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Histoire de ma vie (George Sand) is an autobiography by George Sand covering her life up to shortly before the Revolution of 1848. The autobiography was published in Paris in 1854 and 1855 by Victor Lecou. George Sand had planned as early as 1835, shortly after the end of her relationship with Alfred de Musset, to write her memoirs. She started in April 1847 and, with many interruptions for other work, finished her memoirs in 1855. In the autobiography the dates and the succession of events are not entirely veracious. The work consists largely of extensive rewriting of letters that she sent and received. is a literary masterpiece with value as a social document and a family history. The 1856 edition published in Paris by Michel Lévy Frères consists of 5 separate books with a total of 13 chapters. is organized into 5 parts: Gallimard published in 1970 an edition which was edited by Georges Lubin and then translated into English by a team of translators led by Thelma Jurgrau. The translation was published by State University of New York Press in 1991 with the title "Story of My Life: The Autobiography of George Sand".

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Experiment in Autobiography Experiment in Autobiography is an autobiographical work by H.G. Wells, originally published in two volumes. He began to write it in 1932, and completed it in the summer of 1934. "Experiment in Autobiography" is divided into eight "chapters" (the last two of which are more than 100 pages long) which are divided "in toto" into 56 sections. Some sections are narrative, while others include long digressions into matters philosophical, political, sociological, or biographical. In the introductory section, Wells describes himself as a "mental worker" whose "thoughts and work are encumbered by claims and vexations and I cannot see any hope of release from them"; in the conclusion, he says that he has "[written] himself out of that mood of discontent" and is resolved to devote the rest of his life to the "faith and service of constructive world revolution." "[I]n 1900 I had already grasped the inevitability of a World State and the complete insufficiency of the current parliamentary methods of democratic government," and Wells's devotion to "the great civilization of the future" is the dominant motif of the book. Wells emphasises his humble origins and the fortuitousness of his escape from the milieu in which he was born. Two broken legs were crucial. Wells's tibia was broken in an accident in 1874 when he was seven. During his weeks of recuperation he discovered the world of books. Three years later his father broke his leg in a fall—another "cardinal stroke of good fortune," Wells thought, because it forced his mother into employment and, as a result, the young Wells became a resident apprentice, a placement against which he rebelled. Had his father not broken his leg, he wrote, "I have no doubt I should have followed in the footsteps of Frank and Freddy and gone on living at home under my mother's care, while I went daily to some shop, some draper's shop, to which I was bound apprentice. This would have seemed so natural and necessary that I should not have resisted." Wells presents his career as a writer as the result of another happenstance: in 1887, when he was teaching at the Holt Academy in Wrexham, Wales, one of his kidneys was crushed in a football injury. A few weeks later he was coughing up blood, and tuberculosis was (probably mistakenly) diagnosed. Wells had to give up his job. Later, back in London, a dramatic relapse forced him to abandon teaching altogether in 1893, and to devote himself instead to writing. The work contains an abundant selection of the humorous sketches Wells called "picshuas" and produced mostly to amuse his second wife on an almost daily basis. Posthumous Postscript. "Experiment in Autobiography" describes in some detail Wells's early sexual development, his first marriage to his cousin Isabel Mary Wells, and the beginning of his second marriage to Amy Catherine Robbins (whom Wells and others called "Jane"), but omits discussion of the intimate life of his later years. A posthumous volume of Wells's unpublished writings on the sexual aspect of his life, which he began to write in the fall of 1934 and regarded as a "Postscript" to "Experiment in Autobiography", was published in 1984 by his son G.P. Wells as "H.G. Wells in Love". This and other material inform David Lodge's novel about Wells, "A Man of Parts" (Viking Penguin, 2011). Reception. "Experiment in Autobiography" was well received by friends and reviewers, many of whom regarded the work as a masterpiece. It also earned the appreciation of some who were portrayed in it, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sales, though, fell short of Wells's expectations.

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The Sacred Journey The Sacred Journey: a memoir of early days (1982), is the first of four partial autobiographies written by Frederick Buechner. Published in 1982, the work describes the author's life up until his conversion to Christianity in 1953, at the age of twenty-seven. Overview. Buechner introduces his first autobiographical work with the dual observations that ‘all theology, all fiction, is at its heart autobiography’, and that ‘if God speaks to us at all in this world, if God speaks anywhere, it is into our personal lives that he speaks.’ He suggests that the task of the theologian, therefore, is to examine their own lives honestly, and to then express ‘in logical, abstract terms the truths about human life and about God that he has found implicit there.’ "The Sacred Journey" begins with an impressionistic account of the author's childhood, culminating in the day of his father's suicide, and the bereaved family's relocation to Bermuda. Buechner then recalls the return of his family to the United States following the outbreak of the Second World War, and his attendance at Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and subsequently Princeton. In the following chapters, Buechner recounts the beginning of his journey as an author, and the composition of his first published work, "A Long Day's Dying" (1950). The final chapter charts the author's conversion experience, while attending the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, describing the effects of one particularly transformative sermon, delivered by George A. Buttrick:Jesus Christ refused the crown that Satan offered him in the wilderness, Buttrick said, but he is king nonetheless because again and again he is crowned in the heart of the people who believe in him. And that inward coronation takes place, Buttrick said, "among confession, and tears, and great laughter." It was the phrase "great laughter" that did it, did whatever it was that I believe must have been hiddenly in the doing all the years of my journey up till then. It was not so much that a door opened as that I suddenly found that a door had been open all along which I had only just then stumbled upon. Themes. Buechner's opening observations concerning the significance of autobiography for both the theologian and the author represent a general theme common to all of his works. Buechner scholar Dale Brown notes that, in these introductory remarks, the author is offering a ‘theory of human knowledge, how we know and what we know and what the knowledge will do for us.’ Referencing Buechner's time studying under Paul Tillich at Union Theological Seminary, Brown suggests that the author is developing the theologian's ‘teaching about personal story and God story’, and that he ‘folds the notion into his very apologetic for the instinct to memoir.’ Brown concludes by commenting that: ‘Tillich argued that God may be found in the stories of our lives as in the stories of Scripture, and his young charge, Buechner, takes him at his word.’

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Chapters from My Autobiography Chapters from My Autobiography are twenty-five pieces of autobiographical work published by American author Mark Twain in the "North American Review" between September 1906 and December 1907. Rather than following the standard form of an autobiography, they comprise a rambling collection of anecdotes and ruminations. Much of the text was dictated. These chapters comprise only a fraction of the autobiographical work written by Twain. Other material, which was unpublished and in a disorganised state at the time of Twain's death in 1910, was progressively collated and published over the next 100 years in various forms. Chapters. Chapter 1. Chapter 1 appeared in the September 7, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". Twain tells his readers that his autobiography won't be about “showy episodes” in his life, but rather about common experiences from the life of an average person. Then he writes about a conversation he has with American author and lifelong friend, William Dean Howells, and tells him that this autobiography will help set the standard for future autobiographies and will still be read for thousands of years to come. Howells agrees with him that this work will indeed be that revolutionary. Then he goes on to talk about how his family grew up in Jamestown. Chapter 2. Chapter 2 appeared in the September 21, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". This Chapter focuses mostly on Twain's first experiences as an author, which started in 1867, when Charles H. Webb, editor and reporter, suggested that he published a volume of sketches. He knew him through the story called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which was published in "The Saturday Press", and later copied in newspapers in America and England. However, even though people knew this story, Twain was not famous yet. After Carleton refused to publish Twain's work, the sketches ended up being published by Webb himself. In 1868, Elisha Bliss, from the American Publishing Company of Hartford, asked Twain to publish a book recounting the "Quaker City" Excursion he just went on. The company did not publish it right away because they thought that it might have an impact on the house's reputation. Twain insisted, and they ended up publishing it in 1869, which, according to Bliss, took the publishing house out of debt. When he was fourteen years old, Twain's sister had a party at their house, and was supposed to dress up as a bear in order to perform in a small play. He went to change in a room, and practiced his role, not knowing that there were two girls in that room, who saw him. When he understood what happened, he was ashamed. He never knew who the girls were, and after this event, he suspected all the girls he knew. Chapter 3. Chapter 3 appeared in the October 5, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". This chapter focuses on two of the most important women in the author's life: his wife Olivia, and one of his three daughters: Susy. Twain begins this chapter by reminiscing on his deceased wife: he is writing the day before their thirty-sixth anniversary. The first two pages of this chapter can be considered as a eulogy of Twain's wife. He then draws a parallel between her death and that of his daughter Susy who succumbed to meningitis at age twenty-four. A significant detail about her death is that her last word was “Mamma.” Twain relies on the bond which existed between his wife and his daughter to write an even longer (eight pages) eulogy of his Susy, emphasizing her intelligence and quick thinking even as young child, and her having inherited her mother's positive qualities (thoughtfulness, altruism, maturity, honesty). He almost apologizes for only wanting to focus on the positive aspects of her life. Very interestingly, Twain's other children Langdon, Clara, and Jean are only mentioned for context, and Twain does not give the reader many details about himself. Therefore, this chapter is mostly a biography of his deceased wife and daughter. Chapter 4. Chapter 4 appeared in the October 19, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". This chapter begins with Twain remarking on how honored he felt when his daughter Susy started compiling a biography of him. He then begins explaining some of the entries from it, saying that he will not be making any alternations to her text in order to maintain its purity. He details how reviewers often misjudged him during this time (specifically accusations of plagiarism and comments against his physical appearance). Susy chooses to spend part of her biography defending him against these criticisms. Twain then goes on to explain how Susy captured his temper. She does this specifically by describing a situation in which Twain becomes frustrated and sarcastic about the security system in his home never working efficiently. Other stories are summarized, such as Twain's ability to tell a story based on images/paintings in their home, as well as tales of Twain's interactions with their peculiarly named cats (Satan and Sin). Twain ends the chapter by again praising Susy's honesty, saying about her, “This is a frank historian.” He seems generally delighted and flattered throughout the chapter that his daughter chose to become his biographer at such a young age as 15. Chapter 5. Chapter 5 appeared in the November 2, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". This chapter provides some context about Twain's siblings: Orion, Margaret, Pamela, Benjamin, and Henry. Margaret and Benjamin both died young. Twain then goes on to tell a lot of Orion's life story, mainly dealing with his internal struggles. He was a very eager man, but he also suffered from “deep glooms.” He was also very indecisive in what sort of career he wanted. He attempted to learn the printer's trade, how to be a lawyer, and how to be an orator. His indecisiveness carried into his religion and politics as well. It's mentioned several times throughout the chapter that although he was indecisive, he was always sincere, truthful and honest. He had an incredible drive to please others. After his father's death, he returned home to help support his mother and youngest brother, Henry. Twain then moves into a brief description of his apprenticeship during this time, describing its benefits along with his relationship with his boss and his fellow apprentices. Chapter 6. Chapter 6 appeared in the November 16, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". Chapter 7. Chapter 7 appeared in the December 7, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". Chapter 8. Chapter 8 appeared in the December 21, 1906 issue of the "North American Review". In this chapter, Mark Twain describes living and working in Nevada as the City Editor for Mr. Goodman's Virginia City "Enterprise". He was twenty-nine years old at the time. Dueling was in fashion, and several of his coworkers at the paper got involved and encouraged him to as well, which he eventually did while working on an editorial for Shakespeare's birthday in 1864. Another editor, Mr. Laird the for the Virginia City "Union", working on a similar editorial. Issuing a challenge for a duel in traditional fashion, the men met to duel, but did not go through with it. Shortly after Twain's failed attempt at a duel, a new was passed that carried a two-year jail sentence with dueling. Since Twain had engaged in challenging someone to a duel on several occasions, he fled the territory and did not engage in dueling activities again. Chapter 9. Chapter 9 appeared in the January 4, 1907 issue of the "North American Review". This chapter centers on Twain's ideas about how humans are designed for monarchical rule over democracy. He discusses how “the human race was always intended to be governed by kingship, not by popular vote” due to people's inclination toward power. To get this idea across, he tells the story of how he pretended to be hypnotized by a “mesmerizer,” a hypnotist referred to as Hicks, who visited his hometown when he was fifteen. He eventually became the only participant in his show because of his convincing performance, even though his hypnosis was only an act. He started to crave the attention he received, and he wanted the crowd to favor him over Hicks. Thirty-five years after the fact, he decided to tell his mother that it was a lie. To his surprise she said, “You were only a child then, and could not have done it.” He admitted to his faults, but his mother refused to believe that it was true. Chapter 10. Chapter 10 appeared in the January 18, 1907 issue of the "North American Review". This chapter discusses Orion Clemens (born July 17, 1825 in Jamestown, Tennessee), who was Twain's eldest brother, antedating him by ten years. After a series of moves, he and his family found themselves living in Hannibal, Missouri, when he was twelve years old. At the age of fifteen, Orion had moved to St. Louis to learn the printing trade. During his apprenticeship, Orion would become good friends with Edward Bates, who later served in President Lincoln’s first cabinet. During his time in St. Louis, Orion was known to change his ventures to match his ever-changing interests. He would set out to be a lawyer one week, and next an orator. Despite his constant change of interest and desire, Orion would always put forth his best effort and maximum concentration, even if the interest changed after a week’s time. In this chapter, Twain uses the phrase "Lies, damned lies, and statistics", attributing it to Benjamin Disraeli. This usage is believed to have popularised the phrase. Chapter 11. Chapter 11 appeared in the February 1, 1907 issue of the "North American Review". Chapter 12. Chapter 12 appeared in the February 15, 1907 issue of the "North American Review". Chapter 13. Chapter 13 appeared in the March 1, 1907 issue of the "North American Review". Twain touches on his youth but focuses mainly on the summers he spent on his uncle’s farm a couple miles outside of Florida, Missouri, the town of his birth. The summers he spent here from about ages 6-13 were highly influential on his writing and his development as a person. It is here that he was exposed to the African American slave life, which affected him deeply. A slave, "Unc'l Daniel," had the most impact, serving as an inspiration for the character Jim in the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and shaping his view of African Americans. He states: “It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation of certain of its fine qualities.” This farm was the model for the farm used in "Huck Finn". In the town of Florida, he would also draw inspiration from people he met, developing them into characters such as General and Injun Joe. Chapter 14. Chapter 14 appeared in the March 15, 1907 issue of the "North American Review". This chapter begins with an excerpt from Susy's biography of him in which she talks about how her sister Clara was always opposite from her. Clara always seemed to be braver than she was as she would stand perfectly still when having a sliver of wood removed from her finger while Susy would be very cowardly. Twain remarks on how Susy had a knack for remembering things very accurately. He then goes on to exclaim his pride in Clara's saying that she was brave, but nobody was braver than God. He was proud that Clara was becoming a great thinker and observer. Twain then moves into a long story about how his family once moved to Berlin, Germany, where he was invited to a dinner with Emperor Wilhelm II. Before going to the party, Twain became friends with one of the officials at the Foreign Office who he would call Smith. Smith was tired of having to work all the time and was considering resigning without getting a vacation. In the end during the party, Smith got his vacation and Twain was honored by the Kaiser, who praised "Old Times on the Mississippi". Twain then explains that he had broken the unspoken law in Germany that if someone entered a house after ten, they must pay a toll to the doorman for waking him. In the later entries Twain would reflect back on the imperial dinner with the Kaiser. Chapter 15. Chapter 15 appeared in the April 5, 1907 issue of the "North American Review." This chapter begins with Twain describing his experience renting kittens for the summer time. He relates the three kittens he had at the time to the people around him. Twain claims that conformity is inevitable within most living creatures, especially in man: “They are afraid to be outside; whatever the fashion happens to be, they conform to it.” Twain then describes his innate desire to stand out in a conforming world. He mentions his old age briefly and ponders the thought that this quality could in fact benefit his hope to express himself freely, specifically through the act of potentially wearing a colorful wardrobe in the dead of winter. “We all conform to the prevailing insanity,” he writes, “and go about in dreary black, each man doing it because the others do it.” The chapter concludes with a few stories of young men he defeated in the game of billiards, discussing his secret behind winning so often. This streak went on until George Robertson visited from Boston and defeated Twain at last after doubling the bet four times in a row. Chapter 16. Chapter 16 appeared in the April 19, 1907 issue of the "North American Review." In this chapter, Twain recounts having his word discounted since he was young. Somewhere between the ages of 7 and 12, he believes his mother learned the art of interpreting his stories. Twain quotes her by saying, "I discount him thirty percent for embroidery, and what is left is perfect and priceless truth, without a flaw in it anywhere." Approximately forty years later, as part of The Monday Evening Club, Twain told a story of a dream he had foreshadowing the death of his brother, Henry. In his dream, he saw his brother dressed in one of Twain's suits, in a metallic casket, lying across two chairs, with a bouquet of roses on his breast, mostly white with a red rose in the center. Three weeks later, Henry had actually died and all of the details from his dream were present. Another member, Dr. Burton, asked how long he'd been telling the story and how often, explaining that he used to tell a story of his own and found pleasure in astonishing his audience. After 10 to 15 years, he reexamined the tale and found it to be one part fact and twenty-four parts embroidery. Even after the confrontation, Twain believed the accuracy of his tale. Chapter 17. Chapter 17 appeared in the May 3, 1907 issue of the "North American Review." The initial sections of this chapter contain recollections written by daughter Susy around age thirteen. In one significant moment, he discusses how the innocent memory of bubble blowing has transformed in his mind, coming to represent the fragility of Susy's life. Twain laments the passing of his daughter, commenting, “Susy... was as lovely a bubble as any we made that day -- and as transitory. She passed... and nothing of her is left but a heartbreak and a memory.” Shifting focus from his daughter, Twain recounts brief memories of dangerous situations he witnessed as a young man. Years later, these moments have morphed into anxieties revisited during sleepless nights. Twain tells the reader of his eventual conclusion: “They were inventions of Providence to beguile me to a better life.” A final section of the chapter recalls the inspiration for Twain's short story “Jim Wolf and the Cats.” This piece was eventually disseminated far enough that other authors began to take credit for it. Twain recounts one such writer who played upon sympathies, successfully finding a way to submit the story as his own. Chapter 18. Chapter 18 appeared in the May 17, 1907 issue of the "North American Review." This chapter covers Twain's history with schoolmates. He reflects on their stories that he remembers and even acknowledges times of envy and sympathy for his fellow pupils, recalling their past and explaining their present if he knew of it. He speaks of old crushes, past envies of hair and attraction, and those whom he knows have since passed. If a schoolmate is mentioned, there is an accompanying story of varying length. These stories are scattered throughout the chapter, but the majority of the longer ones are collected toward the end of it. As the chapter continues, Twain starts discussing others in his past not just his schoolmates. Sometimes he even finds relevance in relatives and descendants of those who made up his past. Chapter 19. Chapter 19 appeared in the June 7, 1907 issue of the "North American Review." This chapter primarily recounts anecdotes about Twain's children and their personalities, borrowing some passages from Susy's biography to aid this. It opens with Susy recalling one of her birthday parties at which her father and some of his friends passionately played charades. When his writing returns, he notes that their passion for acting in this way transitioned into a love for putting on plays. Around the age of ten Susy had begun to write plays that she, a friend, and Clara would put on for themselves and the servants around the house. Another portion of Susy's biography has her thinking on how Twain takes his stories to Olivia to expurgate, sometimes with despair at what is taken out. Twain responds by noting that it would be a shame to take Susy's “free spelling” out, before transitioning to a discussion of Andrew Carnegie and his attempts to reform the English language to be more phonetic. He then offers several stories about his children, admiring that Susy seems to be “a thinker, a poet, and a philosopher” along with Clara's creativity shown through her musical interest. Chapter 20. Chapter 20 appeared in the July 5, 1907 issue of the "North American Review." Chapter 21. Chapter 21 appeared in the August 2, 1907 issue of the "North American Review." This chapter has an overall theme of memory and remembrance. Twain discusses how he believes this to be the last book of his lifetime and takes the reader on a journey of random memories and inspirations for his famous novels. He begins with an excerpt from his daughter Susy's biography of him. She is worried he will not continue writing but believes that her mother, Olivia, can convince him to do so. Her writings are most likely very precious to Twain since they are something she left behind after her death. He is becoming increasingly fed up with writing and even believes he is a slave to the pen. Twain continues through the chapter being worried his memory is failing him, and therefore discusses random things he can remember. He ends with thoughts of death. Chapter 22. Chapter 22 appeared in the September 1907 issue of the "North American Review." Twain begins this chapter with a recollection of the way he subdued a chaotic and noisy dinner conversation into a more enjoyable one, by comically showing the other attendees just how off-putting their volume was. This get-together is mentioned in his daughter Susy's biography of him. He goes on to tell a story of one of the many jokes Dean Sage, another of the guests assembled, played on a Rev. Mr. Harris. Twain spends much of the chapter discussing duels and his fascination with them, mentioning in passing his “unmaterialized” and “ineffectual” duel that he discusses in greater detail in chapter 8. He contrasts the danger of the Austrian style of dueling with the safety of the French style, though he discusses Austrian duels to a greater extent. He suggests that if the families of the duellists were required to be in attendance, duels would slow to a halt faster and more efficiently than outlawing them. He mentions his interest in the particular case of Felice Cavallotti, an Italian “poet, orator, satirist, statesman, patriot.” He had also fought in thirty Austrian-style duels, and died with his head skewered by a sword in one. Chapter 23. Chapter 23 appeared in the October 1907 issue of the "North American Review." Twain spends most of this chapter discussing old schoolmates and people he grew up with. He considers the fact that many are now dead or very old, contrasting with the youths he had once known. He also discusses how Mr. Richmond, Twain's old Sunday school teacher, came to possess “Tom Sawyer’s cave in the hills three miles from town, and had made a tourist-resort out of it. This chapter deals quite a bit with death—not only in the deaths of his schoolmates, but the death of a twelve-year-old girl from heart disease, as well as the many deaths caused by measles in his hometown in 1845. He relates the story of how he managed to give himself the disease, how close he came to death, and the vanity and gratification felt by his young self at having all of his relatives give him so much emotional attention. Twain states that one of the proudest moments of his life was reading Sydney Brooks’ “England’s Ovation to Mark Twain.” He ends the chapter with an even prouder moment of his, that of attending the Oxford Historical Pageant Day in 1907. Chapter 24. Chapter 24 appeared in the November 1907 issue of the "North American Review." The first half of this chapter is Twain discussing the people and small scenes that took place throughout his life. This deals with Twain's vacationing spot in Onteora Park in the Catskills Mountains where the natives were constantly surprised by the resorters’ enthusiasm for their taken-for-granted scenery. It also deals with Twain's time in Hartford, Connecticut, where he made important social and literary friends such as Charles Dudley Warner and Joel Chandler Harris. He also briefly mentions a shy fellow he knew when he was fourteen: Jim Wolf, his brother's apprentice in Hannibal, Missouri. Lastly is James Redpath, who was a publicist and friend of John Brown during the Bleeding Kansas days. Redpath would also become Twain's agent when Twain became a public lecturer since Redpath had opened a lecture business. The second half of the chapter deals with Twain's devotion to studying the human race by using himself as an example. In one of his studies, Twain compares old and broken pool tables and bowling alleys to new and improved gaming outfits. He claims that the older game outfits should be more interesting as it takes more skill to play old and broken games than new games. Chapter 25. Chapter 25 appeared in the December 1907 issue of the "North American Review." Collected edition. In 1990 (republished February 2010) scholar Michael Kiskis edited "Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review".

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Down the River Down the River is a book by Edward Abbey, published in 1982. It is a loose collection of autobiographical and philosophical essays about the wilderness, written between 1978 and 1982.

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My Days My Days (1974) is an autobiography by R. K. Narayan. It tells the story of Narayan's upbringing. "My Days" is an autobiography which starts with his childhood spent in his grandmother's home in Chennai.

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Summoned by Bells Summoned by Bells, the blank verse autobiography by John Betjeman, describes his life from his early memories of a middle-class home in Edwardian Hampstead, London, to his premature departure from Magdalen College, Oxford. The book was first published in November 1960 by Betjeman's London publishers, John Murray, and was read by the author, chapter by chapter, in a series of radio broadcasts on the Third Programme (later to become Radio Three) of the BBC. A later, illustrated edition with line and water colour illustrations by Hugh Casson was published in 1989 by Murray (). A paperback edition appeared in 2001. There is also a BBC film version directed by Jonathan Stedall for television in 1976. In an autobiography covering the life of Betjeman before he started his first job, narrated in blank verse by him, Betjeman visits places that played an important part in his early life. Synopsis. and, socially and geographically, down "A Ring of Bells". In 1962 Betjeman released an abridged version of the book for children, with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone.

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Transcendental Wild Oats Transcendental Wild Oats: A Chapter from an Unwritten Romance is a prose satire written by Louisa May Alcott, about her family's involvement with the Transcendentalist community Fruitlands in the early 1840s. The work was first published in a New York newspaper in 1873, and reprinted in 1874, 1876, and 1915 and after. In her account, Alcott provides the real people involved with thin pseudonymous disguises. Her father Amos Bronson Alcott is "Abel Lamb," while his partner and community co-founder Charles Lane is "Timon Lion;" Abigail May Alcott, Louisa's mother and Bronson's wife, is "Sister Hope." Alcott depicts her father as dominated by his more forceful partner, and both men as feckless and impractical dreamers. The men of the community spend their time in pointless debates while Sister Hope works from dawn to dusk to maintain their existence. A crisis arises at harvest time, when the grain crop is threatened by an approaching storm. In Alcott's words, "About the time the grain was ready to house, some call of the Oversoul wafted all the men away." Sister Hope organizes the only available help, three little girls and a boy, and manages to save the crop. The little community collapses as soon as the weather turns cold, when it becomes clear that their provisions are too meager to last the coming winter. Timon Lion and his son abscond to join the Shakers — though Timon is unhappy to learn that life among them is "all work and no play." Abel is crushed by the failure of the enterprise; after days of despair he begins to eat again only when he realizes that his family needs him. Sister Hope finds a way for them to subsist and persevere. Alcott's view of male arrogance and female exploitation in this piece is paralleled in her novel "", published in the same year as "Transcendental Wild Oats". "Transcendental Wild Oats" has been reprinted in several modern editions.

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Atmavrittanta Atmavrittanta (), formally published as Manilal Nabhubhai Dwivedinu Atmavrittanta, is an autobiography written by Gujarati writer Manilal Nabhubhai Dwivedi (1858–1898). Its publication was prevented for many years by Manilal's family and friends because it contains explicit details of his extramarital relations and controversial views on morality. Being a honest confession of author's personal life and his limitations, "Atmavrittanta" has been compared to the Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Confessions" and Havelock Ellis's "My Life". It has also been criticised for the use of crude and offensive language. Overview. At the age of 28, Manilal decided to write his autobiography and to maintain a diary of important events until the end of his life. Explaining this decision, he wrote: "At this time, if not enemies, I had many opponents among those who held different views and they subjected me to countless unfounded criticisms and were spreading misinformation." Thus, the idea of writing an autobiography emerged in his mind from a sense of victimhood and from a desire to give a true picture of his life. Manilal started writing an account of his life on 9February 1887 (at Mumbai), and by 1May (at Nadiad) completed the story of his life from birth to that date in 95 pages. Then he maintained a diary in which he noted the important events of his life. Up to 22August 1895, he wrote 27 such notes (20 in Nadiad, 4 in Mumbai, 1 in Vadodara, 1 in Bhavnagar, and 1 in Patan). His account of the last three years of his life is not recorded, or, if recorded, cannot be traced. Publication. The publication of "Atmavrittanta" was prevented for many years by Manilal's family and friends because it contains explicit details of his extramarital relations and controversial views on morality. Manilal handed over the manuscript of his autobiography to his trusted friend Anandshankar Dhruv (1869–1942) before his death in 1898. Dhruv preserved the manuscript throughout his life. During 1929–1931, some young writers, including Ambalal Purani and Vijayray Vaidya, raised a public controversy about the need to publish it and pressed Dhruv to release it. Some debates regarding this issue were also published in "Kaumudi", a magazine edited by Vaidya. In the July 1930 issue of "Kaumudi", Dhruv published a letter addressed to Vaidya, in which he wrote: Dhruv published some edited extracts from the manuscript in his journal "Vasant" during 1929 to 1931 in six installments, totaling about 81 pages, but he stopped publishing as soon as the agitation subsided, and then it remained unpublished. Ambalal Purani tried at least fifteen times to obtain a copy of the manuscript from Madhavlal, but was unable to. The manuscript was inherited by Dhruv's son, Dhruvbhai Dhruv after his death. Dhirubhai Thaker, who had written scholarly works on the life and works of Manilal, secured the manuscript from Dhruvbhai Dhruv for his PhD thesis. He copied it, prepared a print copy, and published it in 1979 along with the love letters of Diwalibai written to Manilal. The book was published under the title "Manilal Nabhubhai Dwivedinu Atmavrittanta". It was reprinted in 1999. Physical description of manuscript. The original manuscript is written on the one side of F4 foolscap pages. As the pages are worn out, they are stick to thick and large ledger size pages of ledger book. Some plain and torn pages are stick in it too. Some pages show watermark of year 1885. On the opening page of the ledger, a piece of paper from an envelope of Banaras Hindu University is stick with a title "Manilal Nabhubhaino Atmavrutant" in Gujarati written by Anandshankar Dhruv. Behind this first page, a plain paper is stick in two parts. On the second page, Dhruv has written an index mentioning seven sections and its corresponding page numbers. One every page written by Dhruv, there is a short English signature by him. The index is as following: Only one manuscript page is stick to each page of the ledge except page numbers 144 and 169 which have two pages of manuscript; 146-147 and 172-173. Manilal had missed number 71 and 131 during marking the page number in manuscript so the manuscript page numbering ends at 198 but it has only 196 pages. Due to sticking two manuscript pages on single ledge page, the page numbering in ledger ends at 194. Contents. The work is in two parts; the preamble and the diary. The first gives an account of Manilal's life from his birth to his career as a professor, including detailed information on his schooling, on his surroundings and on his companions. The second part is in twenty-seven sections, written on different dates. It contains a day-to-day factual record of events that took place at different places such as Nadiad, Bombay, Baroda, Bhavnagar and Patan. The autobiography gives an account of Manilal's failed marriage, powerful sexual drives and the degenerate street world in his environments. The autobiography reveals Manilal's constant and obsessive extramarital sexual relations including his disciples' wife, and his complete disregard for his own contradictions. It narrates an account of Manilal's illegal and immoral sexual relations with women and his platonic love for some of them. The book also includes the love-letters addressed to the writer by a lady named Diwali in an appendix. The autobiography contains open confessions and impulsive statements by the author. Manilal writes about his achievements very briefly but describes in detail his weaknesses and shortcomings including his numerous moral lapses. As he was sure that the manuscript of his autobiography would not be read by anyone during his lifetime, he accurately described his contradictory life. Sometimes his language became crude and offensive. Furthermore, author haven't recorded any memories of joy or details of domestic pleasure. Reception and criticism. The book has significant historical value as it reflects contemporary life in Gujarat, and provides details of the religious, social, economic, ethical and educational life of 19th-century Gujarat. It also gives valuable details about the origin of Manilal's few poems. Dhirubhai Thaker wrote that the book reminds the reader of the "Confessions" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and "My Life" by Havelock Ellis. Anandshankar Dhruv appreciated the autobiography for its unique style of prose writing. Chandrakant Topiwala acclaimed the truthfulness of autobiography. For Topiwala, the value of this autobiography possibly lay in the material it furnishes not only for future sociologists and psychologists, but also for ecologists who might find in the book's invaluable material shedding light on the organic realities of the Gujarati environment in Manilal's heyday. Writer Tridip Suhrud criticised its language and wrote: One of the most striking feature of the autobiography is the layering of languages that a reader encounters. In his [Manilal's] philosophical writings, the prose is chiselled, highly Sanskritised. The local expression has no place in his public writings. Such is the prose of the autobiography in most parts. Only when talking about matters of desire and lust that his language undergoes a complete transformation. The local idioms become available to him. The autobiography is replete with words like "Randi" (prostitute). The act of intercourse is described by a whole range of colloquial terms — "vapari" (used her) "lidhi" (took her) "ghasi" (rubbed her), "maza kari" (enjoyed).

