university for 50+ years I was glad to see the simplistic anti-China shibboleths subjected to rigorous critique.
Is the West prepared for a world where power is shared with China? A world in which China asserts the same level of global leadership that the USA currently assumes? And can we learn to embrace Chinese political culture, as China learned to embrace ours?
Here, one of the world's leading voices on China, Kerry Brown, takes us past the tired cliches and inside the Chinese leadership - as they lay out a roadmap for working in a world in which China shares dominance with the West.
From how, and why, China as a dominant superpower has been inevitable for…
A survey of the wars in Asia 1885-1975 as former colonies rebuild themselves as independent countries. Special attention is given to the contrast between the Chinese Revolution and the Indian freedom movement and the difference between Japanese and British imperialism. In this context the roles of Pakistan in Indian history and Korea in China’s are considered. In addition the creative-destructive actions of Germany and Russia are included in the analysis. My book is a critique of the apologetics of white/western colonialism and imperialism starting with the Sino-French War of 1883-1885 and ending with the US-Vietnam War of 1945-1975.