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Enemies of Promise Enemies of Promise is a critical and autobiographical work written by Cyril Connolly first published in 1938. It comprises three parts, the first dedicated to Connolly's observations about English literature and the English literary world of his time, the second a list of adverse elements that affect the ability to be a good writer and the last an account of Connolly's early life. The overarching theme of the book is the search for understanding why Connolly, though he was widely recognised as a leading man of letters and a highly distinguished critic, failed to produce a major work of literature. Part 1 "Predicament". This part consists of an erudite discussion of literary styles, with Connolly posing the question of what the following ten years would bring in the world of literature and what sort of writing would last. He summarises the two main styles as follows: His examples of exponents of the Mandarin style include Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Aldous Huxley and James Joyce, the dominant literary character of the 1920s. Examples of vernacular or realist exponents include Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, Christopher Isherwood and George Orwell, the dominant force in the 1930s. Part 2 "The Charlock's Shade". Connolly quotes a few lines of "The Village" by George Crabbe, poet and naturalist, which describe the weeds which choke the rye. He uses this as an analogy for the factors that can stifle a writer's creativity. The blue bugloss represents journalism, particularly when pursued out of economic necessity. Thistles represent politics, particularly relevant in the left-wing literary atmosphere of the 1930s. Poppies are used to cover all forms of escapism, and it is in this chapter that Connolly dwells on the tyranny of "promise" as the burden of expectation. Charlock is a representation of sex, with the most problematic aspects being, on the one hand, homosexuality and, on the other, the tares of domesticity. Finally, the Slimy Mallows represent success, the most insidious enemy of literature. Connolly then explores what positive advice can be given on how to produce a work of literature that lasts ten years. Working through all the forms, he identifies those for which there is a future. Part 3 "A Georgian Boyhood". The last part is an autobiographical outline of his life until he left Eton at 18. Most of the material relates to his life at Eton, with two preceding chapters. He comments In "The Branching Ogham", Connolly describes his early life as a single child living variously with his army father in South Africa, his aunt at Clontarf Castle in Ireland and with his grandmother in England. His grandmother spoilt him and at his early school he notes he was popular "for I had embarked on the career which was to occupy me for the next ten years of trying to be funny". As a child in Ireland he had a sympathy for the romantic vision of Irish nationalism but was unable to live the part. "White Samite" is his recollection of his schooldays at St Wulfric's, where the ethos of "character" (integrity and a sense of duty) went hand in hand with romanticism in literature. He absorbed the "purple patch" approach to literature but rejected "character" inspired in different ways by Cecil Beaton and George Orwell. He wrote "year by year, the air, the discipline, the teaching, the association with other boys and the driving will of Flip took effect on me": he became a popular wit and achieved a scholarship to Eton. Connolly's first two years at Eton he recalls as the "Dark Ages", where he was subjected to arbitrary beatings and bullying, which affected his nerves, and he got a bad report. He eventually established a friendship with one of his tormentors Godfrey Meynell, a boy of an identical background but who instead followed a military career and won a posthumous Victoria Cross on the North West Frontier. Another senior with whom he established rapport was Roger Mynors. "I was now fifteen, dirty, inky, miserable, untidy, a bad fag, a coward at games, lazy at work, unpopular with my masters and superiors, anxious to curry favour and yet to bully whom I dared." "Renaissance" marks a settled period for Connolly at the end of his second year establishing his popularity and friendship with others with a shared interest in literature, Dadie Rylands among others. It includes the start of a semi-romantic brother substitute friendship with "Nigel". The chapter digresses into extensive details of school personalities, politics and intrigues, an insight into the world of Eton. "The art of getting on at school depends on a mixture of enthusiasm with moral cowardice and social sense". The chapter concludes with Connolly's "first trip abroad" to Paris and a mortifying experience when he was lured into a brothel. The "Background of the Lilies" refers to the pre-Raphaelite culture in vogue at Eton and discusses the contributions to Connolly's development of five key teachers, including Hugh Macnaughten, "an ogre for the purple patch", who personified the romantic pre-Raphaelite tradition and the ruling philosophy of Platonism, and headmaster Cyril Alington, a worldly teacher with the cult of light verse such as Winthrop Mackworth Praed and Eton's own J. K. Stephen. Connolly's criticism is expressed: "For the culture of the lilies, rooted in the past, divorced from reality, and dependent on a dead foreign tongue, was by nature sterile... The arts at Eton were under a blight". Headlam, the history teacher "whose sober intellectual background... offered a gleam of mental health" impressed him and encouraged his concentration on history. The chapter ends, "By the time I left Eton I knew by heart something of the literature of five civilizations", and Connolly gives review of each. "Glittering Prizes" describes how Connolly wins the Rosebery History Prize, which enhances his reputation and brings him closer Oppidans and aristocratic members of Pop like Alec Dunglass and Antony Knebworth. He spends a Christmas holiday with mother at Mürren. Indulging in intense study, reading late by candlelight, he goes for a history scholarship to Balliol. He wins the scholarship and by careful politics manages to have himself elected to Pop "because he was amusing". The chapter concludes with a holiday in France with a friend, after a brief visit to St Wulfrics. After an embarrassing incident at the Folies Bergère, the couple head to the south of France and the Spanish border, to return so penniless that Connolly spends a night in the kip at St Martin-in-the-Fields. "Vale" describes Connolly's comfortable last term with the scholarship in the bag and all the privileges of Pop, but demonstrates a feeling of ennui: "all my own attempts to write were doomed to failure. I didn't see how one could write well in English and my Greek and Latin were still not good enough... College politics were now less exciting, for we were not in opposition but in office... I hated history by now, it stank of success, and buried myself in the classics". He made a friendship with Brian Howard, but moral cowardice and academic outlook debarred him from making friends with Harold Acton, Oliver Messel, Robert Byron, Henry Green and Anthony Powell. He rounds up with conclusions on his education noting that as he was unable to write in any living language when he left Eton, he was already on the way to becoming a critic. His ambition was to be a poet, but he could not succeed. He complains that he was left with a fear of hubris: the revenge of a Jealous God which would counter the satisfaction of achievement, and a distrust of competition. "Never compete... only in that way could the sin of Worldliness be combated, the Splendid Failure be prepared which was the ultimate 'gesture... I could not imagine a moment when I should not be receiving marks for something... Early laurels weigh like lead and of many of the boys whom I knew at Eton, I can say that their lives are over... Once again romanticism with its death wish is to blame, for it lays an emphasis on childhood, on a fall from grace which is not compensated for by any doctrine of future redemption".

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The Life of Henry Brulard The Life of Henry Brulard () is an unfinished autobiography by Stendhal. It was begun on November 23, 1835 and abandoned March 26, 1836 while the author was serving as the French Consul in Civitavecchia. Stendhal had severe doubts about contemporary interest in his autobiography, so he bequeathed it to the reader of 1880, or of 1935, or 2000. The manuscript, including Stendhal's numerous diagrams and illustrations, was published in 1890. Stendhal primarily discusses his unhappy and dull childhood, touching briefly on his time as a soldier. "The Life of Henry Brulard" is considered a masterpiece of autobiographical writing and ironic self-reflection. Summary. "The Life of Henry Brulard" begins in 1832, with Stendhal on the Janiculum (named for Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings) looking down at Rome. He begins questioning his accomplishments as he approaches 50 years of age. He reflects on the churches and monuments of the city and how much they have changed since he was a young man. He heads home through a cold mist at night and decides he will reflect upon his past until its truth emerges. He also decides to write as fast as he can without revising, to avoid lies. He believes a quickly-written rough draft would, like automatic writing, disclose the truth about himself. Stendhal explicitly compares himself with Rousseau and calls "The Life of Henry Brulard" his own "Confessions". In reality, Stendhal was 52 years old when he began the memoir and the first scene is a small fiction. The first chapter was written in two days in November 1835, and Stendhal also claims that "The Life of Henry Brulard" is an imitation of Oliver Goldsmith's novel "The Vicar of Wakefield". Stendhal notes at the start that other men's biographies naturally focus on their public career. Stendhal himself campaigned with Napoleon in Russia and became consul at Civitavecchia. But Stendhal asserts that his real life can be found in a list of the names of women he loved: Virginie, Angela, Adele, Melanie, Mina, Alexandrine, Angelina, Metilde, Clementine, Giulia, Madame Azur, Amalia. Stendhal says that none of these women ever honored him with her favors and, despite others who did, the “habitual condition of my life is that of an unhappy lover.” Stendhal forthrightly admits to wanting to sleep with his mother, who died when he was seven. While discussing his childhood in Grenoble, Stendhal describes how Eighteenth-century French society habitually crushed his natural feelings. He often compares his father to a tyrant or king, on slender pretenses: young Henry is not allowed to play with other kids, not allowed to leave home at age 10, and must accompany his father on walks. Stendhal's descriptions of scenes from his youth often provoke present-moment commentaries, blurring together the feelings of a young boy and the reflections of a middle-aged man. Stendhal only found happiness when he crossed the Alps into Italy as a 17-year-old in Napoleon's army. Stendhal describes the first time in his life that he mounted a horse, which went berserk and ran towards the willows on the shore of Lake Geneva. For a quarter of an hour he was in fear of breaking his neck. This became a favorite motif of Stendhal's; the heroes of "The Red and the Black", "Lucien Leuwen", and "The Charterhouse of Parma" all fall off their horses. Stendhal loved Italy, which he considered a land where his truest self could be freely expressive without fear of reprisals. "The Life of Henry Brulard" ends with the beginning Stendhal's love for Italy and his mistress Angela Pietragrua, countess Simonetta. Stendhal asks, "How can I talk reasonably about those times? I prefer to put it off until another day...What does one do? How does one describe one's wildest happiness?" Stendhal ends the work by saying, "One spoils such tender feelings by recounting them in detail."

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A Personal Record A Personal Record is an autobiographical work (or "fragment of biography") by Joseph Conrad, published in 1912. It has also been published under the titles "A Personal Record: Some Reminiscences" and "Some Reminiscences". Notoriously unreliable and digressive in structure, it is nonetheless the principal contemporary source for information about the author's life. It tells about his schooling in Russian Poland, his sailing in Marseille, the influence of his uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski, and the writing of "Almayer's Folly". It provides a glimpse of how Conrad wished to be seen by his British public, as well as being an atmospheric work of art. The "Familiar Preface" Conrad wrote for it includes the often quoted lines: "Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests notably, among others, on the idea of Fidelity." Conrad wrote a new 'Author's Note' to A Personal Record for the Doubleday collected edition of his works (published in 1920) in which he discussed his friendship with the British colonial official and writer Hugh Clifford.

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A Fish in the Water A Fish in the Water (originally published as " in 1993), is the memoir of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010. It covers two main periods of his life: the first comprising the years between 1946 and 1958, describes his childhood and the beginning of his writing career in Europe. The second period covers his political involvement in later years culminating with his defeat against Alberto Fujimori in the Peruvian presidential elections. Contents. The book is divided in twenty chapters in which the writer intersperses his narration with topics about his early life and the events related to his political activity in Peru. Along these memories, Vargas Llosa talks about many important experiences for him, like the event when he knew his father whom he believed dead, his first job in the newspaper La Cronica, and others. He also refers the facts related to his political activity, like his participation in the opposite movement to the Peruvian president Alan Garcia in 1987, and his campaign as candidate to the presidency of Peru in 1990. One of the curiosities this work revealed about the writer, was the event when he played in the junior team of Universitario de Deportes, the Peruvian football club he is a supporter of. Critics. A controversial section of the book contains harsh criticism of fellow Peruvian intellectuals who at some point had a difference of opinion, mostly political in nature, with Mr. Vargas, for instance the aggression against then dying writer Julio Ramón Ribeyro. In an interview with Clifford Landers (Albuquerque, 5 November 1994), translator Helen Lane mentions that she originally translated the title as "A Fish in Water", without the article, and it was changed to "A Fish in the Water", thereby losing the parallelism with the English idiom, 'a fish out of water'."

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Recollections of My Non-Existence

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Flaws in the Glass Flaws in the Glass is Australian writer Patrick White's autobiography, published in 1981. The first 150 pages are given over to an introspective "Self Portrait". Two sections, "Journeys" and "Episodes and Epitaphs" follow. The "Journeys" are a colourful description of White and Manolys' movement about the Greek mainland and its many islands. White also talks about that familiar love-hate relationship many people have with Greece (page 201): "Greece is the greatest love-hate for anybody genuinely hooked ... If you are pure, innocent, or noble — qualities I don't lay claim to — perhaps you never develop passionate antipathies. But Greece is one long despairing rage in those who understand her ... Greece is mindless enough, unless when it comes to politics, and there confusion abounds." White lists a number of exasperating aspects, incidents and images of Greece, "incidents and images such as these have helped temper my passion for Greece; they have forged a relationship without which my life would have been sterile indeed". The final section illustrates White's prickly, socialist, republican, and poetic agenda. "My pursuit of that razor-blade truth has made me a slasher", White concludes, "Not that I don't love and venerate in several senses – before all, pureness of heart and trustfulness."

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The Education of Henry Adams The Education of Henry Adams is an autobiography that records the struggle of Bostonian Henry Adams (1838–1918), in his later years, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. It is also a sharp critique of 19th-century educational theory and practice. In 1907, Adams began privately circulating copies of a limited edition printed at his own expense. Commercial publication of the book had to await its author's 1918 death, whereupon it won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize. The Modern Library placed it first in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century. Subject. "The Education" is more a record of Adams's introspection and his observations than of his deeds. It is an extended meditation on the social, technological, political, and intellectual changes that occurred over Adams's lifetime. Adams concluded that his traditional education failed to help him come to terms with these rapid changes, hence, his need for self-education. The organizing thread of the book is how the "proper" schooling and other aspects of his youth was time wasted, thus, his search for self-education through experiences, friendships, and reading. Many aspects of the contemporary world emerged during the half-century between the Civil War and World War I, a half-century coinciding with Adams's adult life. An important theme of "The Education" is its author's bewilderment and concern at the rapid advance in science and technology over the course of his lifetime, sometimes now called Second Industrial Revolution, but incarnated in his term "dynamo". "The Education" mentions the recent discovery of X-rays and radioactivity, and shows a familiarity with radio waves in his citation of Marconi and Branly. Adams purchased an automobile as early as 1902, to make better use of a summer in France researching "Mont Saint Michel and Chartres". He correctly predicted that the 20th century would have even more explosive changes. Adams repeatedly laments that his formal education, grounded in the classics, history, and literature, as was then the fashion, did not give him the scientific and mathematical knowledge needed to grasp the scientific breakthroughs of the 1890s and 1900s. Adams had direct knowledge of many notable events and persons of the 1850-1900 period, and much of the text is devoted to giving his views on them. The text is written as if readers are already familiar with the major figures and events of the time. "The Education" repeatedly mentions two long-standing friends of Adams, the scientific explorer of the Far West, Clarence King, and the American diplomat, John Milton Hay, who became Secretary of State. "The Education" is narrated in the third person. It is frequently sarcastic and humorously self-critical. "The Education" does not discuss Adams's marriage, and the illness and 1885 suicide of his wife, Clover; it mostly leaves out the periods from 1872 to 1892. The text does not discuss what this period contributed to his education. He referred to his marriage indirectly, by for example, lamenting how the memorial he had constructed for his wife had become something of a tourist attraction. Context. Henry Adams' life story is rooted in the American political aristocracy that emerged from the American Revolution. He was the grandson of the American President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of President and founding father John Adams. His father, Charles Francis Adams, had served as ambassador to the United Kingdom during the Civil War, and had been elected to the United States House of Representatives. His brothers Brooks Adams and Charles Francis Adams Jr. were also historians of note. Henry Adams had received the finest formal education available in the United States, enjoying many other advantages, as well. This social context makes "The Education" so important, but the trappings of success did not mean much to a restless individualist such as Adams. Rather than take advantage of his patrician name, he sized up this and other advantages and found them wanting. Assessment. "The Education" is an important work of American literary nonfiction. It provides a penetrating glimpse into the intellectual and political life of the late 19th century. The Modern Library placed it first in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century. Author and historian Garry Wills has suggested "The Education" contradicts much of Adams' earlier work and opinions, and has biased assessments of Adams' earlier historical works. In popular culture. In his novel, "V.", Thomas Pynchon likens his protagonist Herbert Stencil to Henry Adams in the "Education" as they both refer to themselves in the third person. Further reading. Recent collections of interpretive essays include:

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Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995) is a memoir by Barack Obama that explores the events of his early years in Honolulu and Chicago until his entry into Harvard Law School in 1988. Obama originally published his memoir in 1995, when he was starting his political campaign for the Illinois Senate. He had been elected as the first African-American president of the "Harvard Law Review" in 1990. According to "The New York Times", Obama modeled "Dreams from My Father" on Ralph Ellison's novel "Invisible Man". After Obama won the U.S. Senate Democratic primary victory in Illinois in 2004, the book was re-published that year. He gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and won the Illinois Senate seat in the fall. Obama launched his presidential campaign three years later. The 2004 edition includes a new preface by Obama and his DNC keynote address. Narrative. Barack Obama recounts how his parents met, and his own life until his enrollment at Harvard Law School in 1988. His parents were Barack Obama Sr. of Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, who had met while they were students at the University of Hawaii. In the first chapter, speaking of his father, Obama states "[h]e had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old." Obama's parents separated in 1963 and divorced in 1964, when he was two years old. The elder Obama later went to Harvard to pursue his PhD in economics. After that, he returned to Kenya to fulfill the promise to his nation. Obama himself formed an image of his absent father from stories told by his mother and maternal grandparents. He saw his father one more time, in 1971, when Obama Sr. came to Hawaii for a month's visit. The elder Obama, who had remarried, died in a car accident in Kenya in 1982. After her divorce, Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, a Javanese surveyor from Indonesia who was also a graduate student in Hawaii. The family moved to Jakarta when Obama was six years old. At age ten, Obama returned to Hawaii under the care of his maternal grandparents for the better educational opportunities available there. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a private college-preparatory school, where he was one of six black students. Obama attended Punahou from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979. Obama writes: "For my grandparents, my admission into Punahou Academy heralded the start of something grand, an elevation in the family status that they took great pains to let everyone know." There, he met Ray (Keith Kakugawa), who was two years older and also multi-racial. He introduced Obama to the African-American community. Upon graduating from high school, Obama moved to the contiguous United States for studies at Occidental College. He describes having lived a "party" lifestyle of drug and alcohol use. After two years at Occidental, Obama transferred to Columbia College at Columbia University, where he majored in Political Science. After graduation, Obama worked for a year in business. He moved to Chicago, where he worked for a non-profit as a community organizer in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the city's mostly black South Side. Obama recounts the difficulty of the experience, as his program faced resistance from entrenched community leaders and apathy on the part of the established bureaucracy. During this period, Obama first visited Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, which became the center of his religious life. Before attending Harvard, Obama decided to visit relatives in Kenya for the first time in his life. He recounts part of this experience in the final and emotional part of the book. Obama acknowledged his entire memoir to reflect on his personal experiences with race relations in the United States. Book cover. Pictured in left-hand photograph on cover: Habiba Akumu Hussein and Barack Obama Sr. (Obama's paternal grandmother and his father as a young boy, respectively). Pictured in right-hand photograph on cover: Stanley Dunham and Ann Dunham (Obama's maternal grandfather and his mother as a young girl). Persons in the book. With the exception of family members and a handful of public figures, Barack Obama says in the 2004 preface that he had changed names of others to protect their privacy. He also created composite characters to expedite the narrative flow. Some of his acquaintances have recognized themselves and acknowledged their names. Various researchers have suggested the names of other figures in the book: Reception. In discussing "Dreams from My Father", Toni Morrison, a Nobel Laureate novelist, has called Obama "a writer in my high esteem" and the book "quite extraordinary." She praised his ability to reflect on this extraordinary mesh of experiences that he has had, some familiar and some not, and to really meditate on that the way he does, and to set up scenes in narrative structure, dialogue, conversation—all of these things that you don't often see, obviously, in the routine political memoir biography. ... It's unique. It's his. There are no other ones like that. In an interview for "The Daily Beast," the author Philip Roth said he had read "Dreams from My Father" "with great interests," and commented that he had found it "well done and very persuasive and memorable." The book "may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician," wrote "Time" columnist Joe Klein. In 2008, "The Guardian"'s Rob Woodard wrote that "Dreams from My Father" "is easily the most honest, daring, and ambitious volume put out by a major US politician in the last 50 years." Michiko Kakutani, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for "The New York Times", described it as "the most evocative, lyrical and candid autobiography written by a future president." Writing for the Guardian, literary critic Robert McCrum wrote that Obama had "executed an affecting personal memoir with grace and style, narrating an enthralling story with honesty, elegance and wit, as well as an instinctive gift for storytelling." McCrum had included the book in his list of the 100 best non-fiction books of all time. The audiobook edition earned Obama the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2006. Five days before being sworn in as President in 2009, Obama secured a $500,000 advance for an abridged version of "Dreams from My Father" for middle-school-aged children. "Time Magazine" Top 100 List. In 2011, "Time Magazine" listed the book on its top 100 non-fiction books written in English since 1923.

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Running with Scissors (memoir) Running with Scissors is a 2002 memoir by American writer Augusten Burroughs. The book tells the story of Burroughs's bizarre childhood life after his mother, a chain-smoking aspiring poet, sent him to live with her psychiatrist. "Running with Scissors" spent eight weeks on the "New York Times" bestseller list. Plot summary. "Running with Scissors" covers the period of Burroughs' adolescent years, beginning at age 12 after a brief overview of his life as a child. Burroughs spends his early childhood in a clean and orderly home, obsessing over his clothes, hair, accessories, and having great potential, with his parents constantly fighting in the background. When his parents separate and his mother begins to second-guess her sexuality, Burroughs is sent to live with his mother's psychiatrist, Dr. Finch, who lives in a rundown Victorian house in Northampton, Massachusetts. Finch lives with his "legal" wife, Agnes, as well as his biological and adopted children and some of his own patients. Rules are practically nonexistent and children of all ages do whatever they please, such as having sex, smoking cigarettes and cannabis, and rebelling against authority figures. Finch feels that, at age 13, children should be in charge of their own lives. However, the dysfunctional issues that occur in the Finch family are outdone by the psychotic episodes frequently experienced by Burroughs' mother. The Finch house is a parallel universe to the home Burroughs came from. It is filthy, with cockroaches roaming around the uncleaned dishes, Christmas trees left up year-round, stairs up which Burroughs is afraid to walk because he thinks that they will collapse under him, and nothing off limits. Eventually, Finch comes to believe that God is communicating with him through his feces and develops a form of divination to try and decipher these messages. When Hope, Finch's second oldest daughter, believes her cat is dying, she keeps it in a laundry basket for four days until it dies: "Hope said Freud died of kitty leukemia and old age, I thought it was because Freud was stuck under a laundry basket with no food or water for 4 days." Burroughs' mother is shown as emotionally drained, excessive, self-centered, and ultimately incapable of being a parent. She has a sexual relationship with a local minister's wife, which is revealed to Burroughs when he accidentally walks in on them when he skips school. When this relationship ends, Burroughs' mother starts another with an affluent African-American woman. This relationship is tumultuous and unstable. At one point, they have a mental patient named Cesar live at their house after another of his mother's breakdowns as his "dad". Cesar attempts to rape Burroughs while he is sleeping, but is unsuccessful (when Cesar goes to live with the Finches later in the book, he pays one of the Finches' daughters for sex and is then forced from the home). His mother's biggest psychotic episode happens when she and Dorothy (her partner) move everything out of their house and attack Burroughs when he tries to intervene. This later ends with a "road trip" and events leading to Burroughs' mother being restrained on a bed. Burroughs tells Dr. Finch's adopted 33-year-old son, Neil Bookman, that he is gay. From the age of 13 to 15, Burroughs has an intense and open sexual relationship with Bookman, which begins when Bookman forces the young boy to perform oral sex on him. Neither his mother nor any member of the Finch family is bothered by their relationship. Burroughs begins to enjoy exacting power over Bookman by threatening to charge him with statutory rape. Bookman is obsessed with the young boy, even though Burroughs has problems with their relationship (going in phases of needing the affection of Bookman to wanting to humiliate or get away from him) which only infatuates Bookman more. Bookman eventually leaves Northampton for New York City and is never heard from again by Burroughs or the Finches, even after they try everything in their power to find him. Burroughs forms a close relationship with Finch's daughter, Natalie, who is one year older than he is, even though he dislikes her at the beginning of the book. They do everything together, from finding jobs to running behind a waterfall to demolishing the kitchen ceiling. They finally leave the Finch household together. At the end of the book, when Burroughs is living in his own apartment with Natalie, he is asked to choose between his mother and Finch when she accuses the doctor of raping her in a motel to cure her of one of her psychotic episodes. He still considers Finch's family and his mother to be his family, and he cannot bring himself to choose sides, although he is fairly certain that Finch did rape his mother. Quoted from the book, Burroughs states: "So it came to this: Was I a turd-reading Finch? Or was I my crazy mother's son? In the end, I decided that I was neither." Film adaptation. The film adaptation of "Running with Scissors", released in 2006, stars Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Jill Clayburgh, Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Cross as Burroughs. The plot of the film is focused on the relationship between the mother and the son. Legal case. In 2005, the family of Dr. Rodolph H. Turcotte (1919–2000), of Massachusetts filed suit against Burroughs and his publisher, alleging defamation of character and invasion of privacy. They stated that they were the basis for the Finch family portrayed in the book but that Burroughs had fabricated or exaggerated various descriptions of their activities. The case was later settled with Sony Pictures Entertainment in October 2006, prior to the release of the film adaptation. Burroughs and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, settled with the Turcotte family in August 2007. The Turcottes were reportedly seeking damages of $2 million for invasion of privacy, defamation, and emotional distress; the Turcottes alleged "Running with Scissors" was largely fictional and written in a sensational manner. Burroughs defended his work as "entirely accurate", but agreed to call the work a "book" (instead of a "memoir") in the author's note, to alter the acknowledgments page in future editions to recognize the Turcotte family's conflicting memories of described events, and express regret for "any unintentional harm" to the Turcotte family. Burroughs felt vindicated by the settlement. "I'm not at all sorry that I wrote [the book]. And you know, the suit settled—it settled in my favor. I didn't change a word of the memoir, not one word of it. It's still a memoir, it's marketed as a memoir, they've agreed one hundred percent that it is a memoir." Future printings of "Running with Scissors" will contain modified language in the Author's Note and Acknowledgments pages. Where the Acknowledgments page had read: "Additionally, I would like to thank each and every member of a certain Massachusetts family for taking me into their home and accepting me as one of their own," the following was substituted: "Additionally, I would like to thank the real-life members of the family portrayed in this book for taking me into their home and accepting me as one of their own. I recognize that their memories of the events described in this book are different than my own. They are each fine, decent, and hard-working people. The book was not intended to hurt the family. Both my publisher and I regret any unintentional harm resulting from the publishing and marketing of "Running with Scissors"." In addition, on the Author's Note page—but, as the family agreed, nowhere else—the word "book" replaced the word "memoir." The work is still described as a memoir on the cover, title page and elsewhere.

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The Seven Storey Mountain The Seven Storey Mountain is the 1948 autobiography of Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk and priest who was a noted author in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Merton finished the book in 1946 at the age of 31, five years after entering Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstown, Kentucky. The title refers to the mountain of purgatory from Dante's "Purgatorio". "The Seven Storey Mountain" was published in 1948 and was unexpectedly successful. The first printing was planned for 7,500 copies, but pre-publication sales exceeded 20,000. By May 1949, 100,000 copies were in print and, according to "Time" magazine, it was among the best-selling non-fiction books in the country for the year 1949. The original hardcover edition eventually sold over 600,000 copies, and paperback sales exceed three million by 1984. A British edition, edited by Evelyn Waugh, was titled Elected Silence. The book has remained continuously in print, and has been translated into more than 15 languages. The 50th-anniversary edition, published in 1998 by Harvest Books, included an introduction by Merton's editor, Robert Giroux, and a note by biographer and Thomas Merton Society founder William Shannon. Apart from being on the "National Review" list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century, it was also mentioned in "100 Christian Books That Changed the Century" (2000) by William J. Petersen. Writing and publication. In "The Seven Storey Mountain", Merton reflects on his early life and on the quest for faith in God that led to his conversion to Roman Catholicism at age 23. Upon his conversion, Merton left a promising literary career, resigned his position as a teacher of English literature at St. Bonaventure's College in Olean, New York, and entered the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in rural Kentucky. Describing his entry, Merton writes, "Brother Matthew locked the gate behind me, and I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom." Later, Dom Frederic Dunne, the abbot at the abbey, who had received him as a novice, suggested that Merton write out his life story, which he reluctantly began, but once he did, it started "pouring out". Soon he was filling up his journals with the work that led to the book which "Time" magazine later described as having "redefined the image of monasticism and made the concept of saintliness accessible to moderns". In Merton's journals, the first entry mentioning the project is dated March 1, 1946, but many scholars think he started writing it earlier than that, because the draft (more than 600 pages) reached his agent Naomi Burton Stone by October 21, 1946. In late 1946, the partly approved text of "The Seven Storey Mountain" was sent to Naomi Burton, his agent at Curtis Brown literary agency, who then forwarded it to the renowned book editor Robert Giroux at Harcourt Brace publishers. Giroux read it overnight, and the next day phoned Naomi with an offer, who accepted it on the monastery's behalf. With Merton having taken a vow of poverty, all the royalties were to go to the Abbey community. Soon a trouble arose, though, when an elderly censor from another abbey objected to Merton's colloquial prose style, which he found inappropriate for a monk. Merton appealed (in French) to the Abbot General in France, who concluded that an author's style was a personal matter, and subsequently the local censor also reversed his opinion, paving the way for the book's publication. Edward Rice, a friend of Merton, suggests a different story behind the censorship issues. Rice believes the censor's comments did have an effect on the book. The censors were not primarily concerned with Merton's prose style, but rather the content of his thoughts in the autobiography. It was "too frank" for the public to handle. What was published was a "castrated" version of the original manuscript. At the time Rice published his opinion, he was unable to provide any proof; however, since then early drafts of the autobiography have surfaced and prove that parts of the manuscript were either deleted or changed. In the introduction to the 50th-anniversary edition of the autobiography, Giroux acknowledges these changes and provides the original first paragraph of Merton's autobiography. Originally, it began "When a man is conceived, when a human nature comes into being as an individual, concrete, subsisting thing, a life, a person, then God's image is minted into the world. A free, vital, self-moving entity, a spirit informing flesh, a complex of energies ready to be set into fruitful motion begins to flame with love, without which no spirit can exist..." The published autobiography begins with "On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and down in the shadow of some French Mountains on the borders of Spain, I came into the world." In the middle of 1948, advance proofs were sent to Evelyn Waugh, Clare Boothe Luce, Graham Greene and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who responded with compliments and quotations which were used on the book jacket and in some advertisements. The first printing run was increased from 5,000 to 12,500. Thus the book was out in October 1948, and by December it had sold 31,028 copies and was declared a bestseller by "Time" magazine. "The New York Times", however, initially refused to put it on the weekly Best Sellers list, on the grounds that it was "a religious book". In response, Harcourt Brace placed a large advertisement in "The New York Times" calling attention to the newspaper's decision. The following week, "The Seven Storey Mountain" appeared on the bestsellers list, where it remained for almost a year. Comparison with Augustine of Hippo. In "The Seven Storey Mountain", Merton seems to be struggling to answer a spiritual call; the worldly influences of his earlier years have been compared with the story of Augustine of Hippo's conversion as described in his "Confessions". Many of Merton's early reviewers made explicit comparisons. For example, Fulton J. Sheen called it "a twentieth-century form of "The Confessions of St. Augustine"". Social reaction. "The Seven Storey Mountain" is said to have resonated within a society longing for renewed personal meaning and direction in the aftermath of a long and bloody war (World War II), at a time when global annihilation was increasingly imaginable due to the development of atomic bombs and even more powerful thermonuclear weapons. The book has served as a powerful recruitment tool for the priestly life in general, and for the monastic orders in particular. In the 1950s, Gethsemani Abbey and the other Trappist monasteries experienced a surge in young men presenting themselves for the cenobitic life. It is a well-known bit of Catholic lore that, after the book's publication, many priests entered monasteries or seminaries with a copy in their suitcase. One printing bears this accolade on the cover, from Graham Greene: "It is a rare pleasure to read an autobiography with a pattern and meaning valid for us all. "The Seven Storey Mountain" is a book one reads with a pencil so as to make it one's own." Evelyn Waugh also greatly (although not uncritically) admired the book and its author. He admired the book so much, he edited the autobiography for a British audience and published it as "Elected Silence". "The Seven Storey Mountain" has been credited as being the first major Catholic book to achieve widespread popularity in America, breaking the liberal Protestant monopoly on middlebrow spirituality and helping to spread the notion of the "Judeo-Christian tradition". Later life and criticism. Later in life, Merton's perspectives on his work in "The Seven Storey Mountain" had changed. In "The Sign of Jonas", published in 1953, Merton says that ""The Seven Storey Mountain" is the work of a man I have never even heard of." Merton also penned an introduction to a 1966 Japanese edition of "The Seven Storey Mountain", saying "Perhaps if I were to attempt this book today, it would be written differently. Who knows? But it was written when I was still quite young, and that is the way it remains. The story no longer belongs to me..." Merton died in 1968 in Samut Prakan Province, Thailand while attending an international monasticism conference. It was reported he was accidentally electrocuted by a fan, but commentators posited he was assassinated by the CIA for his anti-war rhetoric. Various writers have noted the irony of his life's tragic conclusion, given that "The Seven Storey Mountain" closes by admonishing the reader to "learn to know the Christ of the burnt men" (see, e.g., "The Man in the Sycamore Tree", 1979). "The Seven Storey Mountain" propelled Merton into a life of paradoxes: a man who left an urban intellectual career for a labor-oriented rural existence, only to be led back into the realm of international opinion and debate; a man who spurned the literary world for the anonymity of cenobitic life in a Trappist monastery, only to become a world-famous author; and a man who professed his devotion to remain fixed in the confines of a monastic cell, only to fulfill an urge to travel throughout Asia. Best books lists. "The Seven Storey Mountain" has been extensively praised in lists of the best books of the 20th century. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has it on their list of the 50 best books of the century and it was at Number 75 on the "National Review"s list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century.

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Passage to Nirvana Passage to Nirvana, A Survivor's Zen Voyage: Reflections on Loss, Discovery, Healing & Hope is a memoir by Lee Carlson, written over a several year period from 2005-2010 primarily on board a 60-foot sailboat named Nirvana that he shared with his fiancée Meg. It was his first book, although he had made his living as a writer for most of his adult life, working first as a journalist, magazine editor and freelance writer, and then moving into advertising and marketing copywriting. The book centers around Carlson's traumatic brain injury and subsequent recovery, as well as his mother's death from a traumatic brain injury. However the book is much more far-ranging, delving into such subjects as Zen Buddhism, sailing, divorce, children, family and even poetry. Ultimately it is a book about finding peace and happiness after a traumatic life event, a book about finding the joy in living. Plot summary. "Passage to Nirvana" begins with Carlson's accident, when he was hit by a car standing outside a car wash, striking his head violently on the pavement, fracturing his skull, lapsing into a light coma and sustaining a traumatic brain injury, with bleeding on the brain and other damage. The story follows him through his brief hospitalization, then a year-long rehab in Florida, then his return to the North Fork of Long Island where he tries to rebuild his shattered life. His wife has left him and moved away with their children, his business has evaporated, he has no home and has to begin with noting to renew his life. During his year in Florida he also helps care for his mother, who is severely disabled from her own traumatic brain injury sustained when she fell down a flight of basement stairs. She is in a wheelchair, unable to walk, talk or feed herself. While he is in Florida, his mother eventually dies. Upon returning to Long Island, more misfortunes seem to continue: his aunt dies of cancer, as does his brother-in-law, and he returns to Buffalo to help his sister and her children while his brother-in-law is in the hospital. While this may sound morbid and depressing, the bulk of the book is uplifting, a positive affirmation of life. Carlson concentrates on his Zen Buddhist studies and meditation as a way of helping him heal, working with the noted writer and Zen teacher Peter Matthiessen. Sections of the book take place in the Ocean Zendo, a Zen center run by Matthiessen, and much of the book is a meditation on the spiritual aspects of healing, acceptance and rebuilding a life. Eventually Carlson meets a beautiful, understanding woman who has been through difficulties of her own: a difficult divorce, raising two children as a single mother. They fall in love, and decide to buy a sailboat named "Nirvana" that they discover rotting in a boatyard in St. Martin. They renovate the boat, sail her back to the eastern end of Long Island, where they are joined by their four children and two dogs, working at creating a new family and a new life. Eventually they sail "Nirvana" to the Bahamas for a winter writing sabbatical, where most of the book was written. Trying to describe the "plot" is difficult, however, as the book is really a collection of short essays, some about events happening in real time, some about traumatic brain injury, some reflections on various aspects of philosophy and Eastern thought, and some stories recalling the author's childhood. See the section "Unique Writing Style" below for more information. Unique writing style. The book is written as a series of short, interconnected essays, many of them short, short stories no more than a few pages long, using some example from Carlson's life and recovery as a kind of moral fable. Most of the chapters are preceded by exceedingly short poems, often consisting of only three or four words, that Carlson calls a "Po." The narrative of the book is not linear, and in the book's introduction Carlson says that much of the book's unique style came from how his brain functioned during his recovery. The Po because initially he could not remember long sentences; the short chapters because he could not remember longer chapters, and the non-linear narrative because that's how his mind was functioning, having trouble concentrating on any one thing for long periods of time. As such the narrative jumps back and forth, loops around in time, and is refreshingly inventive and interesting. At the same time, each short chapter is designed as a stand-alone essay, so the reader can pick up the book, turn to any chapter and read it as a kind of short story. Background and publication. Written during 2005-2010, and published in 2010, "Passage to Nirvana" was rejected by a number of mainstream publishers and agents, due to its unusual writing style and layout. Because of his background in magazine publishing, Carlson decided to form his own publishing company, Henry Chapin and Sons, to publish and market the book. Given his interest in new technology, the internet, and the rapidly changing publishing business, he also decided to use the new crowdfunding paradigm for raising money to publish the book, and raised nearly $13,000 from small, individual donors using the arts funding web site kickstarter. He then used Facebook, as well as the worldwide network of Amazon.com sites such as Amazon Japan as a way of marketing the book and reaching out to a worldwide readership, where the book found a following, gathering fans from not only the U.S., but from Canada, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, the U.K., Ireland, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Morocco, South Africa, Croatia, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Japan, Australia and other countries. Reviews and criticism. "Passage to Nirvana" has received positive reviews. One reviewer said, "Mr. Carlson is playful with words, which is part of the enchantment of his po-etics, or short poems, called po. With titles like “Passage to Nirvana” and “The Book of Po,” they made me think of “Passage to India” and “Life of Pi.” The references lead by imagination to the land of origin for Buddhism, or so I take it. Mr. Carlson’s journey is graced with whimsy, like a good south wind with the sail in a reach and spray in your face...The writing here is lucid, with a light touch — light of heart." Another reviewer said "No one is perfect, and realizing this is the first step in finding that second opportunity in life. "Passage to Nirvana: A Survivor's Zen Voyage: Reflections on Loss, Discovery, Healing & Hope" is an inspirational and spiritual read from Lee Carlson. Recovering from a traumatic brain injury, he found new joy in life and found his own passage to joy in life through many arts of Zen. Thoughtful and riveting reading, "Passage to Nirvana" is an enlightening and educational read that shouldn't be overlooked for those looking for their own second chances." A third review called "Passage to Nirvana" "An inspirational story of how love and the strength of the human spirit can triumph over adversity, Passage to Nirvana is a reminder to cherish every day and never forget that our health is, indeed, our wealth." While the book is ostensibly about recovering from traumatic brain injury, the spiritual nature of the book is one thing that seems to have captured many people's attention. There is the review in the East Hampton Star that was written by a minister (see first review above), and on the book's website there are many reviews and testimonials from people with two testimonials from religious teachers standing out: “Amazing, Really Amazing. I Want to Share it With Others.” -Rabbi John Linder, Temple Solei; and “Deserves to be Hailed As A Unique and Lasting Contribution to American Letters.” -Reverend Thomas Yorty, Westminster Presbyterian Church. The book has received all five-star reviews on Amazon.com.

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The Days (book) The Days () is a novelized autobiography in three volumes by the Egyptian professor Taha Hussein, published between 1926 and 1967. It deals with his childhood in a small village, then his studies in Egypt and France. It is one of the most popular works of modern Arabic literature. Volumes. The first volume was serialized in "Al-Hilal", a literary magazine, from January 1926 to January 1927, then published as a book in 1929. It covers the author's childhood, with themes of the ignorance prevalent in rural Egypt and the customs practiced at that time, and provides a detailed description of traditional Islamic education. It is written in a mixture of first and third person narrative. Hussein often interrupts himself, suggesting a lack of control. There are many references to the art of listening and descriptive details about the way things smell or feel, as Hussein subtly reveals that he has gone blind. It was published in English in 1932, titled "An Egyptian Childhood" and translated by E. H. Paxton. Volume two was published as a book in 1940. It covers the time from his entrance into Al-Azhar to his entrance into Cairo University, focusing on his rebellion against his teachers and the traditions of Al-Azhar. Hilary Wayment translated it as "The Stream of Days" in 1948. The third volume was serialized from March 1955 to June 1955 in the magazine "Akher Saa", then published as a book in 1967. It is about the author's time at Cairo University, then his studies in France, where he obtained a doctorate degree, and finally his return to Egypt, where he became a professor. An English translation by Kenneth Cragg was published in 1973, under the title "A Passage to France". Reception and influence. According to scholar Fedwa Malti-Douglas, "no other work of modern Arabic literature is so familiar to readers in both the Arab world and the West." The stylistic techniques employed by Hussein, especially the ironic dialogue between the narrator and the Hussein's childhood self, had a significant impact on the development of the Arabic novel.

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Desert Solitaire Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness is an autobiographical work by American writer Edward Abbey, originally published in 1968. His fourth book and his first book-length non-fiction work, it follows three fictional books: "Jonathan Troy" (1954), "The Brave Cowboy" (1956), and "Fire on the Mountain" (1962). Although it initially garnered little attention, "Desert Solitaire" was eventually recognized as an iconic work of nature writing and a staple of early environmentalist writing, bringing Abbey critical acclaim and popularity as a writer of environmental, political, and philosophical issues. Based on Abbey's activities as a park ranger at Arches National Monument (now Arches National Park) in the late 1950s, the book is often compared to Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" and Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac". It is written as a series of vignettes about Abbey's experiences in the Colorado Plateau region of the desert Southwestern United States, ranging from vivid descriptions of the fauna, flora, geology, and human inhabitants of the area, to firsthand accounts of wilderness exploration and river running, to a polemic against development and excessive tourism in the national parks, to stories of the author's work with a search and rescue team to pull a human corpse out of the desert. The book is interspersed with observations and discussions about the various tensions – physical, social, and existential – between humans and the desert environment. Many of the chapters also engage in lengthy critiques of modern Western civilization, United States politics, and the decline of America's natural environment. Background. In 1956 and 1957, Edward Abbey worked as a seasonal ranger for the United States National Park Service at Arches National Monument, near the town of Moab, Utah. Abbey held the position from April to September each year, during which time he maintained trails, greeted visitors, and collected campground fees. He lived in a house trailer provided to him by the Park Service, as well as in a ramada that he built himself. The area around Moab in that period was still a wilderness habitat and largely undeveloped, with only small numbers of park visitors and limited access to most areas of the monument. During his stay at Arches, Abbey accumulated a large volume of notes and sketches which later formed the basis of his first non-fiction work, "Desert Solitaire". These notes remained unpublished for almost a decade while Abbey pursued other jobs and attempted with only moderate success to pursue other writing projects, including three novels which proved to be commercial and critical failures. Eventually Abbey revisited the Arches notes and diaries in 1967, and after some editing and revising had them published as a book in 1968. Although Abbey rejected the label of nature writing to describe his work, "Desert Solitaire" was one of a number of influential works which contributed to the popularity and interest in the nature writing genre in the 1960s and 1970s. Abbey cited as inspiration and referred to other earlier writers of the genre, particularly Mary Hunter Austin, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, whose style Abbey echoed in the structure of his work. However, Abbey's writing in this period was also significantly more confrontational and politically charged than in earlier works, and like contemporary Rachel Carson in "Silent Spring", he sought to contribute to the wider political movement of environmentalism which was emerging at the time. Abbey went on to admire the nature writing and environmentalist contemporaries of that period, particularly Annie Dillard. Contents. "Desert Solitaire" is a collection of treatises and autobiographical excerpts describing Abbey's experiences as a park ranger and wilderness enthusiast in 1956 and 1957. The opening chapters, "First Morning" and "Solitaire", focus on the author's experiences arriving at and creating a life within Arches National Monument. In this early period the park is relatively undeveloped: road access and camping facilities are basic, and there is a low volume of tourist traffic. Many of the book's chapters are studies of the animals, plants, geography, and climate of the region around Arches National Monument. "Cliffrose and Bayonets" and "Serpents of Paradise" focus on Abbey's descriptions of the fauna and flora of the Arches area, respectively, and his observations of the already deteriorating balance of biodiversity in the desert due to the pressures of human settlement in the region. Abbey provides detailed inventories and observations of the life of desert plants, and their unique adaptations to their harsh surroundings, including the cliffrose, juniper, pinyon pine, and sand sage. He comments on the decline of the large desert predators, particularly bobcats, coyotes, mountain lions, and wildcats, and criticizes the roles ranchers and the policies of the Department of Agriculture have had in the elimination of these animals, which in turn has fostered unchecked growth in deer and rabbit populations, thereby damaging the delicate balance of the desert ecosystem. In the aforementioned chapters and in "Rocks", Abbey also describes at length the geology he encounters in Arches National Monument, particularly the iconic formations of Delicate Arch and Double Arch. In "Water", Abbey discusses how the ecosystem adapts to the arid conditions of the Southwest, and how the springs, creeks and other stores of water in their own ways support some of the diverse but fragile plant and animal life. Some of the oddities of water in the desert, such as flash floods and quicksand, are also explored. Abbey contrasts the natural adaptation of the environment to low-water conditions with increasing human demands to create more reliable water sources. "The Heat of Noon: Rock and Tree and Cloud" describes the intensity of the summer months in the park, and the various ways in which animals and humans have tried to survive and adapt in those conditions. Several chapters focus on Abbey's interactions with the people of the Southwest or explorations of human history. In "Rocks", Abbey examines the influence of mining in the region, particularly the search for lead, silver, uranium, and zinc. Abbey contrasts the difficult lives of the many who unsuccessfully sought their fortune in the desert whilst others left millionaires from lucky strikes, and the legacy of government policy and human greed that can be seen in the modern landscape of mines and shafts, roads and towns. Abbey offers the fable of one "Albert T. Husk" who gave up everything and met his demise in the desert, in the elusive search for buried riches. In two chapters entitled "Cowboys and Indians", Abbey describes his encounters with Roy and Viviano ("cowboys") and the Navajo of the area ("Indians"), finding both to be victims of a fading way of life in the Southwest, and in desperate need of better solutions to growing problems and declining opportunities. Abbey also comments on some of the particular cultural artifacts of the region, such as the Basque population, the Mormons, and the archaeological remains of the Ancient Puebloan peoples in cliff dwellings, stone petroglyphs, and pictographs. Several chapters center around Abbey's expeditions beyond the park, either accompanied or alone, and often serve as opportunities for rich descriptions of the surrounding environments and further observations about the natural and human world. Specifically, his search for a wild horse in the canyons ("The Moon-Eyed Horse"), his camping around the Havasupai tribal lands and his temporary entrapment on a cliff face there ("Havasu"), the discovery of a dead tourist at an isolated area of what is now Canyonlands National Park ("The Dead Man at Grandview Point"), his attempt to navigate the Maza area of the Canyonlands National Park ("Terra Incognita: Into the Maze"), and his ascent of Mount Tukuhnikivats ("Tukuhnikivats, the Island in the Desert") are recounted. "Down the River", the longest chapter of the book, recalls a journey by boat down Glen Canyon undertaken by Abbey and an associate, in part inspired by John Wesley Powell's original voyage of discovery in 1869. Their journey is taken in the final months before its flooding by the Glen Canyon Dam, in which Abbey notes that many of the natural wonders encountered on the journey would be inundated. Finally, several chapters are devoted largely to Abbey's reflections of the damaging impact of humans on the everyday life, nature, and culture of the region. "Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks" is an essay fiercely criticizing the policies and vision of the National Park Service, particularly the process by which developing the parks for automotive access has dehumanized the experiences of nature, and created a generation of lazy and unadventurous Americans whilst permanently damaging the views and landscapes of the parks. In "Episodes and Visions", Abbey meditates on religion, philosophy, and literature and their intersections with desert life, as well as collects various thoughts on the tension between culture and civilization, espousing many tenets in support of environmentalism. In "Bedrock and Paradox", Abbey details his mixed feelings about his return to New York City after his term as a ranger has finished, and his paradoxical desires for both solitude and community. Abbey also describes his difficulty finding the language, faith, and philosophy to adequately capture his understanding of nature and its effect on the soul. Themes and style. "Desert Solitaire" depicts Abbey's preoccupation with the deserts of the American Southwest. He describes how the desert affects society and more specifically the individual on a multifaceted, sensory level. Many of the ideas and themes drawn out in the book are contradictory. For example: Abbey is dogmatically opposed in various sections to modernity that alienates man from their natural environment and spoils the desert landscapes, and yet at various points relies completely on modern contrivances to explore and live in the desert. Additionally, he expresses his deep and abiding respect for all forms of life in his philosophy, but describes unflinchingly his contempt for the cattle he herds in the canyons, and in another scene he remorselessly stones a rabbit, angry about rabbits' overabundance in the desert. Similarly, he remarks that he hates ants and plunges his walking stick into an ant hill for no reason other than to make the ants mad. However, Abbey deliberately highlights many of the paradoxes and comments on them in his final chapter, particularly in regard to his conception of the desert landscape itself. He introduces the desert as "the flaming globe, blazing on the pinnacles and minarets and balanced rocks" and describes his initial reaction to his newfound environment and its challenges. For Abbey, the desert is a symbol of strength, and he is "comforted by [the] solidity and resistance" of his natural surroundings. However, he also sees the desert as "a-tonal, cruel, clear, inhuman, neither romantic nor classical, motionless and emotionless, at one and the same time – another paradox – both agonized and deeply still." The desert, he writes, represents a harsh reality unseen by the masses. It is this harshness that makes "the desert more alluring, more baffling, more fascinating", increasing the vibrancy of life. In his narrative, Abbey is both an individual, solitary and independent, and a member of a greater ecosystem, as both predator and prey. This duality ultimately allows him the freedom to prosper, as "love flowers best in openness in freedom." Abbey's overall entrancement with the desert, and in turn its indifference towards man, is prevalent throughout his writings. To Abbey, the desert represents both the end to one life and the beginning of another: The finest quality of this stone, these plants and animals, this desert landscape is the indifference manifest to our presence, our absence, our staying or our going. Whether we live or die is a matter of absolutely no concern whatsoever to the desert. Let men in their madness blast every city on earth into black rubble and envelope the entire planet in a cloud of lethal gas - the canyons and hills, the springs and rocks will still be here, the sunlight will filter through, water will form and warmth shall be upon the land and after sufficient time, now matter how long, somewhere, living things will emerge and join and stand once again, this time perhaps to take a different and better course. Like Thoreau's "Walden" and Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac", Abbey adopts a style of narrative in "Desert Solitaire" that compresses multiple years of observations and experiences into a singular narrative that follows the timeline of a single cycle of the seasons. In this process, many of the events and characters described are often fictionalized in many key respects, and the account is not entirely true to the author's actual experiences, highlighting the importance of the philosophical and aesthetic qualities of the writing rather than its strict adherence to an autobiographical genre. Modernity and industrial society. One of the dominant themes in "Desert Solitaire" is Abbey's disgust with mainstream culture and its effect on society. His message is that civilization and nature each have their own culture, and it is necessary to survival that they remain separate: "The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good. I am here not only to escape for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus but also to confront, immediately and directly if it's possible, the bare bones of existence, elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us." Abbey's impression is that we are trapped by the machinations of mainstream culture. This is made apparent with quotes such as: "Yet history demonstrates that personal liberty is a rare and precious thing, that all societies tend toward the absolute until attack from without or collapse from within breaks up the social machine and makes freedom and innovation again possible." He also believes the daily routine is meaningless, that we have created a life that we do not even want to live in: "My God"! I am thinking, what incredible "shit" we put up with most of our lives – the "domestic" routine (same old wife every night), the stupid and useless degrading "jobs", the "insufferable" arrogance of elected officials, the crafty "cheating" and the "slimy" advertising of the business men, the tedious wars in which we kill our buddies instead of our "real" enemies back in the capital, the foul diseased and "hideous" cities and towns we live in, the constant "petty" tyranny of automatic washers and automobiles and TV machines and telephone! Abbey displays disdain for the way industrialization is impacting the American wilderness. He scolds humanity for the environmental duress caused by man's blatant disregard for nature: "If industrial man, continues to multiply his numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural, and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making". Man prioritizes material items over nature, development and expansion for the sake of development: There may be some among the readers of this book, like the earnest engineer, who believe without question that any and all forms of construction and development are intrinsic goods, in the national parks as well as anywhere else, who virtually identify quantity with quality and therefore assume that the greater the quantity of traffic, the higher the value received. There are some who frankly and boldly advocate the eradication of the last remnants of wilderness and the complete subjugation of nature to the requirements of--not man--but industry. This is a courageous view, admirable in its simplicity and power, and with the weight of all modern history behind it. It is also quite insane. I cannot attempt to deal with it here. Another example of this for Abbey is the tragedy of the commons: A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself. If industrial man continues to multiply its numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making. He will make himself an exile from the earth. He also criticizes what he sees as the dominant social paradigm, what he calls the "expansionist view", and the belief that technology will solve all our problems: "Confusing life expectancy with life-span, the gullible begin to believe that medical science has accomplished a miracle—lengthened human life!" Abbey takes this theme to an extreme at various points of the narrative, concluding that: "Wilderness preservations like a hundred other good causes will be forgotten under the overwhelming pressure, or a struggle for mere survival and sanity in a completely urbanized completely industrialized, ever more crowded environment, for my own part I would rather take my chances in a thermonuclear war than live in such a world". Wilderness. Another major theme is the sanctity of untamed wilderness. Abbey states his dislike of the human agenda and presence by providing evidence of beauty that is beautiful simply because of its lack of human connection: "I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description. To meet God or Medusa face to face, even if it means risking everything human in myself." There is no hidden meaning in the wilderness for Abbey - he finds it beautiful because it is untainted by human perspectives and values. He also concludes that its inherent emptiness and meaninglessness serve as the ideal canvas for human philosophy absent the distractions of human contrivances and natural complexities. As such, Abbey wonders why natural monuments like mountains and oceans are mythologized and extolled much more than are deserts. That emptiness is one of the defining aspects of the desert wildness and for Abbey one of its greatest assets - and one which humans have disturbed and harmed by their own presence: I am almost prepared to believe that this sweet virginal primitive land would be grateful for my departure and the absence of the tourist, will breathe metaphorically a collective sigh of relief – like a whisper of wind – when we are all and finally gone and the place and its creations can return to their ancient procedures unobserved and undisturbed by the busy, anxious, brooding consciousness of man. Midway through the text, Abbey observes that nature is something lost since before the time of our forefathers, something that has become distant and mysterious which he believes we should all come to know better: "Suppose we say that wilderness provokes nostalgia, a justified not merely sentimental nostalgia for the lost America our forefathers knew. The word suggests the past and the unknown, the womb of the earth from which we all emerged." He quite firmly believes that our agenda should change, that we need to reverse our path and reconnect with that something we have lost - indeed, that mankind and civilization needs wilderness for its own edification. Abbey is not unaware, however, of the behaviour of his human kin; instead, he realizes that people have very different ideas about how to experience nature. Some like to live as much in accord with nature as possible, and others want to have both manmade comforts and a marvelous encounter with nature simultaneously: "Hard work. And risky. Too much for some, who have given up the struggle on the highways, in exchange for an entirely different kind of vacation- out in the open, on their own feet, following the quiet trail through forests and mountains, bedding down in the evening under the stars, when and where they feel like it, at a time where the Industrial Tourists are still hunting for a place to park their automobiles." His process simply suggests we do our best to be more on the side of being one with nature without the presence of objects which represent our "civilization". Abbey also was concerned with the level of human connection to the tools of civilization. He was in favor of returning to nature and gaining the freedom that was lost with the inventions that take us places in this day and age: A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, power lines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there. I may never in my life go to Alaska, for example, but I am grateful that it is there. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis. The wilderness is equal to freedom for Abbey, it is what separates him from others and allows him to have his connection with the planet. But he wants others to have the same freedom. His only request is that they cut their strings first. When Abbey is lounging in his chair in 110-degree heat at Arches and observes that the mountains are snow-capped and crystal clear, it shows what nature provides: one extreme is able to counter another. That a median can be found, and that pleasure and comfort can be found between the rocks and hard places: "The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and complete civilization." Abbey makes statements that connect humanity to nature as a whole. He makes the acknowledgement that we came from the wilderness, we have lived by it, and we will return to it. This is an expression of loyalty: "But the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need if only we had the eyes to see". He continues by saying that man is rightly obsessed with Mother Nature. It is where we came from, and something we still recognize as our starting point: Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhuman spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and possessiveness come over me. I want to know it all, possess it all, embrace the entire scene intimately, deeply, totally, as a man desires a beautiful woman. An insane wish? Perhaps not – at least there's nothing else, no one human, to dispute possession with me. Finally, Abbey suggests that man needs nature to sustain humanity: "No, wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread."

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A Better Class of Person A Better Class of Person (1981) is an autobiography written by dramatist John Osborne and published in 1981. Based on Osborne's childhood and early life, it ends with the first performance of "Look Back in Anger" at the Royal Court Theatre in 1956. A sequel, "Almost a Gentleman", was published in 1991. The book recounts Osborne's childhood and youth, emphasising his warm relationship with his father, and his antagonistic relationship with his mother, which deepened to hatred after his father died when John was ten. Dramatic version. The autobiography was preceded by a screenplay entitled "Too Young to Fight, Too Old to Forget", which was filmed by Thames TV in July 1985 under the title "A Better Class of Person". It was directed by Frank Cvitanovich, with Eileen Atkins and Alan Howard as Osborne's parents and Gary Capelin and Neil McPherson as Osborne. The television film was nominated for the Prix Italia.

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Good-Bye to All That Good-Bye to All That is an autobiography by Robert Graves which first appeared in 1929, when the author was 34 years old. "It was my bitter leave-taking of England," he wrote in a prologue to the revised second edition of 1957, "where I had recently broken a good many conventions". The title may also point to the passing of an old order following the cataclysm of the First World War; the supposed inadequacies of patriotism, the interest of some in atheism, feminism, socialism and pacifism, the changes to traditional married life, and not least the emergence of new styles of literary expression, are all treated in the work, bearing as they did directly on Graves' life. The unsentimental and frequently comic treatment of the banalities and intensities of the life of a British army officer in the First World War gave Graves fame, notoriety and financial security, but the book's subject is also his family history, childhood, schooling and, immediately following the war, early married life; all phases bearing witness to the "particular mode of living and thinking" that constitute a poetic sensibility. Laura Riding, Graves' lover, is credited with being a "spiritual and intellectual midwife" to the work. Pre-war life. Graves undertook climbing, stating "the sport made all others seem trivial." His first climb was Crib y Ddysgl, followed by climbs on Crib Goch and Y Lliwedd. Graves goes on to claim, "In English preparatory and public schools romance is necessarily homosexual. The opposite sex is despised and treated as something obscene. Many boys never recover from this perversion. For every one born homosexual, at least ten permanent pseudo-homosexuals are made by the public school system: nine of these ten as honourably chaste and sentimental as I was." Wartime experiences. A large part of the book is taken up by his experience of the First World War, in which Graves served as a lieutenant, then captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, with Siegfried Sassoon. "Good-Bye to All That" provides a detailed description of trench warfare, including the tragic incompetence of the Battle of Loos, including the use of gas, and the bitter fighting in the first phase of the Somme Offensive. At one point Graves agrees with his C.S.M., "Of course, it's murder, you bloody fool, And there's nothing else for it, is there?" Graves claimed, "At least one in three of my generation at school died; because they all took commissions as soon as they could, most of them in the infantry and Royal Flying Corps. The average life expectancy of an infantry subaltern on the Western Front was, at some stages of the War, only about three months; by which time he had been either wounded or killed." Regarding trench conditions and Cuinchy-bred rats, Graves stated, "They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly." Wounds. In the Somme engagement, Graves was wounded while leading his men through the cemetery at Bazentin-le-petit church on 20 July 1916. The wound initially appeared so severe that military authorities erroneously reported to his family that he had died. While mourning his death, Graves's family received word from him that he was alive, and put an announcement to that effect in the newspapers. Graves later regretted omitting from the book the name of the soldier who had rescued him, Owen Roberts. The two met again fifty years later in a hospital ward to which both had been admitted for surgery, after which Graves signed Roberts' copy of the book, giving Roberts full credit for saving his life. Reputed atrocities. The book contains a second-hand description of the killing of German prisoners of war by British troops. Although Graves had not witnessed any and knew of no large massacres, he had been told about a number of incidents in which prisoners had been killed individually or in small groups. Consequently, he was led to believe that a proportion of Germans who surrendered never made it to prisoner-of-war camps. "Nearly every instructor in the mess", he wrote, "could quote specific instances of prisoners having been murdered on the way back. The commonest motives were, it seems, revenge for the death of friends or relatives, jealousy of the prisoner's trip to a comfortable prison camp in England, military enthusiasm, fear of being suddenly overpowered by the prisoners or, more simply, impatience with the escorting job." Similarly, "If a German patrol found a wounded man, they were likely as not to cut his throat." Graves wrote, "Executions were frequent in France. I had my first direct experience of official lying when I arrived at Le Havre in May 1915, and read the back-files of army Orders at the rest camp. They contained something like twenty reports of men shot for cowardice or desertion..." Postwar trauma. Graves was severely traumatised by his war experience. After being wounded in the lung by a shell blast, he endured a squalid five-day train journey with unchanged bandages. During initial military training in England, he received an electric shock from a telephone that had been hit by lightning, which caused him for the next twelve years to stammer and sweat badly if he had to use one. Upon his return home, he describes being haunted by ghosts and nightmares. According to Graves, "My particular disability was neurasthenia." He went on to say, "Shells used to come bursting on my bed at midnight...strangers in daytime would assume the faces of friends who had been killed." Offered a chance to rejoin George Mallory in climbing, Graves declined, "I could never again now deliberately take chances with my life." Critical responses. Siegfried Sassoon and his friend Edmund Blunden (whose First World War service had been in a different regiment) took umbrage at the contents of the book. Sassoon's complaints mostly related to Graves's depiction of him and his family, whereas Blunden had read the memoirs of J. C. Dunn and found them at odds with Graves in some places. The two men took Blunden's copy of "Good-Bye to All That" and made marginal notes contradicting some of the text. That copy survives and is held by the [[New York Public Library]]. Graves's father, [[Alfred Perceval Graves]], also incensed at some aspects of Graves's book, wrote a riposte to it titled "To Return to All That." References. [[Category:1929 non-fiction books]] [[Category:Literary autobiographies]] [[Category:History books about World War I]] [[Category:Books by Robert Graves]] [[Category:Personal accounts of World War I]] [[Category:Royal Welch Fusiliers]]

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Familiar Spirits (memoir) Familiar Spirits is a memoir published in 2000 by American writer Alison Lurie. In it, she recounts a friendship with poet James Merrill and his life partner David Jackson which began in the 1950s. Merrill and Jackson were both wealthy, well-educated men, who lived an openly gay life decades before that was common. Together, the two men spent many years gathering Ouija board messages during séances, a fact of which Lurie was made aware of early on, and about which she never lost her early skepticism. For Merrill, the poetic result was a 560-page apocalyptic epic called "The Changing Light at Sandover" (1982), which is in large measure transcribed from supernatural voices. In "Familiar Spirits", Lurie attempts to provide several rational and mundane explanations for Merrill and Jackson's epiphanies and revelations.

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Adventures in Two Worlds Adventures in Two Worlds is the 1952 autobiography of Dr. A. J. Cronin, in which he relates, with much humour, the exciting events of his dual career as a medical doctor and a novelist. From the flyleaf of 'Beyond This Place' (Angus and Robertson Sydney - London): Adventures in Two Worlds: Dr Cronin's published novels make up an imposing list of successes. This book, his first non-fiction work, which relates moving and dramatic episodes from his dual career as doctor and novelist will certainly be as widely ready and applauded as his preceding publications. Dr Cronin has recorded not only the achievements of his early life but also the struggles and setbacks that gave him such a sympathetic understanding of the sufferings of others.

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Black Boy Black Boy (1945) is a memoir by American author Richard Wright, detailing his upbringing. Wright describes his youth in the South: Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, and his eventual move to Chicago, where he establishes his writing career and becomes involved with the Communist Party. "Black Boy" gained high acclaim in the United States because of Wright’s honest and profound depiction of racism in America. While the book gained significant recognition, much of the reception throughout and after the publication process was highly controversial. Background. Richard Wright’s "Black Boy" was written in 1943 and published 2 years later (1945) in the early years of his career. Wright wrote "Black Boy" as a response to the experiences he had growing up. Given that "Black Boy" is partially autobiographical, many of the anecdotes stem from real experiences throughout Wright’s childhood. Richard Wright’s family spent much of their life in deep poverty, enduring hunger and illness moving around the country in search of a better life. Wright cites his family and childhood environment as the primary influence in his writing. Specifically, Wright’s family's religious presence throughout his childhood held a strong influence in both his religious outlook and his writing. Similarly, Wright’s experiences growing up in poverty enduring hunger caused considerable distress that he referenced repeatedly in "Black Boy". Most generally, Wright credits his influence of "Black Boy" back to the racial inequalities he sustained throughout his travels in America. Wright learned the power of reading and writing as a means towards “new ways of looking and seeing” at a young age. When he was seventeen, he left Jackson to find work in Memphis where he became heavily involved in literary groups and publications and expanded on his use of words as the weapon “to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for the life that gnaws in us” that is seen in "Black Boy". Wright claims that he chose to write about the experiences referenced in "Black Boy" in an effort to “look squarely at his life, to build a bridge of words between him and the world.” Plot summary. "Black Boy (American Hunger)" is an autobiography following Richard Wright's childhood and young adulthood. It is split into two sections, "Southern Night" (concerning his childhood in the south) and "The Horror and the Glory" (concerning his early adult years in Chicago). "Southern Night". The book begins with a mischievous four-year-old Wright setting fire to his grandmother's house. Wright is a curious child living in a household of strict, religious women and violent, irresponsible men. After his father deserts his family, young Wright is shuffled back and forth between his sick mother, his fanatically religious grandmother, and various maternal aunts, uncles and orphanages attempting to take him in. Despite the efforts of various people and groups to take Wright in, he essentially raises himself with no central home. He quickly chafes against his surroundings, reading instead of playing with other children, and rejecting the church in favor of agnosticism at a young age. Throughout his mischief and hardship, Wright gets involved in fighting and drinking before the age of six. When Wright turns eleven, he begins taking jobs and is quickly introduced to the racism that constitutes much of his future. He continues to feel more out of place as he grows older and comes in contact with the Jim Crow racism of the 1920s South. He finds these circumstances generally unjust and fights attempts to quell his intellectual curiosity and potential as he dreams of moving north and becoming a writer. "The Horror and the Glory". In an effort to achieve his dreams of moving north, Wright steals and lies until he attains enough money for a ticket to Memphis. Wright’s aspirations of escaping racism in his move North are quickly disillusioned as he encounters similar prejudices and oppressions amidst the people in Memphis, prompting him to continue his journeys towards Chicago. The youth finds the North less racist than the South and begins understanding American race relations more deeply. He holds many jobs, most of them consisting of menial tasks: he washes floors during the day and reads Proust and medical journals at night. At this time, his family is still suffering in poverty, his mother is disabled by a stroke, and his relatives constantly interrogate him about his atheism and "pointless" reading. He finds a job at the post office, where he meets white men who share his cynical view of the world and religion. They invite him to the John Reed Club, an organization that promotes the arts and social change. He becomes involved with a magazine called "Left Front" and slowly immerses himself in the writers and artists in the Communist Party. At first, Wright thinks he will find friends within the party, especially among its black members, but he finds them to be just as timid to change as the southern whites he left behind. The Communists fear those who disagree with their ideas and quickly brand Wright as a "counter-revolutionary" for his tendency to question and speak his mind. When Richard tries to leave the party, he is accused of trying to lead others away from it. After witnessing the trial of another black Communist for counter-revolutionary activity, Wright decides to abandon the party. He remains branded an "enemy" of Communism, and party members threaten him away from various jobs and gatherings. He does not fight them because he believes they are clumsily groping toward ideas that he agrees with: unity, tolerance, and equality. Wright ends the book by resolving to use his writing as a way to start a revolution: asserting that everyone has a "hunger" for life that needs to be filled. For Wright, writing is his way to the human heart, and therefore, the closest cure to his hunger. Genre and style. The genre of Richard Wright’s "Black Boy" is a longstanding controversy due to the ambiguity. "Black Boy" follows Wright’s childhood with a degree of accuracy that suggests it exists as an autobiography, although Wright never confirmed nor denied whether the book was entirely autobiographical or fictitious. None of Wright’s other books follow the truths of his life in the way "Black Boy" does. The book's apparent tendency to intermix fact and fiction is criticized because of the specific dialogue that suggests a degree of fiction. Additionally, Wright omits certain details of his family's background that would typically be included in an autobiographical novel. While Wright may have deviated from historical truths, the book is accurate in the sense that he rarely deviates from narrative truth in the candidness and rawness of his writing. The style in "Black Boy" is so highly regarded because of the frankness that defied social demands at the time of "Black Boy’s" publication. Wright negates the racially based oppression he endured through his ability to read and write with eloquence and credibility as well as with his courage to speak back against the dominant norms of society that are holding him back. Analysis. Given "Black Boy’s" emphasis on racial inequality in America, many of the motifs refer to the lingering aspects of slave narratives in present day. These motifs include violence, religion, starvation, familial unity and lack thereof, literacy, and the North Star as a guide towards freedom. The depictions of lingering racial animosity are at the core of the arguments in favor of censorship for many critics. The prevalence of violence amidst and against Blacks in America ties back to the violence exerted upon slaves generations before. The theme of violence intermixes with the notion of race as Wright suggests that violence is deeply entrenched into a system where people are distinguished based on their race. Regardless of Wright's efforts to break free from this violent lifestyle, a society based on differences will always feed on an inescapable discourse. Wright’s skeptical view of Christianity mirrors the religious presence for many slaves. Throughout "Black Boy", this skepticism of religion is present as Richard regards Christianity as being primarily based on a general inclusion in a group rather than incorporating any meaningful, spiritual connection to God. The general state of poverty and hunger that Wright endures reflects, to a lesser degree, similar obstacles that slaves faced. Wright’s portrayal of hunger goes beyond a lack of food to represent a metaphorical kind of hunger in his yearning for a better, freer life. In his search for a better life in the North, Richard is seeking to fulfill both his physical and metaphorical hungers for more. The cyclical portrayal of poverty in "Black Boy" represents society as a personified enemy that crushes dreams for those who aren’t in command of high society. The strong attempt at maintaining family unity also relates to the efforts amidst slaves to remain connected through such immense hardship. Wright’s longing to journey North in search of improvement embodies the slaves longing to follow the North Star on the freedom trains in search of freedom. Despite the harsh reality upon arrival, throughout "Black Boy", the North is represented as a land of opportunity and freedom. Lastly, Wright’s focus on literacy as a weapon towards personal freedom also reflects the efforts of many slaves hoping to free themselves through the ability to read and write. The emphasis on literacy complicates the notion of finding freedom from a physical space to a mental power attained through education. The most general impact of "Black Boy" is shown through Wright’s efforts to bring light to the complexities of race relations in America, both the seen and unseen. Given the oppression and lacking education for blacks in America, the raw honesty of their hardships was rarely heard and even more rarely given literary attention, making the impact of "Black Boy’s" narrative especially influential. The book works to show the underlying inequalities that Wright faced daily in America. Publishing history. Original publication. Wright wrote the entire manuscript in 1943 under the working title, "Black Confession." By December, when Wright delivered the book to his agent, he had changed the title to "American Hunger." The first fourteen chapters, about his Mississippi childhood, are compiled in "Part One: Southern Night," and the last six chapters, about Chicago, are included in "Part Two: The Horror and the Glory." In January 1944, "Harper and Brothers" accepted all twenty chapters, and was for a scheduled fall publication of the book. "Black Boy" is currently published by HarperCollins Publisher as a hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook. Partial publications. In June 1944, the Book of the Month Club expressed an interest in only "Part One: Southern Night." In response, Wright agreed to eliminate the Chicago section, and in August, he renamed the shortened book as "Black Boy." "Harper and Brothers" published it under that title in 1945 and it sold 195,000 retail copies in its first edition and 351,000 copies through the Book-of-the-Month Club. Parts of the Chicago chapters were published during Wright's lifetime as magazine articles, but the six chapters were not published together until 1977, by "Harper and Row" as "American Hunger." In 1991, the Library of America published all 20 chapters, as Wright had originally intended, under the title "Black Boy (American Hunger)" as part of their volume of Wright's "Later Works". The Book-of-the-Month-Club played an important role in Wright's career. It selected his 1940 novel, "Native Son," as the first Book of the Month Club written by a black American. Wright was willing to change his "Black Boy" book to get a second endorsement. However, he wrote in his journal that the Book-of-the-Month-Club had yielded to pressure from the Communist Party in asking him to eliminate the chapters that dealt with his membership in and disillusionment with the Communist Party. In order for Wright to get his memoir really “noticed” by the general public, his publisher required that he divide the portions of his book into two sections. Reception. Upon its release, "Black Boy" gained significant traction - both positive and negative - from readers and critics alike. In February 1945, "Black Boy" was a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection, bringing it immediate fame and acclaim. "Black Boy" was also featured in a list compiled by the Lending Section of the American Library Association labeled “50 Outstanding Books of 1945.” The list, which was compiled by numerous individuals and institutions, acclaims "Black Boy" as “the author's account of his boyhood [that] is a grim record of frustration, race tension, and suffering.” From 1996-2000, the Round Rock Independent School District board in Texas voted 4-2 against a proposal to remove Richard Wright’s "Black Boy" from reading lists at local schools, eventually deciding the content of the book was worthy and necessary in schools. In numerous cases of attempted censorship for "Black Boy", Richard Wright’s widow, Ellen Wright, stood up and publicly defended the book, claiming that the censorship of "Black Boy" would be “tantamount to an American tragedy.” "Black Boy" was most recently challenged in Michigan in 2007 by the Howell High School for distributing explicit materials to minors, a ruling that was quickly overruled by a prosecutor who found that “the explicit passages illustrated a larger literary, artistic, or political message.” "Black Boy" has come under fire by numerous states, institutions, and individuals alike. Most petitioners of the book criticize Wright for being anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, overly sexual and obscene, and most commonly, for portraying a grim picture of race relations in America. In 1972, "Black Boy" was banned in Michigan schools after parents found the content to be overly sexual and generally unsuitable for teens. In 1975, the book was challenged in both Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Tennessee, both places claiming the book was obscene and instigated racial tension. "Black Boy" was first challenged in New York in 1976 by the board of education of the Island Trees Free School District in New York. It was soon the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1982. Petitioners against the inclusion of "Black Boy" described the autobiography as "objectionable" and "improper fare for school students." The book was later challenged in Lincoln, Nebraska on accounts of its “corruptive, obscene nature.” In May 1997, the President of the North Florida Ministerial Alliance condemned the inclusion of "Black Boy" in Jacksonville’s public schools, claiming the content is not “right for high school students” due to profanity and racial references.

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Here at The New Yorker Here at The New Yorker is a 1975 best-selling book by American writer Brendan Gill, writer and drama critic for the magazine "The New Yorker". The book. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of "The New Yorker" magazine, Gill's book is a semi-autobiographical memoir built around his time as an editor and writer at the magazine and written in the style of the "Talk of the Town" section to which Gill contributed for many years. Much of the book is devoted to anecdotes about his best-known colleagues, such as cartoonists Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and James Thurber; writers Truman Capote, John Updike, S.J. Perelman, and John O'Hara; critics Wolcott Gibbs and Robert Benchley; and editors Katherine White, Harold Ross, and William Shawn. Gill admits in the introduction that his view of his colleagues is at times highly biased. He detested James Thurber, for instance, calling him a "malicious man" who for his own amusement instigated a number of feuds between "New Yorker" writers, including one between Gill himself and writer John O'Hara over a book review. Despite respecting Harold Ross for his work on the magazine, Gill reveals his "primitive" and "embarrassing" racism, which excluded blacks from even the most menial positions with the magazine and kept black writers and even article subjects out of its pages. His portrait of William Shawn, however, appeared unsound to some reviewers; Gill portrayed Shawn as a gentle and kind man, but also showed Shawn firing an employee simply for displaying mildly bad taste while off duty. Gill also describes Shawn's well-known prudery, including his reactions to the phrase "cow paddies" and to Henry Green's inspiration for his novel "Loving", yet refrains from mentioning that for many years Shawn was leading a double life, with a wife and children in the suburbs and a mistress (Lillian Ross, a colleague who later wrote about the affair) and stepson in the city. Reception. "Here at The New Yorker" first appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list on March 16, 1975, remaining on the list for sixteen weeks and reaching No. 2 on May 25. It was reprinted in paperback both by Random House and by Berkley Medallion Press. A revised edition was published in 1987 with a new introduction, and was reprinted in 1997, the year of Gill's death. Reviews. Reviews of "Here at The New Yorker" were favorable. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in "The New York Times Book Review" that "Mr. Gill kept me in a continual state of mirth", adding that Gill's barbs against his colleagues "are more like a cloud of affectionate bumble bees—these paragraphs full of facts: they settle everywhere and sting all." Other positive reviews were published in the "Washington Post", the "Christian Science Monitor", and "TIME" Magazine, where reviewer Paul Gray said, "A seasoned New Yorker writer can make even New Yorker writers interesting." Response by colleagues. Gill's subjects did not all share the enthusiasm of his more positive reviewers. Fellow writer E.J. Kahn called the book "that Gill book" in his own "About The New Yorker and Me: A Sentimental Journal", and Nora Ephron said in "Esquire" (as quoted in Gill's 1997 "New York Times" obituary) that it "seems to me one of the most offensive books I have read in a long time". Gill wrote in his introduction to the 1987 edition (which was also printed in the "New York Times") that Mrs. White wept for two days over his portrayal of her, which he defends as accurate. He then accused White of spearheading a "strenuous campaign of falsehoods" against him, including the claim that William Shawn, the editor of the magazine at the time the book was first published, had not been allowed to read the book before publication. Gill asserted that he had read the book twice in manuscript and had even contributed the book's title, and in turn relates a number of unflattering stories about the recently deceased White, at least two of which were contested by Leo M. Dolenski in a letter to the editor of the "Times". Gill's backhanded apology in his reply to Dolenski's letter instigated a feud between the two.

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Soul Survivor (book) Soul Survivor (variously published with the subtitles How My Faith Survived the Church, Searching for Meaningful Faith, and How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church) is a spiritual autobiography by Philip Yancey, a prominent "Christianity Today" columnist. With the subtitle "How My Faith Survived the Church", the book was published in 2001 by Doubleday, which marketed it as a mainstream book. A five-hour-long, three-audio-cassette audiobook edition read by Yancey was also released that year with the same subtitle. In the United Kingdom, the book was published by Hodder & Stoughton with the subtitle "Searching for Meaningful Faith". Random House published a paperback edition in 2003 with the subtitle "How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church". G. Scott Morris, founder of the Memphis, Tennessee-based Church Health Center, read "Soul Survivor" and felt that he could identify with the personal experiences Yancey discusses in the book, so Morris asked Yancey to come to Memphis to speak at a Church Health Center event, and Yancey accepted. "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" reviewer John Blake wrote that, although Yancey had written in his previous books about the judgmentalism he experienced in his local church while growing up, the discussion had never been as personal as in "Soul Survivor". Iain Sharp of "The Sunday Star-Times" called the book "an eye-opening, informative and surprisingly entertaining collection of essays, no matter what your personal philosophy is". In a "Booklist" review, Ray Olson argues that Yancey's writing of "Soul Survivor" demonstrates the author's compassion and literary skill. In October 2001, "Soul Survivor" was identified as one of the ten books about religion that "Booklist" had reviewed most favorably in the preceding twelve months. "The Christian Century" reviewer Wayne Holst called "Soul Survivor" "a thoughtful reflection on the faith journey of an intelligent, influential writer".

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Memories of My Youth Memories of my Youth ("Small Memories") is an autobiography by Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago. It was first published in 2006. A memoir of Saramago's childhood in Portugal that moves between Lisbon and Azinhaga, the village where he was born in 1922 and first moved away from when he was 18 months old. Aimee Shalan of "The Guardian" wrote that the book was "Masterfully written and wonderfully evocative...None of his memories are especially dramatic, but they resonate with wry humour and acute engagement with the everyday."

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The Two Worlds of William March The Two Worlds of William March is a 1984 biography of William March, written by the British scholar, critic and author Roy S. Simmonds. William Butcher, reviewing the biography for "World Literature Today", called it "a judicious record of March's life and a fine tribute to his literary achievement".

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Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky: compiled from information supplied by her relatives and friends is a book originally published in 1886 in London; it was compiled by a member of the Theosophical Society A. P. Sinnett, the first biographer of H. P. Blavatsky (née Hahn). He describes the many unusual incidents in her life, beginning from her childhood in Russia and asserts that she has been with "an early connection with the supernatural world;" he says about her short unlucky marriage and "decade of extensive global travels," about her period of learning in Tibet, and the "criticism she received about some of her 'phenomena' and practices." From history of compilation. Washington wrote that Blavatsky with Sinnett and his wife Patience has been in sincere friendship, and over a decade (1879–89), she led with them the correspondence and has supplied to the author the materials for her biography. The book was "an attempt to reestablish" Blavatsky's reputation after the attacks of the Society for Psychical Research contained in Hodgson Report. Sinnett long continued correcting often distorted information about the time and place of the events in the book, having arrived to Blavatsky in Würzburg for it. Subsequently, she continued to send him additional information, which pop up in her memory. Sinnett wrote: "In consultation we decided that "Memoirs" would be too comprehensive a title for the book and agreed on the word "Incidents" instead." In her letter to the author Blavatsky stated: "Do whatever you like. Publish the memoirs, write what you think best and proper. I subscribe to it beforehand and hereby give you carte blanche and full authority to act and do in my name whatever you will. I am sure you will defend the cause and myself better than I ever can." Contents of the book. Childhood. Helena told her biographer about a strange event that happened to her in early childhood. She wanted to get a better look at a portrait hanging high on the wall. She made up a pyramid out of two small tables and one chair, and tried to get to the portrait. What happened next, she does not know, because she lost consciousness at the moment when her building swayed and began to crumble. When she regained consciousness, she saw herself completely intact on the floor, and tables and chair were again in their usual places. Nevertheless, "the mark of her small hand remained imprinted on the dusty wall high up beside the picture." The author tells about another case where Helena miraculously survived: "A horse bolted with her — she fell, with her foot entangled in the stirrup, and before the horse was stopped she ought, she thinks, to have been killed outright but for a strange sustaining power she distinctly felt around her, which seemed to hold her up in defiance of gravitation." She was then fourteen years old. Sinnett informs that, according to her earliest memories, she occasionally saw near herself her protector. From early childhood, this form has prevailed in her imagination. He was always the same, his features never changed. "In after life she met him as a living man, and knew him as though she had been brought up in his presence." A certain seer told about Helena's future: "This little lady is quite different from all of you. There are great events lying in wait for her in the future. I feel sorry in thinking that I will not live to see my predictions of her verified; "but they will all come to pass"!" Failed marriage. According to Helena Hahn's aunt, the reason for this marriage was frivolous nature of her niece. Her governess has said that her character is bad, and hardly there is a man who would be willing to marry her. To enhance the impact of her words the governess added that "even the old man she had found so ugly, and had laughed at so much, calling him 'a plume-less raven' — that even he would decline her for a wife! That was enough: three days after she made him (Mr. Blavatsky) propose, and then, frightened at what she had done, sought to escape from her joking acceptance of his offer. But it was too late." Helena's aunt has described: "At the altar, she heard the priest saying to her: 'Thou shalt honour and obey thy husband', and at this hated word 'shalt,' her young face — for she was hardly seventeen — was seen to flush angrily, then to become deadly pale. She was overheard to mutter in response, through her set teeth — 'Surely, I shall not.'"[Sinnett continues:] "And surely she has not. Forthwith she determined to take the law and her future life into her own hands, and — he left her 'husband' for ever, without giving him any opportunity to ever even think of her as "his wife."" Sinnett says that Mr. Blavatsky himself was ready to agree in the divorce. He tried to get a formal divorce on the reason that "his marriage had never been more than a form, and that his wife had run away; but Russian law at the time was not favourable to divorce, and the attempt failed." Next Blavatsky (Hahn) has left Russia and voyaged "ten long years in strange and out-of-the-way places — in Central Asia, India, South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe." Occult phenomena in Russia. Blavatsky's unusual psychic abilities, that had manifested even in her childhood and adolescence, during her travel significantly increased and determined, and she returned to Russia, having many occult powers. In the town of Pskoff Blavatsky had performed occult phenomena under follows classification: One time Blavatsky had caused raps inside the glasses of a skeptical professor with such force that they were knocked from his nose. In reply to a somewhat frivolous lady who had asked what is the best conductor for the production of such raps, the table spelt out 'gold', and the next minute this lady rushed out of the room with her hands inflicted on her mouth, as she had felt the raps on her gold artificial teeth. Blavatsky has transformed weight of small table so that Leonid Hahn, her brother, couldn't lift it. Then she recovered it to a normal weight, and Leonid raised the table as a feather. Sinnett informs, according to Jelihowsky's narrative: "At one moment as we sat at supper in the dining-room, there were loud accords played on the piano which stood in the adjoining apartment, and which was closed and locked, and so placed that we could all of us see it from where we were through the large open doors. Then at the first command and look of Mme. Blavatsky there came rushing to her through the air her tobacco-pouch, her box of matches, her pocket-handkerchief, or anything she asked, or was made to ask for." Mediums and mediumship. Sinnett tells that Blavatsky has tried with the most prominent mediums to call and "communicate with those dearest to her, and whose loss she had deplored, but could never succeed." She said to him that "she often saw, to her disgust, how her own recollections and brain-images were drawn from her memory and disfigured in the confused amalgamation that took place between their reflection in the medium's brain, which instantly sent them out, and the shells which "sucked them in" like a sponge and objectivised them." Next Sinnett transmits the following words by Blavatsky: "Even the materialized form of my uncle at the Eddys was the picture; it was I who sent it out from my own mind, as I had come out to make experiments without telling it to anyone. It was like an empty outer envelope of my uncle that I seemed to throw on the medium's astral body. I saw and followed the process, I knew Will Eddy was a genuine medium, and the phenomenon as real as it could be, and therefore, when days of trouble came for him, I defended him in the papers." According to Jelihowsky, Blavatsky claimed that she is "no medium, but only a mediator between mortals and beings we knew nothing about." In one of her letters to relatives Blavatsky informed that the last remnant of her psycho-physical helplessness has left her and will not return any more. In connection with her mediumship, Sinnett argues that "there, "where a less strong nature would have been surely wrecked in the struggle, her indomitable will found somehow or other the means of subjecting the world of the invisibles — to the denizens of which she has ever refused the name of 'spirits' and souls — to her own control."" Criticism. Although Blavatsky helped to the author by providing information, in Sinnett's book there is a "number of errors of fact which have been pointed out by later writers." Solovyov wrote concerning Sinnett's book following: "For the sake of inflation of Blavatsky's fame Sinnett published a book entitled "Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky." The book portrays, "on the foundation of the most precise evidences," the life of Helena Petrovna. Well, it is not difficult to prove that this book is mainly a collection of stories about something that never happened." Solovyov stated that from the analysis of the phenomena performed by Blavatsky, which made Hodgson, "we can conclude, with which 'serious and honest' "the researcher" we deal in the face of Mr. Sinnett, this 'famous apostle' of the modern theosophy and main defender of H. P. Blavatsky." Solovyov also stated that the theosophical "Universal Brotherhood" is only a "funny bunch of systematic deceptions, as say the modern Frenchmen – "rien qu'une fumisterie."" He wrote that the conclusions of the SPR about "Blavatsky's "phenomena" make superfluous the assumption that, in addition to the tricks, she could to demonstrate for the benefit of the theosophy some really exceptional psychic abilities." Hodgson in his report argued: "Mr. Sinnett treats with scorn the supposition that Madame Blavatsky could have produced either the 'raps' or the 'astral bells' by means of any machine concealed about her person; but I cannot help thinking that the latter sounds at least might have been produced in this way. Madame Coulomb asserts that they were actually so produced, by the use of a small musical-box, constructed on the same principle as the machine employed in connection with the trick known under the name 'Is your watch a repeater?' and she produced garments which she asserted had belonged to Madame Blavatsky, and showed me stains resembling iron-mould on the right side, slightly above the waist, which she affirmed had been caused by contact with the metal of the machine." Nevertheless, according to Goodrick-Clarke, "a thorough analysis of the Hodgson Report by Vernon Harrison of the SPR effectively demolished both the Coulomb accusations and the conclusions of the Report." New editions and translations. The book was reprinted several times and has been translated into French. Second edition of the book was published in 1913 in abridged form.

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Kavijivan Kavijivan () ( "The Life of a Poet") is a biographical work published in 1887 about Gujarati poet and writer, Narmadashankar Dave, popularly writing under the pen name Narmad. It was written by fellow Gujarati writer and critic Navalram Pandya. "Kavijivan" is largely based on Narmad's own private autobiographical account, "Mari Hakikat," which was published posthumously in 1933. It was the first biography of Narmad in Gujarati literature. It covers Narmad's social and literary career and provides details about his public life, but avoids discussion of his private life. Background. Before Navalram wrote "Kavijvan", he reviewed two biographies: "Karsandas Mulji Charitra" (1878) and "Mehtaji Durgaram Manchharamnu Charitra" (1879), both written by Mahipatram Nilkanth. He stressed the importance of writing the biographies of great persons and discussed the standard practices for a biography. He believed that the biographies of great people inspire the common man to aspire to high ideals and noble acts, yet insisted that the biography not define its subject who should be presented as a 'human being' only. A biographer should be natural and realistic. Great persons described as supernatural are beyond the imagination of a common man and are worshiped only, not followed. The biography was written immediately after Narmad's death, for its inclusion in the third and enlarged edition of "Narmakavita", a collection of Narmad's poems. Navalram used Narmad's autobiographical "Mari Hakikat", an original account written by Narmad that had not been intended for public distribution. Navalram also used Narmad's personal notes to supplement the biography, preferring to rely on Narmad's first-hand narrative rather than his own recollections. "Kavijivan" was the first biography about Narmad to be published in the Gujarati language. Contents. A large part of the biography is divided into three phases of Narmad's life: (1) 1850-55: period of internal struggle; (2) 1855-58: period of hectic escorts; (3) 1858-59-65, 66: period of complete glory. In the first phase, the author narrates the ambition of Narmad to be famous, his passion for women, his first unsuccessful marriage, passion for love and heroism, diligence in establishing associations for social, religious and literary deliberations. In the second phase he gives a detailed account of his efforts in self-study and attempts to display outstanding merits. In the last phase, he narrates the poet's poetic rivalry with Dalpatram, and its positive and negative effects; uninterrupted publications of his poems and the impact of his poetry on society and literature; his scholarship, evident in essays on literary, social, historical, economic and other subjects; his laying down the foundation of modern Gujarati prose by his unique style; his daring journalism in "Dandiyo" and his satirical and scathing articles; and his single-handed compilation of the first dictionary ("Narmakosh") in Gujarati, providing the infrastructure for subsequent similar facts of his Individual as well as scholarly activities in context with the renaissance. Criticism. Dhirubhai Thaker wrote: "It is a mature attempt to evaluate Narmad's social and literary career. Navalram's critical faculty is at its best in this monograph as he judiciously analyses the poet's mind and justifies the metamorphosis of his views on social reform." Chadrakant Mehta reviewed the biography: "The biographer has given authentic information and analysed the factors responsible for the creative evolution of Narmad. The author has taken a broad perspective and has plunged deep into the psyche of the poet while analysing the working of the mind of Narmad". Ramesh Shukla criticized the biography and wrote: "While discussing his (Narmad's) personal life, knowing fully well about his extra-marital affairs he (Navalram) gives a clean chit to the poet, arguing, that after settling at Surat, he had never looked at any woman. Navalram defended Narmad when he took a second wife, a widow. He considered it more 'dignified' than those who carry on their affairs secretly. Narmad’s wife, Dahigauri, was mentally tortured and compelled to give her consent to this 'dignified' act. Navalram ignores this episode. Further, he also maintains silence on another event, in which, the poet gave shelter to another widow, Savitagauri, but without marrying her."

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Rahel Varnhagen (book) Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess is a book-length biography of Rahel Varnhagen written by political philosopher Hannah Arendt. Originally her "Habilitationsschrift" she completed it in exile as a refugee, but was not published till 1957, in English, in the UK (London) by East and West Library. History. Rahel Varnhagen was Arendt's "Habilitationsschrift", largely written in the 1930s, but which she was unable to complete, having to flee Nazi Germany. She took the manuscript with her into exile in Paris, where she was able to complete it in 1938. Forced to flee once again, this time without her manuscript, she arrived in America in 1941. However, she had given a copy to Gershom Scholem, and it was finally published in 1957 having been translated from German. The book was later translated into French in 1986, and Spanish in 2000. A revised edition in 1974 used the subtitle "The Life of a Jewish Woman". A later biography of the subject by Heidi Thomann Tewarson (2001) distanced itself from Arendt's work, which its author considered too critical of Varnhagen. Arendt dedicated the book to her life-long friend Anne Mendelssohn, who had first drawn her attention to Varnhagen's writing. Content. Rahel Varnhagen is ostensibly a biography of this nineteenth century Jewish socialite, and formed an important step in Arendt's analysis of Jewish history and the subjects of assimilation and emancipation, and introduced her treatment of the Jewish diaspora as either "pariah" or "parvenu". In addition it represents an early version of her concept of history. Arendt's relation to Varnhagen permeates her subsequent work. Her examination of Varnhagen's life is set against the background of the catastrophic destruction of German-Jewish culture and its demonstrations of the illusion of any true German-Jewish "symbiosis" and the threatened existence of her subject. In this sense the book partially reflects Arendt's own view of herself as a German Jewish woman driven out of her own culture into a stateless existence. In this sense the work has been referred to as "biography as autobiography".

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Seekers of Tomorrow Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction is a work of collective biography on the formative authors of the science fiction genre by Sam Moskowitz, first published in hardcover by the World Publishing Company in 1965. The first paperback edition was issued by Ballantine Books in October, 1967. A photographic reprint of the original edition was issued in both hardcover and trade paperback by Hyperion Press in 1974. Most of its chapters are revised versions of articles that initially appeared in the magazine "Amazing Stories" from 1961-1964. The work presents the history of the genre from the 1920s through the 1960s via a discussion of the lives and works of twenty-two of its most important early writers. After a general introduction, individual chapters deal with particular authors, followed by a general survey of later or lesser writers (including C. S. Lewis, James Blish, Walter M. Miller, Jr., L. Ron Hubbard, Hal Clement, Ross Rocklynne, Poul Anderson, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Frederik Pohl, Alfred Bester, Edgar Pangborn, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Philip K. Dick, Ward Moore, John Hersey, John Christopher and Frank Herbert), an epilogue and an index. Reception. Reviewing "Seekers of Tomorrow", Algis Budrys noted that "Moskowitz is a master of denotation. He wouldn't know a connotation if it snapped at his ankle, which is something that happens quite often". He added, however, that "Moskowitz knows and transmits, at least as much about the history of science fiction and its evolution, as anyone possibly could ... there is no other book like it". Kirkus Reviews called the work "a truly gratifying book ... [w]hat is satisfying is to see these authors deeply engaged in works of pure tripe and imagination (Barnum called it hokum) and watch them emerge with a fish so big (macrocosmic) that they become world-renowned. This book should be called Super Time, because each of its subjects is a bit like the success stories in Time--each author has written his Moby Dick of interstellar fantasy. These guys think BIG! These are wild talents pouring out words to oblivion."

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Madonna (book) Madonna is a biography by English author Andrew Morton, chronicling the life of American recording artist Madonna. The book was released in November 2001 by St. Martin's Press in the United States and in April 2002 by Michael O'Mara Books in the United Kingdom. Morton decided to write a biography on Madonna in 2000. The release was announced in April 2001 by St. Martin's Press. President and publisher Sally Richardson described the biography to contain details about Madonna's ambitions, her relationships and her lifestyle. Morton interviewed about 70 people who had known Madonna since her youth. He spent many evenings in bars and clubs in New York chatting to people—including artists, musicians, and directors—who had an interesting perspective on Madonna and the world. After its release, "Madonna" received mixed reviews from contemporary critics, who panned Morton's writing skills and felt that the book did not present anything new about the singer. The book was a commercial disappointment. In the United States, the book reached eight on "The New York Times" Best Seller list, and sold half of its initial print. Madonna herself was critical of Morton writing a biography on her life, and sent a letter to him, asking him to stay away from her family and friends. Morton remained unabashed, saying that he wrote the book because of his interest in the star, not least because she has made a "difference" to pop culture and modern culture. In 2004, a lawsuit was filed against the author by Jim Albright, one of Madonna's ex-lovers mentioned in the book. The lawsuit regarded an image in the book, portraying one of Madonna's gay dancers—with Albright's name underneath. United States District Court ruled out the lawsuit explaining that stating someone is homosexual does not libel or slander them. Summary. The book opens with Madonna's birth, her early years in Michigan, and her 1977 move to New York City where she was involved with modern dance, two pop groups, composing, and releasing her 1983 debut album, "Madonna". Her rise to superstardom as a pop icon is chronicled and her cutting edge music videos, albums, first concert tour, film roles, and marriage and divorce to Sean Penn are examined. The book investigates her controversial religious imagery and her erotic productions, "Erotica", "Sex", and "Body of Evidence". The book describes a mellowing in her appearance and provocativeness, and, among other things, the release of her next several albums, her Golden Globe Award-winning musical film portrayal of Eva Peron, and her high-grossing Drowned World Tour. The birth of her daughter and son are chronicled and her marriage to Guy Ritchie. "Madonna" includes detailed descriptions of her relationships with people including John F. Kennedy Jr. and Michael Jackson. Writing and development. American journalist and celebrity biographer Andrew Morton is known for his works on Diana, Princess of Wales, Monica Lewinsky and footballer David Beckham and his wife, Victoria. In October 2000, Morton had hinted that he had American recording artist Madonna as his next project, when he responded to an "Independent" reader in "You Ask the Questions" section. Asked who he would most like to write a biography of, he said: "I've always admired Madonna as an intriguing and charismatic character who has been able to stay at the top for 20 years." A formal announcement was made by Morton's UK publicist Michael O'Mara in April 2001, that Morton had secured access to "those in her [Madonna's] inner circle, who have never been interviewed before, about her ambitions, lifestyle and relationships." O'Mara added the reason for choosing Madonna was because she was "one of the most enigmatic and fascinating women of our time, [and] is the undisputed female icon of the modern age." The biography's American publishing rights were acquired by St. Martin's Press. President and publisher Sally Richardson described the biography to contain details about Madonna's ambitions, her relationships and her lifestyle. Richardson added that "Andrew loves complicated women, and has a genius for getting into their psyche and telling the world what makes them tick." Scheduled for release in November 2001, St. Martin's Press added that about 500,000 copies of the first print were ordered, and Morton received a six figure undisclosed amount as advance for writing the book. Madonna had always wanted to protect her privacy and reports had initially suggested that she was furious that Morton had decided to write the book, and commanded her friends and relatives not to give any interview to him. She added, "I don't want anyone talking to that snivelling little worm. How dare he invade my privacy?" With the BBC, Morton detailed his "detective work" researching Madonna's life in New York, where she clambered her way up to fame and fortune. "Not only is she an interesting character, but all her friends and those who've known her are interesting characters too," he said. Morton spent many evenings in bars and clubs in New York chatting to people — including artists, musicians, directors — who had an interesting perspective on Madonna and the world. He interviewed about 70 people who had known Madonna since her youth. "I think I've come up with a very fresh picture," he said, adding that Dan Gilroy of Breakfast Club, who had introduced Madonna to the music world, had e-mailed him saying the biography had "really captured Madonna's spirit". Critical response. The book received mixed reviews. Richard Lautens from "Toronto Star" said that ""Madonna" is a thorough, if slightly workmanlike, retelling of its namesake's well-documented slog from lowly Midwestern beginnings to squeaky-voiced sex kitten to professional button-pusher to mother and respected, vaguely Bowie-esque, chameleonic figure, a cultural bloodhound always on the scent of the fresh, cool and credible." Helen Bushby from BBC commented that "[t]he book is certainly detailed, and will no doubt keep Madonna fanatics happy, although it is perhaps more of a reference book than a page-turner. But Morton is a good businessman, and is canny in his choice of subjects." Michael Sneed from "Chicago Sun-Times" gave a negative review of the book and felt that Morton's previous works had been better. George Rush from "New York Daily News" commented: "Despite her best efforts to discourage friends from cooperating with him, Andrew Morton has come forth with a book that portrays Madge as an insecure manipulator so ravenous for affection that she scared off some boyfriends, cheated on most of them and made a lot of foolish choices." In another review, Sherryl Connelly from the same publication was of the opinion that "Madonna" was mostly similar to J. Randy Taraborrelli's biography on her, "". She added, "At least, it's the story made familiar by Madonna, a woman who has always taken for granted the world's interest in her life." Rick Thames, editor of "The Charlotte Observer", criticized the book's packaging calling the cover as "tacky, hot pink-and-acid green sleeves, featuring an unflattering photo of the dished artist." Barry Didcock from "Sunday Herald" felt that "Morton [had failed] to find the face of Madonna." He criticized Morton's sketchy portrayal of Madonna's relationship with deceased painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, saying "he commits an error by doing so because, unusually for Madonna, this was a relationship of equals." Gregg Barrios from "Daily Star" was critical of the book, saying " The fatal flaw of these quickie knockoffs is that they have no real ending or any way of predicting what the fates have in store for Madonna Louise Penn [Guy Ritchie] nee Ciccone. Once the next Madonna tour, CD, marriage or film appears, their shelf life is cut short." Barbara Ellen from "The Guardian" criticized Morton's writing by saying, "Andrew Morton achieves the implausible: he takes an interesting woman and an astonishing life and makes them both seem incredibly boring in his life of Madonna... Once you get used to Morton's pace (dull plod, with occasional snooze), it becomes quite amusing joining him on the journey, a bit like watching someone dragging a dead body around, trying to find some place to hide it. Even luminaries such as Madonna exes Sean Penn and Warren Beatty are reduced to flailing around like disenfranchised phantoms in the shallows of Morton's blandly automatic insight." Commercial reception. "Madonna" was released in hardback in the United States in November 2001. It debuted at position 15 on "The New York Times" Best Seller list, and reached eight the next week, but was present there for only two weeks. Madonna was still livid that Morton wrote the book without her permission, even saying "It's not a well-written book. We all know he wrote it for financial gain and the truth had little to do with it", after the book was released. With Jo Whiley from "BBC Radio 1", she added that "[Morton] really went through my Rolodex and that part was really annoying, and I ended up writing him a letter saying, 'I'm not interested in you writing this book, I don't want to have anything to do with it – and please leave my friends alone'." The singer said that she had even sent Morton a book of philosophy—"The Power of Kabbalah"—to try to dissuade him from continuing. "It's a beginner's crash course in what it's all about – that eventually in some way shape or form it would come back round to him, but he either didn't read it or didn't care," Madonna added. During the Drowned World Tour of 2001, Madonna was asked whether she had really sent the book for Morton's well-being. She replied sarcastically: "Why yes, I always send bibles and philosophy books to my biographers." Motioning to her then husband Guy Ritchie she continued, "Just ask my husband, he'll tell you that my greatest concern these days is not this fucking tour, or him or even our kids, why, it's Andrew Morton's spiritual enlightment of course." Her publicist Liz Rosenberg released a statement that "None of this [things in the biography] is true. I never saw a groom walk down an aisle with a bigger smile than Guy Ritchie," adding that Morton's claims were a retread of "tired old gossip. It's same old, same old." Morton remained unabashed, saying that he wrote the book because of his interest in the star, not least because she has made a "difference" to pop culture and modern culture. He added: "I'm very proud of the book and I'm very disappointed at Madonna's reaction. I think the problem is that she wants control over everything – that's one of the themes of the book, and secondly she seems to be almost disowning her past at the moment. She's reinventing herself as an upper-class, English aristocrat, and the former vegetarian who now goes hunting, fishing and shooting. My door's always open – Madonna's welcome to my house for a cup of tea. She said she wasn't interested in doing any kind of biography or anything ever, which is a bit of a stern statement from someone who has been so out there. It doesn't matter whether it's me, Norman Mailer, whoever. I was disappointed because I felt that we've only ever seen the caricature, the cartoon version of Madonna and I really wanted to show that she is a considerable artist and that she is more than anything that has been written about her in the past. I think for her it is an opportunity missed." Lawsuit. "Madonna" faced a lawsuit in 2004 over an image in the book. Titled "Amarak Productions, Inc. vs. Morton", Madonna's former bodyguard and ex-lover Jim Albright brought a defamation case against Morton and St. Martin's Press, based on an incorrect photo caption. "Amarak Productions, Inc." had employed Albright as Madonna's bodyguard in 1992, and he had later become romantically involved with the singer. While writing the book, Morton had contacted Albright to gather information on their relationship. One of the picture's caption in the book identified the subject as Albright, but it was actually Madonna's gay back-up dancer Jose Gutierez. On discovering the misleading image, the lawsuit was filed by Albright who objected to the caption. On 30 May 2004, US District judge Nancy Gertner ruled out the lawsuit explaining that stating someone is homosexual does not libel or slander them, particularly in light of new court decisions granting more LGBT rights. Gertner first rejected the idea that the mistake in the caption meant that it promoted Albright as gay. She added: "Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly give them effect. In this day and age, recent rulings by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Judiciary Court of Massachusetts undermine any suggestion that a statement implying that an individual is homosexual is defamatory."

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Edgewise (book) Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller is a book by Chloe Griffin published in 2014. Published by Bbooks Verlag, "Edgewise" is an oral history of the actress and writer Cookie Mueller. Background. "Edgewise" is an oral history of the actress and writer Cookie Mueller. Griffin spent roughly eight years researching and writing "Edgewise". She spent half a decade interviewing nearly 90 people for the book. The book discusses Mueller's life in John Waters' Baltimore from 1966–1969, the "hippie commune" Provincetown, Massachusetts, from 1969–1976, and New York City from 1976–1988. The book contains images and photomontages of Cookie, which reviewer Emily Gould of "Paper" magazine said "give a beautiful visual sense of Cookie's life and times". Griffin interviewed Sharon Niesp, who was Mueller's longtime partner and caretaker when she became ill because of AIDS-related causes. Griffin interviewed Provincetown, Massachusetts, resident Earl Devries, who said, "She wanted my sperm." He donated his sperm to Mueller, who had a son, Max. Griffin interviewed Mueller's friend Gabriel Rotello who told her, "Her memorial was incredibly well attended for a time when people were really getting tired of them." Reception. Alexandra Molotkow noted that some books spent too much time justifying the time spent discussing "unsung artists" or are more about the author rather than the subject. She praised Griffin's book, writing that unlike those books, "Edgewise" "feels like a tribute that wrote its own terms". Molotkow found it to be "a love story, a true love story – true love, and raw grief, for a woman who died 25 years ago". Steve Desroches lauded the book for being "impeccable in its artistry, its biography, and in its attention to, sifting through an unruly archive of Mueller's life that has yet to be assembled and cataloged". Pati Hertling of "Bomb" magazine praised "Edgewise" for being a "a sensitive and thrilling oral history that captures her life from her childhood in suburban Maryland, through the wild times with John Waters, Divine, Sue Lowe, Mink Stole, and others in Baltimore". Travis Jeppesen wrote that Griffin "has synthesized a detail-rich biographical tapestry woven of the voices that knew Mueller best". Richard Hell, who was interviewed for the book, said when Griffin approached him, he was initially cynical of the project because Griffin had not known Mueller. But he found that Griffin's book "[did] Cookie justice" and "gives us Cookie's life and world in epic 3-D detail by seamlessly weaving together the loving and astonished testimony of most of the people who knew her". Matt Kessler wrote in "The Rumpus" that "Edgewise" is "a definitive archive of Cookie’s life" and "a stunning portrait of both Cookie and the worlds that she inhabited". "The Brooklyn Rail"s Jarrett Earnest wrote, "It's great that this handsome and thorough book exists because it is the celebration Indiana calls for, and anyone interested in Cookie Mueller or New York in the ’80s will be grateful it exists." Matthew Hays of "Xtra!" extolled Griffin for "penn[ing] an amazing tribute to the late icon" and found the book to be "an exhilarating read". Chloé Griffin. Chloé Griffin is a Canadian artist, actress, and author who is a Berlin resident. She lives and works in Kreuzberg in Berlin. Born in California, she was raised in Canada. Griffin's visual arts works have been showcased at New York's Gavin Brown's Enterprise. She starred in the 2009 film "Saturn Returns", the 2013 film "L'Amour Sauvage", and a few low-cost French and Canadian horror movies. She also starred in the 2015 film "Desire Will Set You Free", a movie about Berlin's queer art locale. Griffin grew interested in Cookie Mueller after seeing Mueller in "Female Trouble" in "my first year out of high school in Montreal" and reading Mueller's short stories book "Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black". She found Mueller's "intensely free and wild way of living" to be "hugely inspirational".

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Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts On File Publishing and ) by Sandra L. West and Aberjhani, is a 2003 encyclopedia of the lives, events, and culture of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s to 1940s. An ebook edition was published through Infobase Publishing in 2010. Additional authors. In addition to the hundreds of articles written by West and Aberjhani, the Encyclopedia also includes an extended foreword by Clement Alexander Price. The founder and director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University, Dr. Price in 2013 was appointed by Barack Obama to the presidential advisory council on historic preservation. Other key contributors to the volume are: Iris Formey Dawson, Vaughnette Goode-Walker, Ja A. Jahannes, Karen E. Johnson, and Mary C. Lewis. Reception. Acknowledged as the first encyclopedic volume on the subject, "Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance" upon publication received generally favorable reviews. "Essence Magazine" featured the title in its Christmas and Kwanzaa gift-giving guide, the "Times of Trenton" described it as, "a fascinating guide to a colorful and culturally productive era in African-American history," and the "Rudolph Fisher Newsletter" called it, "an outstanding reference resource highly recommended for libraries of all sizes." In February 2006, "Black Issues Book Review" voted the encyclopedia one of its “essential titles for the home library.” In addition, both the American Reference Books Annual, and Libraries Unlimited’s Recommended Reference Books for Small and Medium-sized Libraries and Media Centers, list the Encyclopedia among its highly suggested titles. Awards. Awards it has received include the Choice Academic Title Award, the “Best History Book Award”, and the "New Jersey Notable Book Award" 1999-2005. Impact on Field of Study. Since its initial hard copy release in paperback and hardback editions in 2003, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance has prompted an increase in studies of the Jazz Age era. Some of these studies have taken the form of novels and plays set in the era while others have resulted in new biographies of key players in the renaissance. In addition to being cited in numerous scholarly journals the encyclopedia has also become a resource for diverse authors who continue to expand and extend the field of study. The following is a partial list of titles that reference the volume: Key 100th Anniversary Source Document. Beginning with the 2011 essay titled “The Approaching 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance” the encyclopedia has been a key document in the call for official international commemorations of the Harlem Renaissance Centennial.

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Witness Against the Beast Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law is a 1993 book by the British historian E. P. Thompson in which Thompson contextualizes the work of the otherwise enigmatic poet and painter William Blake. The last book that Thompson would write, it was published posthumously. The book attempts to frame some of Blake's ideas in the traditions of the culture of religious dissent in England.

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Finding Iris Chang Finding Iris Chang: Friendship, Ambition, and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind is a biography of Iris Chang, author of the best-selling history book, "The Rape of Nanking". Written by Chang's friend, journalist Paula Kamen, and published in November 2007, the book's writing and research were motivated by Chang's suicide in 2004. Kamen authored a Salon.com eulogy for Chang that received an "overwhelming" response, and this prompted her to expand upon the subject of Chang's life and death with a full-length biography.

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Life of Mr Richard Savage Samuel Johnson's Life of Mr Richard Savage (1744), short title Life of Savage and full title An Account of the Life of Mr Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers, was the first major biography published by Johnson. It was released anonymously in 1744, and detailed the life of Richard Savage, a London poet and friend of Johnson who had died in 1743. The biography contains many details of Savage's account of his own life, including claims that he was the illegitimate child of a noble family that quickly disowned and abandoned him at birth. Savage had led a controversial life, and Johnson used the material to try to answer some wider ethical questions. The text was later included in "The Lives of the Poets", published in 1779, and this work is attributed as one of the important steps for Johnson becoming a biographer in his later years. The biography was well received and was the source of early praise for Johnson. This praise has continued 200 years after its original publication, and it has been described as "one of the best short biographies in English". Background. The "Life of Savage" was not Johnson's first biography. In 1740 he wrote short biographies of Jean-Philippe Baratier, Robert Blake, and Francis Drake. Before this time, between 1737 and 1739, Johnson was close to Savage. Savage was both a poet and a playwright, and Johnson was reported to enjoy spending time and discussing various topics with him, along with drinking and other merriment. However, that lifestyle could not continue, and Savage was encouraged by his friends to move to Bristol and clean up his life. He was unable to accomplish this which led to him being sent to debtors' prison and dying in 1743. Immediately after Savage died, various periodicals were printing biographical material on the dead poet. Edward Cave, Johnson's publisher, encouraged Johnson to put together a life of his friend. Johnson began to collect as many letters and biographical details as he could and, with his extensive history with Savage, produced his work. Johnson dedicated a large portion of his time to the work, and was able to produce, as he claimed, "forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the life of Savage at a sitting, but then I sat up all night." Johnson finished the work just before the Christmas of 1743 and was paid fifteen guineas. It was published anonymously and contained almost 200 pages. It was immediately successful, but it was not the financial success that Johnson or Cave wanted nor did it extend Johnson's reputation at the time. However, it did form an important beginning for Johnson as a biographer, and the work was later included in his "Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets" series. Life of Savage. Although the work is a biography, it was a partial version of Savage's life as told by a friend and contained many minor errors. In particular, Johnson accepted Savage's own story that he was a disowned bastard of a noble family, even though there was little evidence to be found. However, Johnson did not hide the flaws of his friend. Johnson exposed the many faults of Savage, but he always felt that Savage was ultimately wronged throughout his life and should ultimately be admired. Critical response. Joshua Reynolds, Johnson's friend, told James Boswell that "It seized his attention so strongly that, not being able to lay down the book till he had finished it, when he attempted to move, he found his arm totally benumbed." Walter Jackson Bate writes that the "Life of Savage" "remains one of the innovative works in the history of biography". Margaret Lane writes that the "Life of Savage" "is still the most absorbing of all Johnson's brief biographies and its news value at the time made it compulsive reading."

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Kipling Sahib Kipling Sahib is a biography of Rudyard Kipling, by Charles Allen. It focuses primarily on Kipling's upbringing in India, and largely ignores his later life and work.

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The Last Celt The Last Celt: A Bio–Bibliography of Robert Ervin Howard is a biography and bibliography of Robert E. Howard by Glenn Lord. It was first published by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. in 1976 in an edition of 2,600 copies. Reception. Richard A. Lupoff described "The Last Celt" as "a good general introduction and reference work on Howard."

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One Who Walked Alone One Who Walked Alone: Robert E. Howard, The Final Years is a memoir of Robert E. Howard by Novalyne Price Ellis. Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. published the book in 1986 with an edition of 800 copies. The book was adapted into the film "The Whole Wide World" in 1996. Grant has reprinted the book four times: 1988 (550 copies), 1998 (500 copies) and twice more. Starting with the third printing, the dust jacket was changed to include a picture of Renée Zellweger from her role in "The Whole Wide World".

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Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan was an 1825 biography written by Thomas Moore about the life of the playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816). It was published after nine years work, on and off, and had been delayed by a legal dispute over the use of Sheridan's papers. It was published in October 1825 by Longmans in two volumes under the full title of Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The first volume focused on Sheridan's early life and his success in the theatre. The second volume follows the ups and downs of his political career, as a Whig Member of Parliament. The work was a great success and sold a thousand copies in ten days, and had gone through three editions in a fortnight. Defending his work in a preface of the fifth edition Moore observed "The Tory, of course, is shocked by my Whiggism; – the Whigs are rather displeased at my candour in conceding that they have sometimes been wrong, and the Tories right; while the Radical in his patriotic hatred of both parties, is angry with me for allowing any merit to either". The work was part of a long-term shift in Moore's work and reputation. He had previously been regarded as a light poet and satirist but had now produced a novel "Memoirs of Captain Rock" and Sheridan's biography. In the wake of the success of the Sheridan work, Moore began working on a biography of his old friend Lord Byron who had died in 1824.

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Recollections of the Lake Poets Recollections of the Lake Poets is a collection of biographical essays written by the English author Thomas De Quincey. In these essays, originally published in "Tait's Edinburgh Magazine" between 1834 and 1840, De Quincey provided some of the earliest, best informed and most candid accounts of the three Lake Poets, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, and others in their circle. Candor. De Quincey wrote from personal familiarity, having known all three men during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. When he wrote about them twenty years later De Quincey ignored the constraints and repressions typical of biography in his era, and produced realistic and nuanced portraits. De Quincey was the first person to address the problem of plagiarism in Coleridge's works, a problem that was ignored or neglected until modern scholars began addressing it. Responses. The degree of candour that De Quincey brought to his portraits of people who were then still living or recently dead was extremely rare, if not unprecedented, in contemporaneous literature and journalism, and it provoked strong negative reactions. In the mid-1830s, when the essays were first being published, Southey called De Quincey "a calumniator, cowardly spy, traitor, base betrayer of the hospitable social hearth," and "one of the greatest scoundrels living!" Some other interested parties, however, responded more calmly. Coleridge's daughter Sara, for instance, found De Quincey's treatment of her father insightful and generally fair. The essays. De Quincey wrote about the figures of the "Lake School," especially Wordsworth and Coleridge, repeatedly. The essays that make up the collection are primarily the following (each year links to its corresponding "[year] in poetry" article): Editions. After their initial publication several of the essays appeared in the second volume of "Selections Grave and Gay" (1854), the first British collected edition of De Quincey's works. For that edition he edited his essays, trimming some passages but adding others. The essays were reprinted again in a separate volume, as "Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets" (1862); that title may or may not have originated with De Quincey. There were three editions of the essays in the twentieth century. Edward Sackville-West's "Recollections of the Lake Poets" (1948) and John E. Jordan's "Reminiscences of the English Lake Poets" (1961) both relied primarily upon the revised texts of 1854, but for his edition, published in 1970, David Wright returned to the original texts and to the title of the collection issued in 1862.

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A Short Life of Kierkegaard A Short Life of Kierkegaard is a book by Walter Lowrie. The book's first edition was published in 1938 by Oxford University Press simply under the title Kierkegaard. The book was influential for being the first English biography which covers both wider and lesser known areas of Søren Kierkegaard's life, philosophy, and theology. Lowrie was commissioned by the editor of Oxford University Press Charles Williams to write the biography and to translate into English for the first time several of Kierkegaard's seminal works in full, including "Either/Or" and "Philosophical Fragments".

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Arthur Koestler (book) "Arthur Koestler" is a book by Mark Levene published in 1984, a year after Arthur Koestler's suicide. The book is divided into seven main chapters, of which the first of is a biography and the other six critical essays on each of Koestler's six novels, his stories and his play "Twilight Bar". The book, which measures 200 mm x 120 mm (small format) was published by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. in New York, 1984, and by Oswald Wolff (Publishers) in London, 1985, (cloth); (paperback). Contents. Chronology [of Koestler's life], (pages ix–xv) The Koestler Life: An Arrow in the Twentieth Century (pages 1–32) Silhouettes of History: "The Gladiators" (pages 33–54) The Mind on Trial: "Darkness at Noon" (pages 55–77) Therapy, Aesthetics, and the Divine: "Arrival and Departure " (pages 78–95) Old Means and New Ends: "Thieves in the Night" (pages 96–112) The Pathology of Faith: "The Age of Longing " and "Twilight Bar " (pages 113–132) Doubts and Fatigue: "The Call Girls " and Five Stories (pages 133–148) Conclusion (pages 149–151) Notes (pages 152–164) Bibliography (pages 166–171) Index (pages 172–176)

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Explorers of the Infinite Explorers of the Infinite: Shapers of Science Fiction is a work of collective biography on the formative authors of the science fiction genre by Sam Moskowitz, first published in hardcover by the World Publishing Company in 1963, and reprinted in trade paperback in 1966. A photographic reprint of the original edition was issued in both hardcover and trade paperback by Hyperion Press in 1974. Most of its chapters are revised versions of articles that initially appeared in the magazines "Satellite Science Fiction" and "Fantastic Science Fiction Stories" from 1958-1960. The work presents the early history of the genre via a discussion of the lives and works of eighteen of its most important formative authors, followed by a more general discussion of more recent writers. Reception. Theodore Sturgeon, although noting the book's many imperfections, praised "Explorers of the Infinite", saying "no one has surveyed the roots of SF as well as Mr. M.; probably no one ever will; prossibly , no one else can." Kirkus Reviews, while recognizing Moskowitz's tracing of the genre to "Odysseus' Trojan horse and such devices as Arthur's incredibly able sword Excalibur, the Houyhnhnms of Gulliver's Travels, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the historical Cyrano de Bergerac's A Voyage to the Moon (1650), Robinson Crusoe, and even ... Moby Dick," saw the book largely as the author's paen to "Amazing Stories", "the great si-fi pulp mag of the Thirties, which [he] here apostrophizes as an American efflorescence of the scientific imagination." It noted with apparent approval the fact that "Jules Verne and H. G. Wells get whole chapters, but [also that] a fantastically vast up-literature of sci-fi exists from the turn of this century and before Amazing started in 1926 (all of it composed by authors less than amazingly memorable to many a living librarian)."

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The Life of Ian Fleming The Life of Ian Fleming is a biography of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond and author of the children’s book "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". The biography was written by John Pearson, Fleming’s assistant at the London "Sunday Times," in 1966. Pearson later wrote the official, fictional-biography "" in 1973. "The Life of Ian Fleming" was one of the first biographies of Ian Fleming and is considered a collectible book by many James Bond fans, since Pearson would become the third, official James Bond author. Future editions of "The Life of Ian Fleming" were altered after film producer Kevin McClory alleged that parts of the biography were untrue regarding the novel and film rights to "Thunderball". In 1989 the biography was turned into a movie, "Goldeneye". The 1967 American paperback edition was retitled "Alias James Bond—The Life of Ian Fleming". No other edition has this title.

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Loved Ones (book) Loved Ones is a 1985 collection of pen portraits by Diana Mitford. It was published by Sidgwick & Jackson. In 2008, three of the portraits were republished in the collection, "The Pursuit of Laughter". Synopsis. The book includes pen portraits of leading figures that featured prominently in Mitford's life. These include Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington, former neighbours and friends of hers. Violet Hammersley, an author, close friend of her mother's and prominent figure in childhood. The writer, Evelyn Waugh a close personal friend. Professor Derek Jackson, a leading physicist and her former brother-in-law. Lord Berners, a close personal friend she stayed with often at Faringdon House. Prince and Princess Clary, close friends of hers after the Second World War. The final portrait is of her second husband, Sir Oswald Mosley. The book also features several photographs of the selected subjects. Reception. The collection was favourably reviewed by "The Glasgow Herald", describing Mosley as ″consistently witty in a generous way that indulges neither in sarcasm nor bitterness and her book contains gems of ever-so-English understatement and Mitfordese snobbery.″ Cover illustration. This illustration features a detail from Henry Lamb's portrait of Mitford, painted in 1932 when she was still married to Bryan Guinness.

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Introducing Kafka Introducing Kafka, also known as R. Crumb's Kafka, is an illustrated biography of Franz Kafka by David Zane Mairowitz and Robert Crumb. The book includes comic adaptations of some of Kafka's most famous works including "The Metamorphosis", "A Hunger Artist", "In the Penal Colony", and "The Judgment", as well as brief sketches of his three novels "The Trial", "The Castle", and "Amerika". The book also details Kafka's biography in a format that is part illustrated essay, part sequential comic panels. Publication history. The book was released as part of the "Introducing..." series by Totem Books; the popularity of Crumb's renditions of Kafka's works led to additional printings under the title "R. Crumb's Kafka", and its most recent edition by Fantagraphics Books (2007) is simply titled "Kafka". Content. The book focuses on the biographical details of Kafka's life, interspersed with illustrated vignettes from his writing. The author relates Kafka's personality and various incidents in his life to the composition of his stories. For example, Kafka's complicated relationship with his family is linked to stories where the main character is an animal – notably "The Metamorphosis" whose protagonist, Gregor Samsa, awakens to find himself transformed into a giant bug, and becomes a burden on his family.

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Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft Some Notes on H. P. Lovecraft is a collection of biographical notes about H. P. Lovecraft by writer August Derleth. It was released in 1959 by Arkham House in an edition of 1,044 copies.

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Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–81), alternatively known by the shorter title Lives of the Poets, is a work by Samuel Johnson comprising short biographies and critical appraisals of 52 poets, most of whom lived during the eighteenth century. These were arranged, approximately, by date of death. From the close of the 18th century, expanded editions and updates of Johnson's work began to appear. Background. Johnson began writing individual biographical pieces in 1740, the first being devoted to Jean-Philippe Baratier, Robert Blake, and Francis Drake. In 1744 he wrote his first extended literary biography, the "Life of Mr Richard Savage", in honour of a friend who had died the year before. Various accounts are given of how Johnson came to write his "Lives of the Poets" during an episode of anti-Scottish sentiment in England. As related in the preface to the 1891 edition of the Lives, Scottish publishers had started to produce editions of the collected works of various English poets and sell them in London, which was considered an invasion of copyright precedent. Then in 1777 the publisher John Bell proposed to bring out a 109-volume set of "The Poets of Great Britain complete from Chaucer to Churchill", printed in Edinburgh at the rate of a volume a week. In order to compete with this project, Johnson was asked by a deputation of London publishers and booksellers, led by Thomas Davies, William Strahan and Thomas Cadell, to provide short biographies for a standard edition of poets in whom they had an interest. Johnson named a price of 200 guineas, an amount significantly lower than what he could have demanded. Soon afterwards, advertisements began to appear announcing “The English Poets, with a preface biographical and critical, to each author…elegantly printed in small pocket volumes, on a fine writing paper, ornamented with the heads of the respective authors, engraved by the most eminent artists”. Johnson was slow to put pen to paper, although on 3 May 1777 he wrote to Boswell that he was busy preparing "little Lives and little Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets". When asked later by Boswell whether he would do this for "any dunce’s works, if they should ask him," Johnson replied, "Yes, sir; and "say" he was a dunce." However, while so engaged, he made a few suggestions of his own for inclusion, including the poems of John Pomfret, Thomas Yalden, Isaac Watts, Richard Blackmore’s "The Creation" and James Thomson’s "The Seasons". But as the work progressed, many of the prefaces grew in length, further holding up progress. The format of these now included a narrative of the poet’s life, a summary of his character and a critical assessment of his main poems. Eventually the decision was taken in 1779 to issue 56 volumes of poets alone, for which the sheets were already printed, together with separate volumes of prefaces as and when Johnson completed them. At first the prefaces were only made available to subscribers to the full set of poets, but in March 1781 the collected prefaces were offered separately as a six-volume work under the present title. The Lives and their shortcomings. With some rare exceptions, almost all the prefaces were specially written for the series. The extended Life of Richard Savage of 1744 was incorporated with very few changes; an article on the Earl of Roscommon, previously published in "The Gentleman's Magazine" for May 1748, was worked over to conform to Johnson’s overall plan. An earlier “Dissertation on Pope’s Epitaphs” from 1756 was added to the end of the life of Alexander Pope and the character of William Collins had already appeared in "The Poetical Calendar" (1763). The life of Edward Young was written by Sir Herbert Croft at Johnson's request, since that baronet had known him well. There are also lengthy quotations from other authors, as for example the “Prefatory Discourse” to the work of John Philips written by his friend Edmund Smith. Even though the choice of authors was limited to those who were dead, some among the most recently deceased were not included, notably Charles Churchill (of whom Johnson disapproved) and Oliver Goldsmith, but this may have been due to copyright issues in both cases. Women poets were comprehensively omitted and that fact too was to draw criticism. Indeed, it has been conjectured that the 1785 new edition of George Colman and Bonnell Thornton’s 2-volume "Poems by Eminent Ladies" (originally published in 1755) may have been meant as a conscious supplement to the all-male series. Not all the details in the book have proved trustworthy, and many critical judgements were considered prejudiced and unequal, even at the time of publication. The "Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature" instances as examples "its strictures on Milton's Lycidas, Gray's Odes, and its evident prejudice against Swift", as well as the hostile characterisation of the Metaphysical style in the life of Abraham Cowley. Nor can Johnson's prejudices be palliated by the observation in "The Cambridge History of English and American Literature" that "he was much more interested in the man than in that part of him which is the author ...He claimed for it no exclusive privileges, nor held that the poet was a man apart to be measured by standards inapplicable to other men." List of Lives. The poets included are: Editorial responses. Although the quality of Johnson's writing has guaranteed the survival of his last considerable undertaking, its critical limitations generated published responses almost immediately. One of Johnson's own friends, John Scott, so differed in opinion with some of his judgments that he wrote essays of his own on individual works by John Denham, John Dyer, Milton, Pope, Collins, Goldsmith and Thomson which were published in 1785 under the title "Critical Essays on Some of the Poems of Several English Poets". When dealing with Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village" he takes particular issue with the principles of inclusion in the collection of poets with which Johnson was associated: "The Temple of Fame, lately erected under the title of "The Works of the English Poets", affords a striking instance of caprice in the matter of admission to literary honours", he charged. To Scott the choice of poets seemed lacking in either method or "rational impartial criticism" (p.247). In the same year appeared the new edition of "Poems by the Most Eminent Ladies of Great Britain and Ireland…with considerable alterations, additions and improvements". It has been conjectured, as mentioned above, that a reissue of the work thirty years after its first publication was a response to the omission of any female poets from the recent collection. The 1785 editor does not say as much in the "Advertisement" and it is only by a comparison of the contents lists of the two that it becomes apparent that the new edition gives a less comprehensive choice of works in order to include more authors. Breadth of coverage in the 1785 edition demonstrates the variety of women poets rather than, as in the 1755 edition, the variety of writing by individual authors. Between 1821 and 1824 Henry Francis Cary published several essays in "The London Magazine", collected and posthumously published in 1846 under the title "Lives of English poets, from Johnson to Kirke White, designed as a continuation of Johnson's Lives". These were unaccompanied by the works of the seventeen poets covered, apart from excerpts quoted in discussing their writing. The essays follow Johnson's tripartite exposition of biographical detail, character study and descriptive survey of the poetry, and begin with Johnson himself, at ninety pages in length by far the longest essay in the book. There his prose works as well as his poetry are discussed; in fact more pages are devoted to the "Lives of the Poets" than to Johnson's own performance as a poet. Oliver Goldsmith appears midway through the book and is given only twenty-four pages, less than those awarded William Mason and Erasmus Darwin, who precede and follow him. Where it is pertinent, Johnson's critical opinions are quoted (although not always approved), and in Goldsmith's case Johnsonian anecdotes are introduced. A body of the standard English poets. Robert Anderson prefaced his "A complete edition of the poets of Great Britain" (1795) with the statement that "When a new collection of English poetry is offered to the public, it will doubtless be inquired what are the deficiencies of preceding collections." To answer the question he went on to survey such anthologies over two centuries, noting in what ways they fell short of the completeness that he proposed. The ‘Johnson edition’ had failed in extensiveness by starting the English canon only in the second half of the 17th century. When it was augmented with the work of fourteen more poets in 1790, it still failed in inclusiveness, even over its allotted time-span; in addition, the biographical details of the added poets were skimped. What Anderson now proposed was a more ambitious set of poets, extending from Chaucer and covering the Tudor and early Stuart poets previously omitted, although in the event he was unable to include all that he wished. The selection also included more Scottish poets (though excluding dialect poetry) and two volumes of translations from the Classical writers. The accompanying biographies of the poets were written by Anderson himself. From the point of view of comprehensive coverage, Alexander Chalmers advanced little beyond his predecessor in his "The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper" (1810). The main difference is that for those poets who appeared in the 'Johnson edition', Johnson's lives are retained. At this date it is conceded in the preface that, "after all the objections that have been offered, [they] must ever be the foundation of English poetical biography." By including them also there is an implied continuity between the volumes to which Johnson contributed and Chalmers' "work professing to be a Body of the Standard English Poets". Later critical interpretations. Matthew Arnold, in his "Six Chief Lives from Johnson's "Lives of the Poets"" (1878), considered the Lives of Milton, Dryden, Pope, Addison, Swift, and Gray as "points which stand as so many natural centres, and by returning to which we can always find our way again" and also as a model for Arnold's "ideal of liberal education", representing "a crucial century and a half in English literature". For Arnold the whole work, focusing on these six, formed a "compendious story of a whole important age in English literature, told by a great man, and in a performance which is itself a piece of English literature of the first class". In mentioning this reading of Johnson's Lives at the start of his own article in "The Cambridge Companion to Samuel Johnson", Greg Clingham describes the topics covered there as "like a list of most of the important issues in literary history during the years 1600–1781" as well as something like a social, philosophical and political history of that era. But Philip Smallwood, commenting on the Lives in "The Oxford Handbook of British Poetry, 1660-1800", nuances this by pointing out that Johnson did not set out to produce a literary history. His main preoccupation is with how literary work is in a state of flux and advanced by individuals writing within a historical context. Consideration of their lives is therefore justified as it helps the reader in a different time to appreciate the significance of the works described.

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English Men of Letters English Men of Letters was a series of literary biographies written by leading literary figures of the day and published by Macmillan, under the general editorship of John Morley. The original series was launched in 1878, with Leslie Stephen's biography of Samuel Johnson, and ran until 1892. A second series, again under the general editorship of Morley, was published between 1902 and 1919.

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A Futile and Stupid Gesture A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever is an American book that was published in 2006. It is a history of "National Lampoon" magazine and one of its three founders, Doug Kenney, during the 1970s. The book was based on numerous interviews with people who contributed to the magazine, and people who performed in "The National Lampoon Radio Hour", and the stage show "Lemmings". As the book recounts, at that time the National Lampoon's performers included John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner, all of whom subsequently went on to appear on "Saturday Night Live" and have careers in other media, including film. Writers and artists included John Hughes, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, P. J. O'Rourke, Tony Hendra, and Bruce McCall. The book also includes stories about the making of the movies "Animal House" and "Caddyshack". The main title of the book is a quote from "Animal House", part of a line spoken by the character Otter. Film adaptation. A film adaptation, also titled "A Futile and Stupid Gesture", was released in 2018. David Wain directed from a script by Michael Colton and John Aboud, with Will Forte playing Doug Kenney and Domhnall Gleeson as Henry Beard.

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Under the Feet of Jesus (novel) Under the Feet of Jesus is a 1995 book by Helena Maria Viramontes and her first published novel. It was released in the United States by Plume and follows the lives of a Mexican-American migrant family working in the California grape fields. Plot. The book follows Estrella and her family as they arrive in Central Valley and must deal with several challenges. The family works in the grape fields, where they are paid very little for what is grueling labor. Estrella soon meets Alejo and the pair fall in love. Tragedy strikes when Alejo is sprayed with pesticides and falls gravely ill. Estrella's mother, Petra, also discovers that she is pregnant, which complicates matters. As Alejo grows increasingly more ill, Estrella and her family take Alejo to see a nurse at the nearest clinic, who charges them $10 for an office visit, in which the nurse only confirms to them that Alejo is sick. Unable to pay the fee completely, Petra's companion Perfecto offers to fix the clinic's plumbing in lieu of payment, but she declines. The nurse tells the family to take Alejo to the hospital, which is 20 miles away. As the nurse has what little money they had, a desperate Estrella smashes the desk at the clinic with a crowbar until the nurse returns the money, which they use on gas to reach the hospital. Once at the hospital, Estrella and her family must leave Alejo there alone, out of fear of law enforcement searching for them due to the clinic visit, since they knew that the hospital couldn't refuse him aid. Alejo is taken into the hospital, where there is a risk that she may never see him again. Petra, looking under the feet of a Jesus statue, sees the birth certificates of her five children, and the marriage certificate from when she married her husband in Santa Ana. She views these documents as proof against immigration if anyone tries to wrongly deport her children. Petra is contemplative about her life, her struggles, her daughter's affection for someone like her first husband, and the growing life in her belly. Perfecto, too, worries about how he can afford to bring another life into the world when they are struggling to survive. He feels old, too tired to be starting another family, and homesick for the home of his youth. Estrella gets up in the night, puts on her overalls, and goes alone to the barn mentioned several times in the book. She climbs a chain to the roof and there finds new strength and a conviction that her heart is powerful enough to "summon home all those who strayed." Themes. According to scholars such as Sharla Hutchison, the book comments on many themes and elements such as Chicano culture and bilingualism, migrant working conditions, and American mainstream culture and consumerism. Jeehyun Lim noted in a 2010 article for "Women's Studies Quarterly" that Viramontes's combined use of English and Spanish could be seen as a possible form of conflicted identity for the character of Estrella, who is also at the cusp of womanhood and deciding how she will live her life in the future. Writing for "Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment", C. Grewe-Volpp writes on the topic of migrant working conditions and environmental injustice seen in the book, citing the character Alejo's story of the La Brea Tar Pits, in which he tells Estrella they found human bones under the ground as well as his exposure to sprayed fertilizer. In an article for "The Journal of Popular Culture", Sharla Hutchison notes the commentary on consumerism through the products used by the family, as Estrella learns how to read from household brand products advertisements and the character's own commentary on the artwork featured on a box of Sun-Maid raisins, as Estrella opines that the mascot will never know the pain and exploitation of the migrant labor needed to gather grapes. Reception. "Under the Feet of Jesus" has received reviews from outlets such as "The Radical Teacher", "Chasqui", and "Los Angeles Times", the latter of which compared Viramontes to John Steinbeck and wrote that "Viramontes' prose is thick and lush, like the grape fields where migrant workers labor under the hot sun. There is passion here, but the author avoids easy sentimentality."

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Hazzard County (play) Hazzard County is a full-length comedy-drama, written by Allison Moore, which premiered in 2005 at the Humana Festival of New American Plays. The story centers on a young widowed mother and a visit she receives from a big city television producer. Interspersed with recollections of Bo, Luke, and Daisy, the play takes a deep look at southern "Good Ole Boy" culture and its popularization through the lens of American mass media Characters. The Monologues. "Note: The following characters are sometimes played by Quinn and Quintin." Setting. A rural town in Kentucky, present day. Synopsis. Ruth, a young widow has recently been thrown out of her home. She is unable (or unwilling) to access the trust fund set up after her husband's (Michael) death. The story of her husband's murder comes out after meeting Blake, a producer from LA. Blake sees this as the story that will help him break into the bigtime - "The story of a young woman, doing the right thing under impossible circumstances." However the story becomes less clear cut as more information about the murder is revealed. The killers were black, the money in the trust fund may have come from white supremacist groups, and Michael was flying a Confederate flag on his truck the night he was shot. The question is raised - "Whose civil rights were violated first?" as we follow Ruth, her children, and the rest of the cast down a memory lane speckled with stereotypes. Themes. This play is based on a true story. In 1995, Michael Westerman was shot in his truck near Guthrie, Kentucky. He was, at the time, flying a Confederate flag on the back of his truck. Later, he was declared a martyr by the Sons of Confederate Veterans - "First man to die under the flag in 130 years." When asked about the flag, the shooter responded "I thought it was just the 'Dukes of Hazzard' sign."

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Los Vendidos Los Vendidos (Spanish for The Sold Ones or The Sellouts) is a one-act play by Chicano playwright Luis Valdez, a founding member of El Teatro Campesino. He wrote it in 1967, and it was first performed at the Brown Beret junta in Elysian Park, East Los Angeles. The play examines stereotypes of Latinos in California and how they are treated by local, state, and federal governments. Plot. The short play is set in Honest Sancho's Used Mexican Lot and Mexican Curio Shop, a fictional Californian store that apparently sells various "models" (robots) of stereotypical Mexicans and Mexican-Americans that buyers can manipulate by simply snapping their fingers and calling out commands. The action of the play revolves around "The Secretary," a character by the name of Miss Jiménez, who converses with Honest Sancho, the owner of the store. Sancho says her name with Spanish pronunciation ( or, roughly, ), though she chastises him for speaking bad English, demanding that it be pronounced as the Anglicized . Miss Jiménez explains to the courteous Honest Sancho that she is a secretary for Governor Reagan and that his administration is looking to purchase "a Mexican type" to appeal to a lower income crowd. Sancho shows the Secretary four different models, snapping his fingers in order to bring them to life and demonstrate their behaviors. Although Miss Jiménez is herself evidently a Chicana (Mexican-American), she seems completely ignorant to the cultural stereotypes displayed in each of the four buyable characters. First, Sancho shows her the sturdy Farm Worker, but she refuses to buy him because he speaks no English. Second, they examine the "Johnny Pachuco," a 1950s Chicano gang member model who is violent, profane, and drug-abusing, though an easy scapegoat and perfect to brutalize. Third, when Miss Jiménez asks for a more romantic model, they come to the Revolucionario, one of the glorified bandit/martyrs of early Californian history; however, she denies him when she learns that he is completely Mexican and not even American-made. Finally, they come to the most contemporary Mexican-American model, named "Eric Garcia": a well-dressed and exciting public speaker who is university-educated, ambitious, bilingual, and polite. Miss Jiménez very reluctantly agrees to buy Eric for $15,000, when suddenly he begins staging a vocal protest in Spanish: "¡Viva la raza! ¡Viva la huelga! ¡Viva la revolución!" (Long live the people! Long live the strike! Long live the revolution!). Soon he snaps the three other models awake and they join in his miniature uprising. After Jiménez flees in fright, the four models converse among each other, revealing that they, in fact, are not robots, but rather, living human beings. They leave the lot and share the money amongst themselves, and Sancho stays still; it is he who is the robot. One of the people take him for an oil job and the play ends. Analysis. Luiz Valdez wrote this play to enhance awareness to the different stereotypes in 1960 Americas, and how other people treated him. Luis Valdez himself was a Chicano and immigrant from Mexico. The Sellouts are people who sell out their culture and adapt to the culture of Americans. Valdez himself saw this as a huge problem to immigrant workers as it made people of his kind, who kept their culture, look bad. In this case, it is Miss Jimenez who was the Sellout. Adaptation. "Los Vendidos" was adapted for television in 1972 by KNBC.

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A Majority of One A Majority of One is a play by Leonard Spigelgass. The 1959–1960 Broadway production was directed by Dore Schary and ran for three previews and 556 performances, with Gertrude Berg, Cedric Hardwicke, and Ina Balin. Plot. The play is a drama concerning racial prejudice involving Mrs. Jacoby, a Jewish widow from Brooklyn, New York and Koichi Asano, a millionaire widower from Tokyo. Mrs. Jacoby is sailing to Japan with her daughter and foreign service officer son-in-law who is being posted to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. She still considers the country the enemy responsible for the death of her son during World War II, but her feelings change when she meets Mr. Asano on board the ship. When she advises her family of Mr. Asano's desire to court her, Mrs. Jacoby's daughter, whose loyalty is to her mother rather than her husband, objects to the possibility of an interracial marriage. Adaptation. In 1961, Spigelgass adapted his play into a film, produced by Warner Bros. and directed by Mervyn LeRoy, starring Rosalind Russell, Alec Guinness, Madlyn Rhue and Ray Danton.

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A Free Man of Color A Free Man of Color is a play written by John Guare. The play is set in New Orleans in 1801 as the United States is attempting to purchase Louisiana from France, as well as some scenes taking place in Haiti and France. The story follows main character Jacques Cornet, "a new world Don Juan" and the wealthiest colored man in New Orleans. Cornet gains all of his money from his father who is a wealthy plantation owner. With extreme wealth comes a lot of responsibility in which Cornet is not quite ready for. Cornet spends his time searching for maps of the New World and sleeping with women all over the city who find Cornet's money very attractive. During the time of the play New Orleans lacked any true law and order and the city is a parade of young men and women. Guare directs the play through the actions of Cornet as he is able to meet with characters Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte throughout the play. By showing these confrontations the reader is able to learn about significant historical data such as the Yellow Fever, Napoleonic tactics, and the slave rebellion that nearly took over Santo Domingo's government. Cornet deals with a significant amount of adversity as the city goes through rapid expansion. His world changes as racism enters the city. Production History and Awards. The show was originally expected to be produced by the Public Theater to open in early 2009, but the engagement was postponed due to "lack of necessary funding". When Guare first wrote the play it stretched about 5 hours long and had to undergo serious revision ahead of its premiere. "A Free Man of Color" premiered on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Previews were originally scheduled to begin on October 21, 2010, but were delayed until October 23, 2010. The show officially opened on November 18, 2010, in a limited engagement until January 9, 2011. The creative team includes direction by George C. Wolfe, set design by David Rockwell, costume design by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting design by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, and instrumental music by Jeanine Tesori. The original cast featured Jeffrey Wright in the lead role, Mos Def as Cupidon Murmur, Reg Rogers as Princepousse/Tallyrand, Joseph Marcell as Dr. Toubib, Arnie Burton as James Monroe, Robert Stanton as Georges Feydeau, Paul Dano as Meriwether Lewis, John McMartin as Thomas Jefferson, Veanne Cox as Mme. Mandragola, and Sara Gettelfinger as Doña Athene/Calliope. On April 18, 2011, the winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama was announced. "A Free Man of Color" was a finalist along with the play "Detroit", with the winner being "Clybourne Park". Themes. Through his writing Guare is able to display several different themes that have affected society for hundreds of years and continue to affect society today. Some of the themes noted include immorality which is demonstrated through Cornet's lack of empathy toward individuals after obtaining a large sum of money and becoming one of the most influential figures in New Orleans. Cornet establishes his morality when he stages a shooting in order to gain the respect back from the men in New Orleans who have recently turned against him. Along with this sense of immorality is the corruption seen by characters during the play. Corruption is rooted throughout the play, most notably by Jacques Cornet who uses his money to obtain favors from individuals. Guare also develops the theme of race during the whole of the play in that Jacques Cornet loses everything after the battles of slavery come back into play in New Orleans after the country doubles its size due to the Louisiana Purchase. Response. "The Wall Street Journal"'s Terry Teachout wrote in his review, "If neatness is what you expect from John Guare's "A Free Man of Color," you'll be doomed to disappointment. Mr. Guare's ambitious new play, which tells the fantastic tale of Jacques Cornet (Jeffrey Wright), a 19th-century millionaire playboy from New Orleans who happens to be black, has a cast of 33 and runs for 2½ crowded hours. Yes, it sprawls, but for all its hectic messiness, "A Free Man of Color" is one of the three or four most stirring new plays I've seen since I started writing this column seven years ago.". "Newsday"'s reviewer wrote, "Somewhere very far away - as far, say, as the final 15 minutes - "A Free Man of Color" becomes an important play. Finally, after 2 ½ hours of brain-blurring historical asides, strenuously costumed artifice and luxuriously overpopulated incoherence, the point and resonance of this crazy-ambitious collaboration between playwright John Guare and director George C. Wolfe fall deeply into place." Michael Sommers praised the sets and costumes as "lavish", and said of the cast, "Wright furiously tears around as the flamboyant Jacques. Subtly depicting the fop's long-suffering servant Murmur, Mos also blazes for a bit as the fiery Toussaint. John McMartin wryly portrays a pragmatic Jefferson. Reg Rogers is very funny whether as Jacques' vengeful half-brother or the oily French diplomat Talleyrand. Veanne Cox and Peter Bartlett comically contrast as aristocratic refugees upset by New Orleans' raffish society while Nicole Beharie is winsome as a spunky country girl who soon comes to love it. Paul Dano, Nick Mennelland Arnie Burton brightly materialize as various personages." The "NY Daily News" reporter also praised the cast, but added that it "doesn't add up to a satisfying evening". Elysa Gardener of "USA Today" gave a more positive review, calling the show "exhilarating. By abandoning subtlety throughout, Guare and Wolfe keep the tone consistent, and ensure that some scenes that might have seemed pedantic in another context make sense dramatically."

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Color Struck Color Struck is a play by Zora Neale Hurston. It was originally published in 1926 in "Fire!!" magazine. "Color Struck" won second prize in the contest for best play. "Color Struck" was not staged during the Harlem Renaissance. Plot summary. "Color Struck" opens on a train in 1900, with members of the black community from Jacksonville, Florida going to a cakewalk competition in St. Augustine. Hurston specifies that the first scene takes place "inside a 'Jim Crow' railway coach." With much bustle, John and Emmaline arrive at the train just on time. Emmaline made John take the last coach, because she felt he was flirting with Effie, a lighter-skinned black woman. The play's title focuses on colorism, the idea that people in the black community were judged based on the hue of their skin. Emma is terrified that John will leave her for a lighter-skinned woman, and is very jealous; Emma says, "I loves you so hard, John, and jealous love is the only kind I got." At the dance hall, everyone eats their picnic lunches, and Effie offers John a piece of pie. He accepts, though he knows it will upset Emma. Emma refuses to dance the cakewalk with him, even though they are favoured to win the competition. John instead dances the cakewalk with Effie, and they win the prize. Twenty years pass, and we rejoin Emma in "a one-room shack in an alley." Her daughter, who we later learn is named Lou Lillian, is in bed, feverishly ill. John knocks on the door, and tells her he missed her. He had been married, but his wife died, and he has come to marry Emma now. Emma is thrilled, but wary. John looks forward to raising Lou Lillian as his own, and having a family. Lou Lillian is very sick, and John sends Emma for a doctor. Emma will not go to a "colored doctor," and eventually goes to bring the white doctor. As she is about to leave, she comes back and sees John ministering to Lou Lillian. Emma assumes that John is only being nice to Lou Lillian because she is half-white. In a rage, Emma attacks John. John leaves, and the doctor arrives. The doctor is too late, and Emma's daughter is dead. The doctor remonstrates Emma for not having come earlier, an hour would have made all the difference. As the doctor leaves, Emma is left on stage in a rocking chair, staring at the door, "A dry sob now and then." "Read Color Struck." Themes and Motifs. Colorism Throughout the play Emma is overly and self-destructively preoccupied with skin color. Emma is plagued by colorism—intra-racial racism—which causes her to be jealous of light-skinned Black people and despise her own Blackness. John: "(kisses her). Emma, what makes you always picking a fuss with me over some yaller girl. What makes you so jealous, nohow? I don’t do nothing." "Scene I" Insecurities/Self-destruction Emma is constantly worried that John will leave her for a light-skinned woman. Her insecurities have adverse effects including, losing John for twenty years and allowing her mulatto daughter to die. John: "… So this the woman I’ve been wearing over my heart like rose for twenty years! She so despises her own that she can’t believe any one else could love it…. Twenty years! Twenty years of adoration, hunger, of worship! (On the verge tears he…exits quietly…)." "Scene IV" Hate/Anger/Animosity Emma displays anger towards John any time a light-skinned woman is in their midst. Emma: "Oh-them yaller wenches! How I hate em! They gets everything they wants." II" Distorted Vision/Blindness Emma is unable to see situations as they really are; she constantly accuses John of being more interested in light-skinned women and fails to see his sincere love for her. Also, when the doctor comes to the home in scene IV, Emma reveals she is unable to see well. John: "Ah don’t make you! You makes yo’self mad, den blame it on me. Ah keep on tellin’ you Ah don’t love nobody but you. Ah knows heaps uh half-white girls Ah could get ef Ah wanted to But (he squeezes her hand again) Ah jus’ wants you! You know what they say! De darker de berry, de sweeter de taste!" II" Additional Quotes. John: "It was Emmaline nearly made us get left. She says I wuz smiling at Effie on the street car and she had to get off and wait for another.""Scene I" John: "I wuzn’t. I never gits a chance tuh smile at nobdoy- you won’t let me." "Scene I" Emma: "Jes the same every time you sees a yaller face, you takes a chance." "Scene I" Emma: "….Everything she do is pretty to you." "Scene I" Emma: "….I can’t help mahself from being jealous. I loves you so hard, John, and jealous love is the only kind I got." "Scene I" Analysis, Critiques, and Literature on the Play. According to Martha Gilman Bower, Emma is an exemplar case of the "damaging consequences of an obsession with skin tone among Blacks." The consequences of being "color struck" that one sees throughout the play is escalating anger, low self-esteem, paranoia, and schizophrenia. Bower also points out, Emma does not show animosity towards segregation, but rather is angered by the intra-race hierarchy. Because of Emma’s "psychotic obsession with color", she is unable to truly be happy, love, overcome oppression, and consequently is "the only miserable character." Such obsession is self-destructive, distorts vision, and has the possibility of ruining opportunities. According to Michael North, "’Color struck’ is a term for [Emma’s] obsession but also for the retreat it causes." Yet, the term "color struck" was popularized by Hurston in at a party after the 1925 Opportunity awards dinner when she comes in and "[triumphantly cries], ‘Calaaaah struuuck." North interprets such triumph that Hurston imbues in the cry as what she intended to do with the play. North also points out the historical background of the cakewalk, highlighting its minstrelsy origins; he writes "the cakewalk [is] a cliché of black life." Faedra Chatard Carpenter offers an insightful analysis of "Color Struck" in the article, "Addressing the ‘Complex’-ities of Skin Color: Intra-Racism in the Plays of Hurston, Kennedy, and Orlandersmith. She writes: The topical significance of Color Struck is in how it challenges assumptions associated with color-consciousness. Rather than staging the color-complex as a unilateral dynamic in which lightskinned blacks reject and separate themselves from their darker brethren (the narrative of the "uppity" light-skinned black), Hurston dramatizes the fact that color prejudice takes many forms. In effect, the dramatic twist Hurston portrays is twofold: both John and Emma are "color struck," albeit in opposing and unpredictable ways. Emma is drawn to light skin (notably, after her relationship with John fails, she presumably has a sexual relationship/encounter with a white man, resulting in the birth of a "very white girl"), while John exhibits color-consciousness in his preference for dark-skinned women (after the breakup, he consciously seeks out a darker-skinned wife that "was jus’ as much" like Emma as possible) (348).

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Nowhere on the Border Nowhere on the Border is a one-act play written by American playwright Carlos Lacamara in response to the Immigration conflict. It was first performed in 2005. Plot synopsis. The play begins with a border vigilante called Gary Dobbs, who finds the body of a Hispanic man. The Border Patrol guard believes that the man is dead, although as he calls the Border Patrol the "dead" man wakes up sharply, startling the guard. He finds out that the man's name is Roberto Castillo and that he is looking for his 22-year-old daughter Pilar who walked into the Arizona Desert from Mexico hoping to join her husband in the United States. Dobbs suspects that Castillo is a drug smuggler and decides to wait with him for the Border Patrol to come and check if his visa is real. Castillo explains that he isn't moving from that particular spot because he found a mutilated corpse and knew that if his daughter was found dead by someone, he would want someone to look after the body until someone came. He is sure that the body isn't his daughter because the man that smuggled her in said that if she died on the trip, he would put a blue cloth over her face, which the corpse lacks. During the time that they are waiting, they talk about their families and their culture, and form a unique bond between each other. At the end, Dobbs sees a blue cloth under a rock next to the body, indicating that the body is in fact Pilar; together they both bury the body. The other story-line of the play concerns Pilar's journey through the desert. In the Repertorio Español production, these scenes were performed in Spanish. She pays a coyote (a people smuggler) named Don Rey to take her across the Sonoran Desert to join her husband. She walks through the desert with Montoya (the guide) and Jesus Ortiz (another man being smuggled across the border). They encounter hardships along the way and Montoya frequently sniffs cocaine, offering some to Pilar when she is tired. Pilar becomes dehydrated and Jesus pressurizes Montoya to go get help. Montoya sets off to find help and isn't seen again. Jesus places a blue cloth over her face and leaves to find help as well. Pilar's last words are "Kooka-roo", referring to a chicken character with whom her father used to annoy her. Production history. "Nowehere on the Border" was first performed at the Hayworth Theater in Wilshire, Los Angeles, California in 2005. Lacamara played Robert and Patrick Rowe played Gary in the production. The cast also included Sergio Arras, Robert Bruzio, Annie Henk, Joe Diaz and Kervin Peralta. The play received a rehearsed reading as part of the MetLife Repertorio Espanol competition in New York in 2006. The reading was directed by Jason Ramirez.

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Pill Hill (play) Pill Hill is a three-act play by American dramatist Sam Kelley. Set in a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago known informally as Pill Hill, the play examines the failures, successes, and relationships of six African American steel mill workers as they transition from blue-collar jobs to white-collar professions between 1973 and 1983. The play is regarded as an allegory of economic progress related to the American Dream. "Pill Hill" debuted at the 1990 Yale Repertory Theatre Winterfest series of plays in progress, and was subsequently performed in several venues across the United States. The play was published by Dramatic Publishing Company in 1995. Plot. The Pill Hill neighborhood was a popular residence for successful white physicians (resulting in the nickname for the neighborhood). In the 1960s and 1970s, it was a symbol of affluence that represented the American Dream. For young blacks, this symbol was especially poignant, which provides for a subtext in this play. The three-act play examines the failures, successes, and relationships of six black steel mill workers in Chicago as they transition from blue-collar jobs to the white-collar professions. The time is 1973, 1978, and 1983, and the scene is a Chicago basement apartment where the characters meet to socialize over cards and drinks. Racial themes relating to the disparity of life at the steel mill are presented, and dreams about possibilities represented by the upscale Pill Hill neighborhood in Chicago are examined. The conflicts are painful as the characters deal with leaving the comfortable life of the mill to embark on a road of uncertainty while pursuing professional aspirations. Performance and publication history. The play debuted in the 1990 Yale Repertory Theatre Winterfest series of plays in progress. It was mounted as a full production in another Connecticut theater, before travelling as productions of the Philadelphia Theatre Company and the Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. The play had a late-1992 production by the Hartford Stage Company, and a 2010 production at Coppin State University. Dramatic Publishing Company published the play on February 23, 1995. The publisher lists it as a full-length drama intended for both high school and college/adult audiences. Critical reception. John Beer of "Time Out Chicago" attended a performance in 2009 and wrote, "At its best, "Pill Hill" draws a corrosive picture of individual lives caught within merciless social systems. Racism haunts the men's periodic get-togethers, most pointedly in a monologue about a Southern excursion gone terribly wrong. [...] [W]riting at the height of the Reagan-Bush years, Kelley saw clearly the impact of right-wing policies on the urban working class." He thought the individuality of the characters was undeveloped, but the play was "neatly structured to a fault". He criticized what he perceived as a "heavy authorial hand" in the repetition of a conversation about one character's self-doubts throughout the play. Analysis. "Pill Hill" is an allegory of economic progress told as tales of various pursuits of the American Dream. Kelley uses a spectrum of sociological types that he develops into complex, recognizable personalities in order to deliver his message in natural idioms. When the play was performed in 2005 at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the website description noted that a good life in Pill Hill was a common goal that was difficult to reach and when achieved, it was at a cost that could be one's soul. The conflicts range from economic difficulties to the proverbial glass ceiling common to blacks climbing the ladder of success. The changing professional situations coincide with relationship transitions that occurred in America as the hippie generation transformed into the yuppie generation. Four of the six characters become successful by 1983: Al is a real estate dealer, Tony is Mercedes Benz salesman, Ed is a groundbreaking black lawyer and Scott has achieved financial success in a suspicious and mysterious way. The other characters are less successful with Charlie, who is the oldest of the characters, having stayed in the mill without progressing up the ranks, but earning a secure life through hard and dangerous work. Joe's troubles at the mill lead to unemployment and a destiny with the homeless shelter. A 1994 Chicago performance elicited the following character descriptions from the "Chicago Reader": Joe is boisterous; Charlie is fatherly; Al is the eternal runner-up; Tony is ingenuously amoral; Scott is innocent and Eddie is the play's "spokesman."

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A Taste of Honey A Taste of Honey is the first play by the British dramatist Shelagh Delaney, written when she was 19. It was initially intended as a novel, but she turned it into a play because she hoped to revitalise British theatre and to address social issues that she felt were not being presented. The play was first produced by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop and was premiered at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, a small fringe theatre in London, on 27 May 1958. The production then transferred to the larger Wyndham's Theatre in the West End on 10 February 1959. The play was adapted into a film of the same title in 1961. "A Taste of Honey" is set in Salford in North West England in the 1950s. It tells the story of Jo, a seventeen-year-old working class girl, and her mother, Helen, who is presented as crude and sexually indiscriminate. Helen leaves Jo alone in their new flat after she begins a relationship with Peter, a rich lover who is younger than her. At the same time Jo begins a romantic relationship with Jimmy, a black sailor. He proposes marriage but then goes to sea, leaving Jo pregnant and alone. She finds lodgings with a homosexual acquaintance, Geoffrey, who assumes the role of surrogate father. Helen returns after leaving her lover and the future of Jo's new home is put into question. "A Taste of Honey" comments on, and puts into question, class, race, gender and sexual orientation in mid-twentieth-century Britain. It became known as a "kitchen sink" play, part of a genre revolutionising British theatre at the time. By way of a visual backdrop to "A Taste of Honey", Delaney reflected on life in Salford in a documentary, directed by Ken Russell, for BBC television's "Monitor" that was broadcast on 26 September 1960. Plot. Act 1. In the first scene, Helen and her teenage daughter, Jo, are moving into a shabby flat. Within a few minutes the audience learns that they have little money, living off Helen's immoral earnings—money given to her by her lovers, although she is not a true prostitute, being more of a "good time girl." Helen is a regular drinker, and she and Jo have a confrontational and ambiguously interdependent relationship. As they settle in, Helen's surprise at some of Jo's drawings both suggests Jo's talent and originality and shows Helen's lack of interest in and knowledge about her daughter. Jo rejects the idea of going to an art school, blaming Helen for having interrupted her training all too often by moving her constantly from one school to another. Jo now only wants to leave school and earn her own money so that she can get away from Helen. After this conversation, Peter (Helen's younger boyfriend) comes in. Jo assumes that Helen has moved here to escape from him, but the audience is never told the reason why. Peter had not realised how old Helen was until he sees her daughter. Nonetheless he asks Helen to marry him, first half-jokingly, then more or less in earnest. In the next scene, Jo is walking home in the company of her black boyfriend. During a light-hearted, semi-serious dialogue, he asks her to marry him, and she agrees, although he is in the navy and will be away on his ship for six months before they can marry. He gives Jo a ring which she hangs around her neck under her clothes to hide it from Helen. Jo tells him that she is really leaving school and is going to start a part-time job in a pub. Back at the flat, Helen informs Jo that she is going to marry Peter. Peter enters, and a dialogue ensues among the three. Instead of only Jo and Helen attacking each other, a more complex pattern evolves, with Jo attacking the others, the others attacking Jo, and Helen attacking both Peter and Jo. Jo is truly upset at the thought of Helen marrying Peter, but also pesters and provokes him in an effort to antagonise him even more. After Helen and Peter leave her on her own for Christmas, Jo weeps and is consoled by her boyfriend. She invites him to stay over Christmas, although she has a feeling that she will never see him again. The action moves to the occasion of Helen's wedding, the day after Christmas. Jo has a cold and will not be able to attend at the wedding. Since she is in her pyjamas, Helen catches a glimpse of the ring around her neck and learns the truth. She scolds Jo violently for thinking of marrying so young, one of her occasional bursts of real feeling and concern for her daughter. Asked by Jo about her real father, Helen explains that she had been married to a "Puritan" and that she had to look elsewhere for sexual pleasure. Thus she had her first sexual experience with Jo's father, a "not very bright man," a "bit retarded". She then hurries off to her wedding. Act 2. Several months later, Jo is living alone in the same shabby flat. She works in a shoe shop by day and in a bar in the evenings to afford the rent. She is pregnant, and her boyfriend has not come back to her. She returns from a funfair to the flat in the company of Geof, an "effeminate" art student, who has possibly been thrown out from his former lodgings because his landlady suspected he was gay. Jo offends him with insensitive questions about his sexuality, and he in turn maliciously criticises her drawings. She apologises and asks him to stay, sleeping on the couch. Geof shows concern for Jo's problems, and they develop a friendly, joking relationship. The audience next sees Jo irritable and depressed by her pregnancy, with Geof patiently consoling her. Then, seeking reassurance himself, he kisses her and asks her to marry him. Jo says that although she likes him she cannot marry him. She makes a sexual pass at him which he fails to recognize, confirming that "it is not marrying love between us". At this point, Helen enters. She has been contacted by Geof, who wishes to keep this fact secret from Jo. Jo, however, guesses as much and is angry with both Helen and Geof. Geof tries to interfere in the quarrel between the two women, but each time he is attacked by one or the other or both. As Helen is offering Jo money, Peter comes in, very drunk, and takes back the money and Helen's offer of a home to Jo. He leaves, insisting that Helen come with him; after a moment's hesitation she runs after him. In the next scene, the baby is due any moment. Jo and Geof seem happy. He reassures her that Helen was probably mistaken about or exaggerating the mental deficiencies of Jo's father. Geof has bought a doll for Jo to practise handling the baby but Jo flings it to the ground because it is the wrong colour: Jo assumes that her baby will be as black as its father. Her momentary outburst against the baby, motherhood and womanhood is short-lived, however, and she and Geof are about to have tea when Helen enters with all her luggage. Apparently, she has been thrown out by Peter and now plans to stay with Jo. To get rid of Geof, she behaves rudely to him, while overwhelming Jo with advice and presents. Jo defends Geof, but while she is asleep, Geof decides to leave, since Helen is too strong for him and he does not want Jo to be pulled between them. Jo wakes, and Helen pretends that Geof is out doing the shopping. When she learns that the baby will be black, she loses her nerve and rushes out for a drink, even though Jo's labour pains have just begun. Alone, Jo happily hums a tune Geof sang before, still not having realised that he is gone. 1958 critical reception. Writing of the original production, Milton Shulman in the "Evening Standard" found the play immature and unconvincing, and others were similarly derogatory about the author's age, with the "Daily Mail" writing that it tasted not of honey, but "of exercise books and marmalade." However, Kenneth Tynan wrote, "Miss Delaney brings real people on to her stage, joking and flaring and scuffling and, eventually, out of the zest for life she gives them, surviving” ; while Lindsay Anderson in "Encore" called the play "a work of complete, exhilarating originality," giving "a real escape from the middlebrow, middle-class vacuum of the West End." Popular references. The play was admired by Morrissey of the band The Smiths, who used Delaney's photo on the album cover artwork for "Louder Than Bombs". A photograph of Shelagh Delaney appears on the cover for The Smiths' single "Girlfriend in a Coma". An earlier Smiths song, "This Night Has Opened My Eyes", is based on the play and includes a paraphrase of Geoffrey's line to Jo near the end: "The dream has gone but the baby is real." Morrissey's lyrics include other borrowings from Delaney, such as "river the colour of lead" and "I'm not happy and I'm not sad", both of which are spoken by the lead character Jo. Other quotations and near-quotations appear in several other songs by The Smiths and Morrissey. The play is referred to by Akira the Don in the title track on the album "Thieving" (2008), in which it appears to awaken him to literature in a school English lesson. It appears in "On Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan, as a film watched by the main characters.

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Driving Miss Daisy (play) Driving Miss Daisy is a play by American playwright Alfred Uhry, about the relationship of an elderly Southern Jewish woman, Daisy Werthan, and her African-American chauffeur, Hoke Coleburn, from 1948 to 1973. The play was the first in Uhry's "Atlanta Trilogy", which deals with Jewish residents of that city in the early 20th century. The play won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Synopsis. The time: 1948, the place: Atlanta, Georgia. A crash is heard, and Daisy Werthan, age 72, is in her living room, with her son Boolie, age 40. She has crashed her car, and Boolie insists that she have a driver. Boolie is in his office and interviews Hoke Coleburn who is a black man of around 60. He is unemployed. Over the next 25 years Hoke drives "Miss Daisy". They are initially wary of each other, and Hoke puts up with the somewhat crotchety Miss Daisy with dignity. She teaches Hoke to read when she learns that he cannot, which comes naturally to her, having been a teacher. Ultimately, over the years, they form a bond. In the final scene, Miss Daisy is in a nursing home for increasing memory loss; but is lucid enough to tell Hoke, who has come to visit her, that he is her best friend. Background. The play was inspired by Alfred Uhry's grandmother, Lena Fox, her chauffeur, Will Coleman, and his father. His grandmother, a Jewish woman who lived in Atlanta during the 1960s, had to give up driving after a car accident, and hired Coleman, who drove her for 25 years. Uhry wrote his "Atlanta Trilogy" based on his own experiences living in Atlanta as a Jew. He set his three plays in the context of major events that happened in Atlanta: "Parade", based on the 1913–1915 trial and eventual lynching of Leo Frank; "The Last Night of Ballyhoo", following the events at the city's 1939 "Gone With the Wind" premiere; and "Driving Miss Daisy", addressing the impacts associated with the 1958 Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing and the city’s dinner honoring Martin Luther King Jr.’s October 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. Production history. Off-Broadway (1987–1990) The original Off-Broadway production was staged at Playwrights Horizons Studio Theatre on 42nd Street, opening on April 15, 1987. Directed by Ron Lagomarsino, the role of Daisy was also played by Rochelle Oliver and Frances Sternhagen, replacing Dana Ivey. It later transferred to the John Houseman Theatre, closing on June 3, 1990, with 1,195 performances. US.National Tours and Regional National Tours were launched starting in 1988. Julie Harris was the Daisy for the 1st National Tour. Rosemary Prinz also played the role in a second tour. The first production in Chicago was also a long-running production, originally starring Sada Thompson. Ellen Burstyn, Charlotte Rae, and Dorothy Loudon also played Miss Daisy as replacements. West End (1988) The play was produced in London's West End in 1988 at the Apollo Theatre with Wendy Hiller as Miss Daisy. 1992 Television cast In 1992, the play was filmed for television as a possible series. This production starred Joan Plowright as Miss Daisy, with Robert Guillaume as Hoke and Saul Rubinek as Boolie. Broadway (2010–2011) In October 2010, The play was staged for the first time on Broadway. The play opened on October 25, 2010, at the John Golden Theatre; the run was later extended and "Driving Miss Daisy" closed on April 9, 2011, after 20 previews and 180 performances. Maureen Anderman was Redgrave's understudy. It recouped its initial investment of $2.6 million on December 21, 2010, making it the first show of the 2010/2011 season to do so. The show was the top-grossing Broadway play in the week ending January 16, 2011. West End revival (2011) The production played at the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End with the same cast, beginning previews on September 26, 2011, opening on October 5, 2011, and closing on December 17, 2011. UK tour (2012–13) The show toured UK theatres from October 2012 until April 2013, starring Gwen Taylor, Don Warrington, and Ian Porter. Australian tour (2013) The Broadway production of "Driving Miss Daisy" toured Australia from February 9 to June 16, 2013, starring Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines. This production was filmed and broadcast on PBS "Great Performances". Film adaptation. Uhry adapted his play into the screenplay for a 1989 film of the same name starring Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Aykroyd. All three actors were nominated for Academy Awards, with Tandy winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film received nine nominations total, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Uhry also won an Academy Award for his screenplay.

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The Monkey Jar The Monkey Jar is a 2008 play written by California playwright Richard Martin Hirsch. The play opened in Beverly Hills on February 2, 2008, and closed on March 8, 2008, in the Reuben Cordova Theatre. The production was directed by Warren Davis and starred Henry Hayashi, Mark Berry, and Sekai Murashige, alternating with Josh Ogner. Set Design by Jeff G. Rack; Lighting Design by Meghan Hong; Costume Design by Holly Victoria; Sound Design by Jonathan Snipes. Produced by Theatre Forty and Storey Productions. Plot summary. Michael Dori, a Japanese American, teaches at Bienvenida Elementary School in Beverly Hills, priding himself on the fact that his students regularly score in the top five percent of state standardized tests. However, when he is confronted by a 10-year-old Japanese student with an apparent learning disability, Kai Goldman, the authoritarian teacher first tries to bond with the child through the commonality of their race, and then pushes the child too hard in class regarding multiplication tables, which seriously embarrasses the boy. The next day, the child brings a gun to school. The reason the child brought the weapon is the central conflict of the play. The teacher, Mr. Dori, accuses the boy of trying to get retribution for the embarrassment he felt over the incident with the multiplication tables. The child insists he was bringing the gun to impress his teacher. The weapon is an old Civil War relic and incapable of actually being fired, a fact Kai insists he was intimately aware. Left to sort out the issue is the school's African-American principal, Robert Rees, who has only held the position a few months, and Coral Bryson the specialist in charge of Kai's Individualized Education Program. Complicating the already tedious racial issue is Kai's adoptive parents, Aaron and Nancy Goldman, who are Jewish. The play, which is told from Coral's perspective, examines many school issues including race, parental involvement, and the differences in quality between public and private schools. Reaction and reviews. Dany Margolies of "Backstage West" called the play "a worthy and interesting World Premiere" in which director Warren Davis delivered "a unified world for the actors and creative staging across the theatre's wide space that enables the many scenes to flow." She goes on to laud the performances of Amy Tolsky, Mark Berry, and especially Addie Daddio. Amy Nicholoson of "LA Weekly" named "The Monkey Jar" a "GO" (Critic's Pick) and went on to say: "Playwright Richard Martin Hirsch has set up a credible and inextricable trap..." "Warren Davis' production is engrossing, with the parents' scenes appropriately screwball; Act 2 rehashes the problem in ever louder voices before homing in on what could feel to some like a slightly unsatisfying solution. But among the script's strong achievements is the tightly wound Mr. Dori, an undeniably good — if authoritarian — teacher who's proud that his kids score in the state's top 5 percent, and bristles at the insinuation that spurring them to achieve doesn't prove that he cares." Cynthia Citron of "Curtain Up" said: "With just a minimal amount of furniture and Meghan Hong's effective lighting design, the production bounces along with a fast-paced contemporaneousness. Director Warren Davis leads these seasoned professionals through the ramifications of a felony committed by a child and to the consequences for all involved. It's a gripping story told by a superb cast, and well worth a visit." Daryl Miller of the "Los Angeles Times" called the script, "Well-intended...", stating: "The story is complicated by layer upon layer of social, economic and ethnic detail." "On Los Angeles' affluent Westside, frustration builds in an elementary school classroom when a 10-year-old with a mild learning disability is pushed hard by a teacher who, unaware of the boy's condition, wants every student to perform well. The youngster adopts sarcasm as psychological armor but, when pressured, becomes panicky and tearful -- qualities well conveyed at the reviewed performance by Sekai Murashige, who alternates with Josh Ogner. His teacher, as portrayed by Henry Hayashi, is energetic and inspiring, though he makes regrettable choices as he tries to break through to this student. In the tense situation that results, the school's new principal, played by Mark Berry, finds his ambitions -- as well as his compassionate best efforts for the kids -- in danger of being erased."

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A Strange Loop A Strange Loop is a musical with book, music and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson. The show had its world premiere Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in co-production with Page 73 Productions and ran from May 24 to July 28, 2019. The original cast recording was released on September 27, 2019 on Yellow Sound Label. The album peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Cast Albums chart. The Washington, DC production at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company originally scheduled for September 2020 was postponed to mid-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Summary. The musical is about Usher, coincidentally named the same as his day-job as an usher for "The Lion King" on Broadway, a fat, Black, gay writer who tries to navigate the heteronormative white world. He is backed by a six-person all-black-queer ensemble who voice his inner thoughts as he begrudgingly ghost writes a new Tyler Perry stage play. Awards and nominations. On May 4, 2020, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to Jackson for the musical, with the committee citing the show as "A metafictional musical that tracks the creative process of an artist transforming issues of identity, race, and sexuality that once pushed him to the margins of the cultural mainstream into a meditation on universal human fears and insecurities." The show is the tenth musical to win the award, as well as the first musical written by a black person to win and first musical to win without a Broadway run.

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Purlie Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Philip Rose, and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell and music by Gary Geld. It is based on Davis's 1961 play "Purlie Victorious", which was later made into the 1963 film "Gone Are the Days!" and which included many of the original Broadway cast, including Davis, Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, Godfrey Cambridge, and Sorrell Booke. Plot. "Purlie" is set in an era when Jim Crow laws still were in effect in the American South. Its focus is on the dynamic traveling preacher Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to his small Georgia town hoping to save Big Bethel, the community's church, and emancipate the cotton pickers who work on oppressive Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee's plantation. With the assistance of Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins, Purlie hopes to pry loose from Cotchipee an inheritance due his long-lost cousin and use the money to achieve his goals. Also playing a part in Purlie's plans is Cotchipee's son Charlie, who ultimately proves to be far more fair-minded than his Simon Legree–like father and who saves the church from destruction with an act of defiance that has dire consequences for the tyrannical Cap'n. Production notes. Although Davis did not participate actively in the creation of the musical, so much of his original script was included in the final project that Peter Udell and Philip Rose felt he should share credit for the book. After 28 previews, the Broadway production, directed by Rose and choreographed by Louis Johnson, opened on March 15, 1970, at the Broadway Theatre. It later transferred to the Winter Garden and then the ANTA Playhouse before completing its 688-performance run. The cast included Cleavon Little as Purlie, John Heffernan as Cotchipee, Melba Moore as Lutiebelle, and C. David Colson as Charlie, with Sherman Hemsley, Linda Hopkins, Novella Nelson, and Helen Martin in supporting roles. Robert Guillaume replaced Little later in the run. Johnson's choreography was nominated for a Tony Award. The first edition of the original cast recording was released by Ampex Records; it was later re-released on RCA Victor. After two previews, a Broadway revival directed by Philip Rose and choreographed by Johnson opened on December 27, 1972, at the Billy Rose Theatre, where it ran for 14 performances. Guillame and Hemsley reprised their original roles, with Art Wallace as Cotchipee, Patti Jo as Lutiebelle, and Douglas Norwick as Charlie. A 1981 television adaptation for Showtime directed by Rudi Goldman starred Broadway cast members Guillaume, Moore, Hemsley, and Hopkins, with Brandon Maggart as Cotchipee, Clarice Taylor as Idilla, and Don Scardino as Charlie. The production won a CableACE Award. The first London production was a fringe theatre staging at the Bridewell Theatre in 2004. The cast included Tee Jaye as Purlie, John Lyons as Cotchipee, Victoria Wilson-James as Missy Judson, and Joanna Francis as Lutiebelle. In 2005, Sheldon Epps directed a US national tour co-produced by the Pasadena Playhouse and the Goodman Theatre. His New York City Center "Encores!" staging that same year featured Blair Underwood, Anika Noni Rose, Lillias White, and John Cullum.

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Ubu and the Truth Commission Ubu and the Truth Commission is a South African play by Jane Taylor. It was first produced on 26 May 1997, directed by William Kentridge at The Laboratory in Johannesburg's Market Theatre. Produced by the Handspring Puppet Company, and employing a multimedia approach in the tradition of Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht, the production of "Ubu" combines puppetry with live actors, music, animation, and documentary footage, while drawing extensively from Alfred Jarry's absurdist production "Ubu Roi" (1896). It fuses the chaos of the Ubu legend with original testimony from witnesses at the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC. In her "Writer's Note" to the 2007 book-form publication of the play, Taylor wrote, What has engaged me as I have followed the Commission, is the way in which individual narratives come to stand for the larger national narrative. The stories of personal grief, loss, triumph and violation now stand as an account of South Africa's recent past. History and autobiography merge. This marks a significant shift, because in the past decades of popular resistance, personal suffering was eclipsed — subordinated to a larger project of mass liberation. Now, however, we hear in individual testimony the very private patterns of language and thought that structure memory and mourning. "Ubu and the Truth Commission" uses these circumstances as a starting point. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 1996 with what Taylor described as a "momentous mandate", to solicit testimony from those who identified as casualties, perpetrators, or survivors of the apartheid atrocity. Coming almost exactly two years after South Africa's first democratic elections, the Commission's purposes, in Taylor's eyes, were "to retrieve lost histories, to make reparation to those who had suffered, to provide amnesty for acts which were demonstrably political in purpose [... and, among the most important] to create a general context through which national reconciliation might be made possible." "The Commission itself is theatre," wrote William Kentridge, "or at any rate a kind of ur-theatre [...]. One by one witnesses come and have their half hour to tell their story, pause, weep, be comforted by professional comforters who sit at the table with them. The stories are harrowing, spellbinding. The audience sit at the edge of their seats listening to every word. This is exemplary civic theatre, a public hearing of private griefs which are absorbed into the body politic as a part of a deeper understanding of how the society arrived at its present position." Plot. Pa Ubu (played by Dawid Minnaar) has been spending a great deal of time away from home, much to the concern and suspicion of his wife (Busi Zokufa). She smells an odour on him that she suspects may be that of another woman, a mistress. But, he is an agent of a governmental death squad, and the odour that she smells is of blood and dynamite. After the abolition of apartheid, the TRC is established. It offers amnesty to those war criminals who come forward and offer full and truthful testimony regarding their infractions. Ubu, suspecting a trick, is unsure of what to do. The play follows his indecisive actions as they lead his path finally to a convergence with that of the TRC. Conception, production and performance. Kentridge had been working for some years with the Handspring Puppet Company in Johannesburg before the idea for "Ubu and the Truth Commission" was mooted. He had extensive experience with theatre that incorporated animation, puppets and actors. He did not, he claimed, pursue the multimedia realm because of any aesthetic ideal, but rather because he was skilled in the art of animation anyway and was curious to see how it would combine with puppet theatre. "Woyzeck on the Highveld" (1993) and "Faustus in Africa" (1996) were successful tone-setters in this respect. The latter, according to Kentridge, was "a huge undertaking", after which he and the company were on the look-out for something small to "do and survive". Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" seemed ideally suited to puppetry, "[b]ut we reckoned without the Beckett fundamentalists who would not give permission for us to leave out even a comma from the stage directions". In a bid to secure a neo-Becketian text (but not having the skill to write their own), and after rejecting several ideas, they considered a project called "Waiting Room". This consisted of interviews with land-mine victims waiting in rural orthopaedic hospitals in Angola and Mozambique. At the time, Kentridge happened to be etching a series of pieces for an exhibition in honour of the centenary of "Ubu Roi"'s opening appearance in Parisian theatre. They concerned a naked man in front of a blackboard on which were drawings of Ubu, "with his pointed head and belly spiral". Kentridge intended when the etchings were complete to animate the chalk drawings, which led him to the natural conclusion that the naked man might as well be animated, too. He asked a friend in choreography if she would care to have a dancer in front of screen on which a "schematic line drawing" of Ubu was to move about. When Kentridge realised that he could not immerse himself in both the Ubu and the "Waiting Room" projects simultaneously, he panicked and chose to combine the two. When the TRC took off, it became clear that he need look no further in his hunt for material, for "an avalanche"was streaming in every day. While he went about convincing the two parties to come together, he formed an ever-clearer picture of how the two could complement one another. The grave documentary material from the TRC could lend to the rampant burlesque, "which always had a danger of becoming merely amusing", a certain dignity and sobriety, while the untamed liberty which characterised "Ubu Roi" could shed new light and offer a fresh and lively perspective on the depressing affairs of the TRC. Looking at the play retrospectively, Kentridge did not feel that its shoddy provenance had maledicted it; rather it had accorded its writer, director and producers a gradually compounding platform on which they could "find pieces of the play, images, literary conceits, changing physical metaphors that we would never have arrived at if we had started from a sober beginning". "There is," wrote Taylor of "Ubu Roi" and its main character's madness, "a particular kind of pleasure for an audience watching these infantile attacks. Part of the satisfaction arises from the fact that in the burlesque mode which Jarry invents, there is no place for consequence. While Ubu may be relentless in his political aspirations, and brutal in his personal relations, he apparently has no measurable effect upon those who inhabit the farcical world which he creates around himself. He thus acts out our most childish rages and desires, in which we seek to gratify ourselves at all cost. It is this feature in particular which has informed our own production." As she viewed the TRC's proceedings, Taylor was deeply affected by the frequency of the recounted atrocities and the negligence and ignorance with which so many were carried out. She noted that "those perpetrators who seem to have some capacity for remorse, appear to be shocked at observing, as if from the outside, the effect of their behaviour. Others simply show no response at all, so profound is the denial, or the failure of moral imagination." She plucked Ubu from the world of burlesque and action without consequence, and dropped him into one altogether different: "It is as if Cause and Effect are registered through different modes of expression in the play [...]." Puppetry. The play's conception began in earnest with a meeting among Kentridge, and Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler, who all agreed in principle to employ Ubu as a vehicle for exploring the TRC. Near the end of 1996, Taylor attended numerous workshops with the Handspring Puppet Company and grew to appreciate the actors' capacities and the style of puppet theatre. Also discussed were such transcendental devices as the three-headed hound and the embrace of various hybrid forms of animation and puppetry: drawn figures were hand-controlled and filmed on a sequential frame-by-frame basis. Taylor later said that her writing was greatly informed not only by Kentridge's direction but also by these experiences, and believed that her colleagues were similarly inspired and edified. Taylor came to see great significance in the figurative role of the puppet, for its every motion was, in essence, tropical: The puppet draws attention to its own artifice, and we as audience willingly submit ourselves to the ambiguous processes that at once deny and assert the reality of what we watch. Puppets also declare that they are being "spoken through". They thus very poignantly and compellingly capture complex relations of testimony, translation and documentation apparent in the processes of the Commission itself. It was early on in the workshops that the decision was taken as a finality to have Ma and Pa Ubu played by orthodox actors. "These characters thus exist, as it were, on one scale," wrote Taylor. "The witnesses, who are represented by puppet-figures, exist on another scale, and a great deal of their meaning arises out of this fact." Lewis Segal, writing in the "Los Angeles Times", declared that the puppets incarnated "a helpless nobility in the face of great suffering", while noting that they represented only "a kind of supplement to a neo-Expressionist theatrical experience that the company defines primarily with human actors and film animation". Testimonials. In tackling the matter of how to portray TRC testimonials on stage, the first question was, according to Kentridge, an ethical one: "what is our responsibility to the people whose stories we are using as raw fodder for the play?" He was uncomfortable with using "real" actors because "the audience ... [is] caught halfway between having to believe in the actor for the sake of the story, and also not believe in the actor for the sake of the actual witness who existed out there but was not the actor". Using a puppet, on the other hand, would leave the audience with no reason to believe that the puppet or puppeteer represented an actual witness: "The difference between the materials of which a puppet is made and human flesh," wrote Jones and Kohler, "can break the illusion that both exist in the same moment." Kentridge confirmed that "[t]he puppet becomes a medium through which the testimony can be heard." Jones and Kohler, head puppeteers alongside Louis Seboko, elaborated: Their responsibility in the play is both central and extremely onerous, as their task is to re-enact the deeply harrowing personal accounts of the effect of the former Apartheid State on people's lives. Badly handled, such stories could easily become a kind of horror pornography. The puppets assist in mediating this horror. They are not actors playing a role. Rather, they are wooden dolls attempting to be real people. As they attempt to move and breathe as we do, they cross the barrier of the here and now and become metaphors for humanity. Each puppet was operated by two puppeteers. They bestowed upon it a metaphorical element of vulnerability, while also calling to mind the professional comforters who accompanied witnesses during TRC proceedings. These worked together to divide and cut down individual control over the puppet's movement and speech. "This," explained Jones and Kohler, "encourages us to enter into the illusion that the puppet has a life and responsibility of its own. But the fact that the manipulators are present also allows us to use the emotions visible in the puppeteers' faces to inform our understanding of the emotions of the puppet character, with its immobile features [...]. Puppets are brought to life by the conviction of the puppeteer and the willingness of the audience. When an actor plays opposite a puppet, she or he participates in the same process. There can be no eye contact with the puppeteer. The actor's focus is solely on the puppet itself." The endeavour was largely successful. "The plain wooden faces of these characters -- handled with enormous skill by Basil Jones, Adrian Kohler and Louis Seboko -- confer a power and credibility on their words that real actors could never achieve," wrote critic William Triplett. "In such scenes actors will try to make you feel what their characters have witnessed. But an expressionless puppet, especially one 'speaking' the unspeakable through one of the commission's monotoned translators, engages the imagination awesomely." The company was especially pleased with the decision to use witness-puppets because the commission often had a translator to accompany each testifier: "Two speakers for the same story and our puppets need two manipulators," as Kentridge put it. "One manipulator could tell the story in Zulu and the other could translate." This did not work, however, as the stories could not be heard. Instead, the translators were placed in Ubu's shower, which served as a sort of booth. A difference was noted between the authentic witness voice and the contrived public address of the interlingual rendition. A significant challenge to the skills of the puppeteers (especially those controlling the witnesses) came in the form of manipulating them at the right pace. They came to rely on a pace usually rather more sluggish than that of a normal actor, for it was important that the audience see precisely what it was that the puppet was doing. The puppeteers worked extensively with their figures to determine this, while also settling on specific moments of physical contact between puppet and orthodox human actor. An even greater challenge was how to achieve a balance between the put-upon placidity of the witnesses and the delirious burlesque of Ma and Pa Ubu. "When the play is working at its best," wrote Kentridge, "Pa Ubu does not hold back. He tries to colonise the stage and be the sole focus of the audience. And it is the task of the actors and manipulators of the puppets to wrest that attention back. This battle is extremely delicate. If pushed too hard there is the danger of the witnesses becoming strident, pathetic, self pitying. If they retreat too far they are swamped by Ubu. But sometimes, in a good performance, and with a willing audience we do make the witnesses stories clearly heard and also throw them into a wider set of questions that Ubu engenders around them." Although the witness puppets were never to be seen by Ubu and his wife — they were situated in close spatial proximity to Ubu, behind his furniture, but made to appear elsewhere — their actions had a direct bearing upon them. The most important consequence of this decision was that witnesses could be shown in manifold nooks of Ubu's life, not simply (as had originally been intended) in the witness stand. It also engendered an experimental scene in which Ubu lies on a table looking up in a dream at a puppet as it testifies about its child's demise. Initially, this scene was tried with the witness behind Ubu's hips, so that his body formed a rolling landscape, with a small rise from behind which the witness gave testimony. When the same scene was tried with the witness behind his head, it became evident that the best way to go would be turn the witness into a dream, and the story became Ubu's confession. Kentridge recalled, We put the witness behind Ubu's legs again and he was back in the landscape. We then tried to see how close the puppet could get to touching Ubu without breaking the double image. Extremely close we found. And then we tried it with the witness touching Ubu's hip with its wooden hand. An extraordinary thing happened. What we saw was an act of absolution. The witness forgave, even comforted Ubu for his act. These were a series of wholly unexpected meanings, generated not through clarity of thought, or brilliance of invention, but through practical theatre work. This is the second polemic I would make. A faith in a practical epistemology in the theatre-trusting in and using the artifices and techniques of theatre to generate meaning. The opposite was also true, however, as in his idea of a dancer before an image-bearing screen. Both the dancer and the image were to be seen together, generating an elaborate figure, but it became obvious within twenty minutes of starting the project that, "[f]or reasons of synchronisation, parallax, lighting, [and] stilted performance", it was incompatible. "Next polemic - Mistrust of Good Ideas in the abstract. Mistrust of starting with a knowledge of the meaning of an image and thinking it can then be executed. There is for me more than an accidental linguistic connection between "executing" an idea and "killing" it." Throughout the play, and specifically when Ubu feels insecure about being found out, an animated eye, intercut with a real one in classic Kentridge fashion, emerges on the screen to convey the sense that the main character is not quite so alone as he would like to think. The screen was used repeatedly and effectively in Kentridge's production. "[I]n every instance the images are more suggestive than real," wrote Triplett, "and hence more powerful." Allusions and symbolism. Several of the play's marionettes carry allusions to the work of Jarry: the Palcontents of "Ubu Cocu", the protagonist's "manic acts of mayhem", find representation as lethal and destructive vices in Taylor's play with a three-headed dog. For symbolism more in keeping with the TRC, meanwhile, Kentridge was keen to include a paper shredder. "In South Africa at the moment," he explained, "there is a battle between the paper shredders and the photostat machines. For each police general who is shredding documents of his past there are officers under him who are Photostatting them to keep as insurance against future prosecutions. A normal machine, however, did not seem especially creative, so, after abandoning representative bread-slicers (in view of the palling thought of wasted dough), animated projections (in view of Kentridge's reluctance to spend hours drawing them) and the dog's mouth (in view of its narrowness), they settled on a crocodile's mouth, to be carried as a handbag by Ubu's wife. This crocodile, then, played the role not only of Ma Ubu's handbag; it was Pa Ubu's pet advisor and cover-up man, too, concealing incriminatory evidence in his mouth. Three puppet-types — the vulture, the witnesses, Brutus the dog and Niles crocodile — were created. The puppeteers said it was "a fairly organic process", undertaken in accordance with the play's requirements. Each puppet-type had a unique and particular affiliation with Ma and Pa Ubu. The vulture, limited in its actions, was placed near the rear of the stage, where sporadically it offered sardonic aphorisms through a series of electronically contrived squawks that were translated on the screen behind it. "Thus," wrote the puppeteers, "it is a form of manipulation: like gears driven by motors which in turn are driven by a remote technician — which is appropriate to its function in the play — an apparently authorless automaton spewing forth programmed truisms." The crocodile was given one manipulator, but the dog had one for each head. They moved about freely and in the same space as the human characters, rather than being restricted in the traditional playboard sense seen in such earlier plays as "Woyzeck on the Highveld". The puppeteers thought it difficult, though, to conceive of their being represented by human characters. Brutus, who speaks in verse, fills the role of Ubu's vicious henchman, stealing away with him to carry out atrocities: "Their culpability is indivisible." Each of its heads had its own character: one was a foot soldier, the other a general and the last a politician. The body was created out of an old briefcase given Sir Sydney Kentridge (William's activist-lawyer father) by Braam Fischer. Similarly, the crocodile's belly was a canvas kit bag previously the possession of Basil Jones's father during military service in North Africa. The scheme of using bags for bodies served to provide a suitable of place of hiding for Ubu, an easy place of discovery for his wife and an ideal place for Ubu to plant incriminatory evidence by which he could distance himself from their crimes. Rather uniquely, "Ubu and the Truth Commission" allowed its puppeteers free and undisguised reign over the stage, and took advantage of the potential for interaction between them and their puppets. It was agreed early on in the play's conception that the TRC witnesses would be represented by puppets with their speaking manipulators visible next to them, for that was almost always the case with Handspring. "When [...] Basil Jones, Adrian Kohler and Louis Seboko hold the hands of the puppet characters in some of the most intense moments of 'Ubu and the Truth Commission,'" wrote Segal, "it seems as much an act of consolation as the method by which the large, carved doll-figures are made to gesture." The play retains a great deal of its ancestor's scatology, opening, for example, with the word "Pschitt!", whose French equivalent, "Merdre!", invoked a riot at Jarry's premier in 1896. "'Ubu and the Truth Commission' dramatizes the politics of betrayal so graphically," opined Segal, "that it eminently deserves its adults-only designation." Protagonist. Of her main character and his role in the play, Taylor writes, Ubu's story is, at one level, a singular story of individual pathology; yet it is at the same time an exemplary account of the relationships between capitalist ideology, imperialism, race, class, and gender, religion and modernisation in the southern African sub-region. Nevertheless, Ubu retains in this play the antihero status first accorded him in Jarry's: he is a greedy, sadistic, homicidal, esurient, licentious apartheid police officer. Set against the TRC, "[o]ur agent is thus, in a sense, an agent of evil." Taylor justifies this with literary precedents like "Paradise Lost", where John Milton, in William Blake's famous phrase, finds himself "of the Devils party", her belief that "[n]arrative depends on agency; the stories of those who 'do' are generally more compelling than those who are 'done to'", and the nature of the TRC itself, which cast the victims as protagonists and gave little emphasis to other players. There was also, according to Taylor, another reason: "he provoked us. He is familiar but wholly foreign, he is both human and inhuman. He is the limit term which was used to keep an entire system of meaning in place, from its most extreme to its most banal." "You may not sympathize with the character," wrote Triplett, "but in the end you don't hate him either; instead you are left with the feeling that reconciliation just might be possible." Although the play appropriates Jarry's agonist to the context of the TRC, it retains his archaic language and original slang, anachronising him as "a figure who lives within a world of remote forms and meanings". Ubu does not represent any particular figure in South African history; rather, he is "an aspect, a tendency, an excuse". Often, though, he speaks in voices reminiscent of those sounded at the TRC, his language set against its languages. As Taylor observes, The archaic and artificial language which Ubu uses, with its rhymes, its puns, its bombast and its profanities, is set against the detailed and careful descriptions of the witness accounts which have been, in large measure, transcribed from TRC hearings. Ubu is confronted within his own home by those whom he has assaulted. It is the structure of the play, according to its writer, merging Ubu legend with the ongoing Truth Commission, that gives it its meaning, with patent theatrical consequences: Perhaps most evidently, we are automatically taking on the burden of the farcical genre which Jarry used. I remember having lengthy debates, with a student, about the ethics of Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator", and whether one could ever explore human rights abuses through a burlesque idiom. My responses now are perhaps more complex than they were then. Taylor also noted that, in modern times of vast informational overloading, it was difficult always to respond, as expected, "with outrage, sympathy, or wonder, within a context that inculcates bewilderment and dislocation." Her play, then, sought to reproduce the ambiguous nature of response to suffering: Our own reactions are questioned, because, after all, what is it in us that makes us seek out the stories of another's grief? Or, even more problematically, what makes us follow the stories of the torturers? We follow Ubu's history, are drawn into his family drama, are confronted with his logics of self-justification. We as audience are also implicated because we laugh at his sometimes absurd antics, and this very laughter accuses us. While its focus is obviously South African, its application, according to Taylor, is broad in scope: "We in the late twentieth century live in an era of singular attention to questions of war crimes, reparations, global 'peace-keeping'. We are, it seems, increasingly aware of the obligation to hear testimony, even while we may yet be determining how to act upon what we have heard." Segal agreed: Although the work should be a jolt for many Africa-watchers — offering a portrait of post-apartheid Mandela-land as anything but the best of all possible worlds — its key issues resonate far from that continent. Like Americans during the Clinton scandals, for instance, Mrs. Ubu (Busi Zokufa) fixates on accusations of sexual excess, not imagining that her lord and master might be committing bigger crimes; when she learns the truth, she immediately turns those crimes into media gold. Reception. In South African circles, the play was well received. "The Star" dubbed it a "multi-dimensional theatre piece which tries to make sense of the madness which overtook South Africa during apartheid", while Mark Gevisser predicted in "The Sunday Independent" that it "will be for post-apartheid theatre what "Woza Albert" was for protest theatre: a touchstone of artful, affecting political engagement". In Los Angeles, Segal was all praise: "Director and animator William Kentridge skillfully integrates the movement of actors and puppets with his often startling animated chalk-drawings and live-action imagery projected at the back of the stage. 'Ubu' may be unrelievedly depressing, but it is executed with consummate artistry." In "The Washington Post", after viewing the play during a "regrettably brief" run of four performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, William Triplett described it to readers as a "stunningly theatrical multimedia piece that drives home the atrocity known as apartheid without ever uttering the words 'atrocity' or 'apartheid' or any like them. By turns chilling and hilarious, brutal and forgiving, the show casts a surreal light on the heart of darkness — and still manages to leave you with hope [...]. 'Ubu' is one of those rarities, a piece of political theater that transcends politics. Its truth is human, but you can hear it only from the mouths of puppets." It was widely agreed that Dawid Minnaar and Busi Zokufa gave fair and accurate portrayals of Taylor's Ubus. "Minnaar and Zokufa give performances that are wonderfully alive in this tale of death and redemption," wrote Triplett. "Minnaar deserves a special ovation, since Taylor didn't write Pa Ubu as a monster, and Minnaar doesn't play him as one [...]. General production values, too, were lauded: "The dynamic sound, by Wilbert Schubel, is as complex as the entire range of emotions spanned by the show. Wesley France's lighting sometimes sweeps the bare stage, and other times pinpoints a small area, expanding and contracting focus when necessary." After one performance, a Romanian woman, deeply moved by what she had seen, approached the cast to congratulate it. Surprise was expressed that a play of such local context could have been accessible to her. "That's it," she explained. "It is so local. So local. This play is written about Romania." Publication. "Ubu and the Truth Commission" was first published in book-form in 1998 by the University of Cape Town Press and has since undergone three reprints. They include the full playscript, notes by the writer, director and puppeteers, photographs from Kentridge's production, drawings and archive imagery.

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The Story I Am About to Tell The Story I Am About to Tell was a successful South African play by Duma Kumalo. Produced by a support group for survivors giving testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and starring three of them, it ran for five years both at home and abroad. Concept. The play was designed for travel around and between communities small and large to spread awareness about the Commission and engage citizens in debate around the questions that it raised. The first of the three genuine TRC witnesses was the mother of a lawyer whose head had exploded after his boobytrapped Walkman detonated. Her testimony included a description of a hands-and-knees crawl into the room in which the bloodied mess of body and head remained. The second, a man, described his three years on death row, waiting to be hanged for a crime that he did not commit, while the third, a woman, recounted her arrest, interrogation and rape at the hands of security police. These testimonies formed the central element of a play, set mostly in a chocker taxi on its way to a TRC hearing, that embraced manifold others. The three witnesses were supplemented by three professional actors who played small roles, offered comic relief and argued about the TRC's merits and proceedings. Reception. "The Story I Am About To Tell" featured alongside two other TRC-related productions, "Ubu and the Truth Commission" and "The Dead Wait", at the Laboratory in Johannesburg's Market Theatre. William Kentridge, director of the former, held it in high regard but believed that it formed "only a partial solution to the questions raised by the Commission. Because what the 'real' people give is not the evidence itself, but performances of the evidence. There is a huge gap between the testimony at the Commission and its reperformance on stage. And these are not actors." On the other hand, he continued, it was often precisely this awkward lack of professionalism on the part of the witnesses which lent their performances their power: One is constantly thrown back, through their awkwardness, into realising these are the actual people who underwent the terrible things they are describing. The most moving moment for me was when one of the survivors (survivor of three years on death row) had a lapse of memory. How could he forget his own story — but of course he was in that moment a performer at a loss for his place in the script. I have no clear solution to the paradoxes this half testimony, half performance raised. But describe it as one of many possible ways of dealing with the material. Following one performance, a German spectator found herself in desolate tears. They were not only for the witnesses and their heart-breaking narratives, she said, but also out of anger and regret: she had never in her life in Munich heard similar testimony about her own country's blighted history.

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Saturday Night at the Palace Saturday Night at the Palace is a play by South Africa's Paul Slabolepszy. Plot. The play relates the story of two working class whites (Vince and Forsie) who arrive at an isolated roadhouse ("The Palace") just as it is closing. The black waiter (September) who works there is shortly going on leave to visit his family whom he has not seen for two years because they are forced by apartheid to live in a homeland. Vince has just been dropped by his soccer team and has been kicked out of the communal house (where Forsie also lives) by Dougie (who runs the commune). It has been left to Forsie to tell Vince this but he is too scared to do this as Vince is a violent person. Forsie begs Vince to phone Dougie (so Dougie can tell Vince himself) and they stop at the roadhouse to use a call box. At the roadhouse, tensions build and Vince takes out his racial prejudices on September. To make things worse, Vince tells Forsie that he has slept with Forsie's "dream girl", Sally. September is humiliated and the story ends in tragedy. Performances. It was first performed "Upstairs" at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, in 1982. It then moved to the Old Vic Theatre in London in 1984. Film. The play was made into a film in 1987 starring Paul Slabolepszy as Vince, Bill Flynn as Forsie, John Kani as September, Arnold Vosloo as Dougie and Joanna Weinberg as Sally.

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The Island (play) The Island is a play written by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. The apartheid-era drama, inspired by a true story, is set in an unnamed prison clearly based on South Africa's notorious Robben Island prison, where Nelson Mandela was held for twenty-seven years. It focuses on two cellmates, one whose successful appeal means that his release draws near and one who must remain in prison for many years to come. They spend their days performing futile physical labor and nights rehearsing in their cell for a performance of Sophocles' "Antigone" in front of the other prisoners. One takes the part of Antigone, who defies the laws of the state to bury her brother, and the other takes the part of her uncle Creon, who sentences her to die for her crime of conscience. The play draws parallels between Antigone's situation and the situation of black political prisoners. Tensions arise as the performance approaches, especially when one of the prisoners learns that he has won an early release and the men's friendship is tested. Structure. The play has four scenes. It opens with a lengthy mimed sequence in which John and Winston, two cell mates imprisoned on Robben Island, shovel sand in the scorching heat, dumping the sand at the feet of the other man, so that the pile of the sand never diminishes. This is designed to exhaust the body and the morale of the prisoners. Later scenes include a play within a play, as Winston and John perform a condensed two-person version of "Antigone" by Sophocles. History. The play was first performed in Cape Town, at a theatre called The Space, in July 1973. In order to evade the draconian censorship in South Africa at the time (plays dealing with prison conditions, etc., were prohibited), the play premiered under the title, "Die Hodoshe Span". It was next staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London, with John Kani and Winston Ntshona portraying John and Winston respectively. The Broadway production, presented in repertory with "Sizwe Banzi Is Dead", opened on November 24, 1974 at the Edison Theatre, where it ran for 52 performances. In an unusual move, Kani and Ntshona were named co-Tony Award nominees (and eventual co-winners) for Best Actor in a Play for both "The Island" and "Sizwe Banzi Is Dead". Over the next thirty years, Kani and Ntshona periodically performed in productions of the play. Notable among them were the Royal National Theatre in 2000, reported at the time as their final production, although they went on to star at the Old Vic in 2002 and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2004. Plot. John and Winston share a prison cell on an unnamed Island. After another day of hard labor and having been forced to run while shackled and then beaten, they return to their cell. They tend each other's wounds, share memories of times at the beach and rehearse for the prisoner-performed concert which is imminent. They are going to perform a scene from an abridged version of "Antigone" by Sophocles. John will play Creon and Winston will play Antigone. When he sees himself in his costume, Winston tries to pull out of playing a female role, fearing he will be humiliated. John is called to the governor's office. He returns with news that his appeal was successful and his ten-year sentence has been commuted to three years: he will be free in three months. Winston is happy for him. As they imagine what leaving prison and returning home will be like, Winston begins to unravel. He doubts why he ever made a stand against the regime, why he even exists. Having said it, he experiences a catharsis, and accepts that he must endure. The final scene is their performance of "Antigone". After John-as-Creon sentences Winston-as-Antigone to be walled up in a cave for having defied him and done her duty towards her dead brother, Winston pulls off Antigone's wig and yells "Gods of Our Fathers! My Land! My Home! Time waits no longer. I go now to my living death, because I honored those things to which honor belongs". The final image is of John and Winston, chained together once more, running hard as the siren wails. Language. Although the play is in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa words are spoken as well.

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Marigolds in August Marigolds in August is a play by South Africa's Athol Fugard. Plot. The play portrays the tension between three people (two black – one white) trying to make out a living. The play takes place near Port Elizabeth. Daan (a resident in a nearby township where malnutrition and unemployment are rife) is walking to work at an apartheid "whites-only" resort where he works as a gardener. He encounters another unemployed black man – Melton – who is desperately looking for work. Daan is worried that Melton's presence will draw attention to him which is a problem as his passbook is no longer valid. The pair struggle and argue and the appearance of a white man – Paulus (a snake catcher) – acts as a catalyst. Daan realises that the apartheid system is often responsible for black-on-black violence. The only way to fight this is solidarity and compassion towards each other. Film. In 1980, the play was adapted into a film directed by Ross Devenish, with Melton played by John Kani, Athol Fugard as Paulus, and Winston Ntshona as Daan. Awards. In 1980, it won the Berlin Bear Anniversary Prize at the 30th Berlin International Film Festival.

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Woza Albert! Woza Albert! ("Come Albert!") is a satirical South African political play written by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, and Barney Simon in 1981. The play is a two-man show that contains 26 vignettes. The play imagines the second coming of Jesus Christ during the apartheid-era as experienced by a variety of black South Africans. Written as a piece of protest theater, "Woza Albert!" sought to confront the inequalities and oppression of apartheid South Africa. "Woza Albert!" was turned into a film and is a prime example of Workshop Theatre movement in South Africa and became one of the most produced South African plays within South Africa and internationally. The play is highly praised for its use of humor and ability to illuminate and critique the systematic oppression of black South Africans under the apartheid regime. Plot. The two actors play roles of various black South Africans – a vendor, barber, servant, manual labourer, soldier – receiving the news that Christ (Morena) has arrived in South Africa, where a Calvinist white elite imposes apartheid. Christ's arrival precipitates a crisis, and the government launches a nuclear bomb against the peacemaker. In the ruins, great South African leaders in resistance to apartheid such as Albert Luthuli, former president of the African National Congress, are resurrected. They play dozens of parts that involve them using many skills such as acting, mime, singing and dance. They also create images using a few words and actions. ›Composition. The idea for the work came from Percy Mtwa and Mbogeni Ngema in 1979 when they were both on tour, as lead performers, in a major Gibson Kente production, Mama and the Load. The actors became intrigued by the idea of what would happen if there was a 'second coming' and Jesus Christ appeared in South Africa. In order to develop their idea, both actors abandoned the security of work with Kente and spent a year researching and developing their play in conditions of considerable hardship. At this point a number of director were invited to sec the work-in-progress and Barney Simon of the Market Theatre agreed to work on developing the piece to the point of performance. Performance history. "Woza Albert!" is an example of Workshop Theater which was a common form of performance in South Africa at the time as it allowed people to come together to create a performance that they were passionate about, as it featured black playwrights and a white producer. This was also important as other forms of expression and criticism were banned at the time. The play opened at Johannesburg's Market Theater and toured in Europe and America. The Market Theater, pioneered by Barney Simon, allowed multiracial casts and audiences and was often threatened by the government. It was the most successful play to come out of South Africa, winning more than 20 awards worldwide. In 2002, it was performed in London by Siyabonga Twala and Errol Ndotho. In 2003 it was produced by Terence Frisby at the Criterion Theatre in London. In 2019 the play was revived with Ngema and Mtwa playing their original roles with the direction of Christopher John at the Baxter Theater in South Africa. Film. A film was made under the same title, following the success of the play. A team from BBC Television, led by David M. Thompson, undertook the filming of the movie while in South Africa to film elections in 1981. Equipment was scant, as was time, but nonetheless the film captured the performances that are the core of the film.

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Truth in Translation Truth in Translation is a stage play conceived and directed by Michael Lessac, with music by Hugh Masekela. It tells the story of the interpreters at South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The play was written in a collaboration between the interpreters who worked at the TRC, writer Paavo Tom Tammi and the company of South African actors. It premiered in Rwanda, has toured South Africa and is touring to international conflict zones such as Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, the Balkans, Jerusalem/Ramallah, Sri Lanka, Peru, and Indonesia/Timor to tell the story of the South African experience. The project includes workshops with audiences, exhibitions (The Forgiveness Project and Jillian Edelstein's "Truth and Lies") and filming of the interaction between audiences and the company, and attempts to provoke a global dialogue around notions of healing and reconciliation.

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The Syringa Tree The Syringa Tree is a solo performance memory play of a childhood under apartheid, written and often performed by Pamela Gien, and directed by Larry Moss. It was produced by Matt Salinger, son of writer, J. D. Salinger. It centers on the story of Elizabeth Grace, a Roman Catholic White South African of mixed English and Afrikaner descent. The play spans four generations. Gien has adapted the play into a novel. Production. The play debuted in Seattle, WA. It later opened at the Playhouse 91 intimate theater in Yorkville, Manhattan in Fall 2000. The Manhattan reception was lukewarm at first, but news of Gien's performance soon garnered attention, drawing the interest of celebrities such as Oprah and Rosie O'Donnell. It won an Obie Award for Best Play in 2001.

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Boesman and Lena Boesman and Lena is a small-cast play by South African playwright Athol Fugard, set in the Swartkops mudflats outside of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, that shows the effect of apartheid on a few individuals, featuring as characters a "Coloured" man and woman walking from one shanty town to another. Background. In common with much of Fugard's other work, the play focuses on non-white characters and includes an element of social protest. "Boesman and Lena" was inspired by an incident in 1965 when Fugard was driving down a rural road in South Africa. He noticed an old lady walking along the road in the boiling-hot sun, miles from anywhere, and offered her a lift. She was overcome and cried with gratitude. She told him that her husband had just died and she was walking to another farm. If Fugard had not stopped, she would have spent the night on the side of the road. (It was a common practice in apartheid South Africa for farmers to evict worker's families when the worker died.) What struck Fugard was that the woman was in pain and suffering but was far from defeated. This inspired him to write the play. Notable productions. The play premiered in 1969 at the Rhodes University Little Theatre in Grahamstown, South Africa. Fugard himself played the part of Boesman, Lena was played by Yvonne Bryceland and Glynn Day, a white actor, played the part of Outa in blackface. On 22 June 1970, the US premiere, an acclaimed off-Broadway at the Circle in the Square Downtown, starred James Earl Jones and Ruby Dee, directed by John Berry (who would also direct a film version, also titled "Boesman and Lena", in 2000). Running for 205 performances until 24 January 1971, the production won Obie Awards for Best Foreign Play, Distinguished Direction, and Best Performance by an Actress. A revival of the play by the Manhattan Theater Club, directed by the playwright himself (and starring Keith David, Lynne Thigpen and Tsepo Mokone), was produced at New York City Center in 1992. This production won a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival and an Obie Award for Thigpen's performance, as well as being nominated as Best Revival of a Play for an Outer Critics Circle Award. Reception. In 1978, Richard Eder of "The New York Times" described "Boesman and Lena" as one of Fugard's "masterpieces" along with works such as "The Island" and "Sizwe Banzi Is Dead". After the 1992 revival, Frank Rich wrote in the same newspaper: "Whether or not you get to the Manhattan Theater Club's revival of 'Boesman and Lena,' you can always see another, informal version of its drama day or night on a Manhattan sidewalk or subway platform or vacant lot. Athol Fugard's image of an itinerant homeless couple sheltered within their scrap-heap possessions and awaiting the next official eviction is now as common in New York City, among other places, as it was in the South Africa where he set and wrote his play in the late 1960s. Even at the time of its premiere, 'Boesman and Lena' was recognized as a universal work that might speak to audiences long after apartheid had collapsed. But who would have imagined that the universality would soon prove so uncomfortably literal?" Writing in "New York" magazine John Simon concluded: "This is an important play, no less so since conditions in South Africa have somewhat improved: The misery may now be as much existential as social. Outside oppressors add to it, but we carry oppression within us." Film versions. Two film adaptations of Fugard's play, both of the same title — one directed by Ross Devenish, starring Fugard and Bryceland, and the other directed by John Berry, starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett — were released in 1973 and 2000, respectively. Publication. "Boesman and Lena" was first published in 1971 by Samuel French (), and has since appeared in other editions of Fugard's works: "Boesman and Lena and Other Plays" (Oxford University Press, 1978; ), "Three Port Elizabeth Plays: The Blood Knot: Hello and Goodbye: Boesman and Lena" (Oxford University Press, 1974, ; Viking Press, 1974; ), and "Blood Knot and Other Plays including Boesman And Lena and Hello And Goodbye" (Theatre Communications Group, 1991; ).

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The Meeting (play) The Meeting is a 1987 American play by Jeff Stetson about an imaginary meeting between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in 1965 in a hotel in Harlem during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The play was later televised on "American Playhouse" in 1989. Reception. "The Meeting" won a Louis B. Mayer Award and eight 1987 NAACP Theatre Awards. It has been performed throughout Europe and the United States. Actual meeting. In reality, the two men only met once, while both were in Washington, D.C. to watch the Senate debates regarding the (eventual) passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On March 26, 1964, they briefly spoke with each other as they walked through the United States Senate together for about a minute.

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A Raisin in the Sun A Raisin in the Sun is a tragedy by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a Black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of the father. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and in recent years publications such as "The Independent" and "Time Out" have listed it among the best plays ever written. Plot. Walter and Ruth Younger, their son Travis, along with Walter's mother Lena (Mama) and Walter's younger sister Beneatha, live in poverty in a run-down two-bedroom apartment on Chicago's south side. Walter is barely making a living as a limousine driver. Though Ruth is content with their lot, Walter is not, and desperately wishes to become wealthy. His plan is to invest in a liquor store in partnership with Willy and Bobo, his street-smart acquaintances. At the beginning of the play, Walter Lee and Beneatha's father has recently died, and Mama (Lena) is waiting for a life insurance check for $10,000. Walter has a sense of entitlement to the money, but Mama has religious objections to alcohol, and Beneatha has to remind him it is Mama's call how to spend it. Eventually, Mama puts some of the money down on a new house, choosing an all-white neighborhood over a Black one for the practical reason that it happens to be much cheaper. Later she relents and gives the rest of the money to Walter to invest with the provision that he reserve $3,000 for Beneatha's education. Walter gives all of the money to Willy, who takes it, depriving Walter and Beneatha of their dreams, though not the Youngers of their new home. Meanwhile, Karl Lindner, a white representative of the neighborhood they plan to move to, makes a generous offer to buy them out. He wishes to avoid neighborhood tensions over the interracial population, which to the three women's horror Walter prepares to accept as a solution to their financial setback. Lena says that while money was something they try to work for, they should never take it if it was a person's way of telling them they weren't fit to walk the same earth as they. Meanwhile, Beneatha's character and direction in life are influenced by two different men who are potentially love interests: her wealthy and educated boyfriend George Murchison, and Joseph Asagai. Neither man is actively involved in the Youngers' financial ups and downs. George represents the "fully assimilated Black man" who denies his African heritage with a "smarter than thou" attitude, which Beneatha finds disgusting, while dismissively mocking Walter's situation. Joseph, a Yoruba student from Nigeria, patiently teaches Beneatha about her African heritage; he gives her thoughtfully useful gifts from Africa while pointing out she is unwittingly assimilating herself into white ways. She straightens her hair, for example, which he characterizes as "mutilation". When Beneatha becomes distraught at the loss of the money, she is scolded by Joseph for her materialism. She eventually accepts his point of view that things will get better with a lot of effort, along with his proposal of marriage and his invitation to move with him to Nigeria to practice medicine. Walter is oblivious to the stark contrast between George and Joseph: his pursuit of wealth can be attained only by liberating himself from Joseph's culture, to which he attributes his poverty, and by rising to George's level, wherein he sees his salvation. Walter redeems himself and Black pride at the end by changing his mind and not accepting the buyout offer, stating that the family is proud of who they are and will try to be good neighbors. The play closes with the family leaving for their new home but uncertain future. The character Mrs. Johnson and a few scenes were cut from the Broadway performance and in reproductions due to time constraints. Mrs. Johnson is the Younger family's nosy and loud neighbor. She cannot understand how the family can consider moving to a white neighborhood and jokes that she will probably read in the newspaper in a month that they have been killed in a bombing. Her lines are employed as comic relief, but Hansberry also uses this scene to mock those who are too scared to stand up for their rights. In the introduction by Robert B. Nemiroff, he writes that the scene is included in print because it draws attention away from a seemingly happy ending to a more violent reality inspired by Hansberry's own experiences. Litigation. Experiences in this play echo a lawsuit ("Hansberry v. Lee", 311 U.S. 32 (1940)), to which the playwright Lorraine Hansberry's family was a party, when they fought to have their day in court because a previous class action about racially motivated restrictive covenants ("Burke v. Kleiman", 277 Ill. App. 519 (1934)) had been similar to their situation. This case was heard prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968), which prohibited discrimination in housing and created the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. The Hansberry family won their right to be heard as a matter of due process of law in relation to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court held that the "Hansberry" defendants were not bound by the "Burke" decision, because the class of defendants in the respective cases had conflicting goals, and thus could not be considered to be the same class. The plaintiff in the first action in 1934 was Olive Ida Burke, who brought the suit on behalf of a property owners' association to enforce racial restrictions. Her husband, James Burke, later sold a house to Carl Hansberry (Lorraine's father), when he changed his mind about the validity of the covenant. Mr. Burke's decision may have been motivated by the changing demographics of the neighborhood, but it was also influenced by the Depression. The demand for houses was so low among white buyers that Mr. Hansberry may have been the only prospective purchaser available. Lorraine reflects upon the litigation in her book "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black": "Twenty-five years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago’s ‘restrictive covenants’ in one of this nation's ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’ in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house. ... My memories of this ‘correct’ way of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. And I also remember my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our household all night with a loaded German Luger (pistol), doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court." The Hansberry house, a red-brick three-flat at 6140 S. Rhodes in Woodlawn that they bought in 1937, was given landmark status by the Chicago City Council's Committee on Historical Landmarks Preservation in 2010. Production and reception. With a cast in which all but one character is Black, "A Raisin in the Sun" was considered a risky investment, and it took over a year for producer Philip Rose to raise enough money to launch it. There was disagreement with how it should be played, with focus on the mother or focus on the son. When the play hit New York, Poitier played it with the focus on the son and found not only his calling but also an audience enthralled. After touring to positive reviews, the play premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959. It transferred to the Belasco Theatre on October 19, 1959, and closed on June 25, 1960, after 530 total performances. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the cast comprised: Ossie Davis later took over as Walter Lee Younger, and Frances Williams as Lena Younger. Waiting for the curtain to rise on opening night, Hansberry and producer Rose did not expect the play to be a success, for it had already received mixed reviews from a preview audience the night before. Though it won popular and critical acclaim, reviewers argued about whether the play was "universal" or particular to Black experience. It was then produced on tour. "A Raisin in the Sun" was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first with a Black director, Mr. Richards. Hansberry noted that her play introduced details of Black life to the overwhelmingly white Broadway audiences, while director Richards observed that it was the first play to which large numbers of Black people were drawn. Frank Rich, writing in "The New York Times" in 1983, stated that "A Raisin in the Sun" "changed American theater forever". In 2016, Claire Brennan wrote in "The Guardian" that "The power and craft of the writing make A Raisin in the Sun as moving today as it was then." In 1960 "A Raisin In The Sun" was nominated for four Tony Awards: Other versions. West End production, 1959. Some five months after its Broadway opening, Hansberry's play appeared in London's West End, playing at the Adelphi Theatre from August 4, 1959. As on Broadway, the director was Lloyd Richards, and the cast was as follows: The play was presented (as before) by Philip Rose and David J. Cogan, in association with the British impresario Jack Hylton. 1961 film. In 1961, a film version of "A Raisin in the Sun" was released featuring its original Broadway cast of Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon, Louis Gossett, Jr. and John Fiedler. Hansberry wrote the screenplay, and the film was directed by Daniel Petrie. It was released by Columbia Pictures and Ruby Dee won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. Both Poitier and McNeil were nominated for Golden Globe Awards, and Petrie received a special "Gary Cooper Award" at the Cannes Film Festival. 1973 musical. A musical version of the play, "Raisin", ran on Broadway from October 18, 1973, to December 7, 1975. The book of the musical, which stayed close to the play, was written by Hansberry's former husband, Robert Nemiroff. Music and lyrics were by Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan. The cast included Joe Morton (Walter Lee), Virginia Capers (Mama), Ernestine Jackson (Ruth), Debbie Allen (Beneatha) and Ralph Carter (Travis, the Youngers' young son). The show won the Tony Award for Best musical. 1989 TV film. In 1989, the play was adapted into a TV film for PBS's "American Playhouse" series, starring Danny Glover (Walter Lee) and Esther Rolle (Mama), with Kim Yancey (Beneatha), Starletta DuPois (Ruth), and John Fiedler (Karl Lindner), with Helen Martin reprising her role as Mrs. Johnson. This production received three Emmy Award nominations, but all were for technical categories. Bill Duke directed the production, while Chiz Schultz produced. This production was based on an off-Broadway revival produced by the Roundabout Theatre. 1996 BBC Radio play. On 3 March 1996, the BBC broadcast a production of the play by director/producer Claire Grove, with the following cast: Broadway revival, 2004. A revival ran on Broadway at the Royale Theatre from April 26, 2004, to July 11, 2004 at the Royale Theatre with the following cast: The director was Kenny Leon, and David Binder and Vivek Tiwary were producers. The play won two 2004 Tony Awards: Best Actress in a Play (Phylicia Rashad) and Best Featured Actress in a Play (Audra McDonald), and was nominated for Best Revival of a Play and Best Featured Actress in a Play (Sanaa Lathan). 2008 TV film. In 2008, Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald starred in a television film directed by Kenny Leon. The film debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast by ABC on February 25, 2008. McDonald received an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Ruth. According to Nielsen Media Research, the program was watched by 12.7 million viewers and ranked No. 9 in the ratings for the week ending March 2, 2008. Royal Exchange, Manchester production, 2010. In 2010, Michael Buffong directed a widely acclaimed production at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, described by Dominic Cavendish in "The Daily Telegraph" as "A brilliant play, brilliantly served". Michael Buffong, Ray Fearon and Jenny Jules all won MEN Awards. The cast were: – Broadway revival, 2014. A second revival ran on Broadway from April 3, 2014, to June 15, 2014, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The play won three 2014 Tony Awards: Best Revival of a Play, Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Sophie Okonedo) and Best Direction of a Play (Kenny Leon). 2016 BBC Radio Play. On 31 January 2016 the BBC broadcast a new production of the play by director/producer Pauline Harris. This version restores the character of Mrs Johnson and a number of scenes that were cut from the Broadway production and subsequent film, with the following cast: Arena Stage revival, 2017. The play opened on April 6, 2017, at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., directed by Tazewell Thompson, with the following cast: The Raisin Cycle. The 2010 Bruce Norris play "Clybourne Park" depicts the white family that sold the house to the Youngers. The first act takes place just before the events of "A Raisin in the Sun", involving the selling of the house to the Black family; the second act takes place 50 years later. The 2013 play by Kwame Kwei-Armah entitled "Beneatha's Place" follows Beneatha after she leaves with Asagai to Nigeria and, instead of becoming a doctor, becomes the Dean of Social Sciences at a respected (unnamed) California university. The two above plays, together with the original, were referred to by Kwei-Armah as "The Raisin Cycle" and were produced together by Baltimore's Center Stage in the 2012–2013 season.

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A Disappearing Number A Disappearing Number is a 2007 play co-written and devised by the Théâtre de Complicité company and directed and conceived by English playwright Simon McBurney. It was inspired by the collaboration during the 1910s between the pure mathematicians Srinivasa Ramanujan from India, and the Cambridge University don G.H. Hardy. It was a co-production between the UK-based theatre company Complicite and Theatre Royal, Plymouth, and Ruhrfestspiele, Wiener Festwochen, and the Holland Festival. "A Disappearing Number" premiered in Plymouth in March 2007, toured internationally, and played at The Barbican Centre in Autumn 2007 and 2008 and at Lincoln Center in July 2010. It was directed by Simon McBurney with music by Nitin Sawhney. The production is 110 minutes with no intermission. The piece was co-devised and written by the cast and company. The cast in order of appearance: Firdous Bamji, Saskia Reeves, David Annen, Paul Bhattacharjee, Shane Shambu, Divya Kasturi and Chetna Pandya. Plot. Ramanujan first attracted Hardy's attention by writing him a letter in which he proved that where the notation formula_2 indicates a Ramanujan summation. Hardy realised that this confusing presentation of the series 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ was an application of the Riemann zeta function formula_3 with formula_4. Ramanujan's work became one of the foundations of bosonic string theory, a precursor of modern string theory. The play includes live "tabla" playing, which "morphs seductively into pure mathematics", as the "Financial Times" review put it, "especially when … its rhythms shade into chants of number sequences reminiscent of the libretto to Philip Glass's "Einstein on the Beach". One can hear the beauty of the sequences without grasping the rules that govern them." The play has two strands of narrative and presents strong visual and physical theatre. It interweaves the passionate intellectual relationship between Hardy and the more intuitive Ramanujan, with the present-day story of Ruth, an English maths lecturer, and her husband, Al Cooper, a globe-trotting Indian-American businessman "to illuminate the beauty and the patterns — the mystery — of mathematics." It also explores the nature and spirituality of infinity, and explores several aspects of the Indian diaspora. Ruth travels to India in Ramanujan's footsteps and eventually dies. Al follows, to get closer to her ghost. Meanwhile, 100 years previously, Ramanujan is travelling in the opposite direction, making the trip to England, where he works with Hardy on maths and contracts tuberculosis. Partition (as a maths concept) is explored, and diverging and converging series in mathematics become a metaphor for the Indian diaspora.

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Fly (play) Fly is a 2009 play written by Trey Ellis and Ricardo Khan about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first black fliers in the U.S. military during World War II. Background. Khan, one of the play's co-writers and director of the Washington, D.C. production, said that the idea to write the play came from a photo he saw of the Tuskegee Airmen. He said he was "stunned" to see "men of color, dressed in their pilot’s uniforms." Khan said he was so fascinated by the photo that he "wanted to know who these men were," and when he learned more, he knew he wanted to write about them, to "tell their story." The initial 60-minute version of the play was commissioned in 2005 by Lincoln Center Education, known at that time as Lincoln Center Institute, where Khan was serving as an artist-in-residence. This version of the play was produced by Lincoln Center Education in 2007 and 2008 for young audiences. A longer version of the play, also commissioned by Lincoln Center Education, was staged in June 2009 at the Vineyard Theater in Massachusetts before the final version had its world premiere in New Brunswick, New Jersey, at Crossroads Theater in October 2009. Khan is co-founder and former artistic director of Crossroads Theater Company, known as "one of the nation's foremost African-American theater companies." One of the main advisors for the Crossroads production was Dr. Roscoe Brown, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. According to Khan, Brown was the one who first suggested using World War II film clips in the production. Both writers had dealt with the subject of the Tuskegee Airmen in other works: Khan, in the play "Black Eagles," written by Leslie Lee (playwright), which had been produced at Ford's Theater in 1989; and Ellis in the 1995 HBO film "The Tuskegee Airmen." Synopsis. "Fly" tells the story of the first black pilots in the United States military, who would be part of the 332nd Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces, but be more well known as the "Tuskegee Airmen," a name taken from Tuskegee, Alabama, the location of the training school where they earned their wings. The group was also called the "Red Tail Black Eagles." The play uses four characters—Chet, from Harlem; W.W., from Chicago; Oscar, from Iowa; and J. Allen, originally from the West Indies—who represent the varied backgrounds of the men who went through Tuskegee's training, not all graduating and not all surviving the war. Other actors portray white men—instructors and pilots—who questioned the idea that black men could fly in America's military. The story begins with Chet as an older man, in Washington, D.C., telling the story through flashbacks of his training and service as one of the Tuskegee Airmen, on the day of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States. The play recalls the fact that the surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen were invited to participate in that inauguration. Facing racism at home while they prepared to fight for their country in the air, the Tuskegee airmen were men who (in the words of the Tuskegee Airmen website) "fought two wars—one against a military force overseas and the other against racism at home and abroad." However, while the fight against racism is central to the play's story, Khan notes that a larger issue central to the play is the pursuit of any dream: "The play is about lifting yourself off the ground, lifting yourself from what holds you down, reaching for your dream and elevating yourself to that place in the mind and the heart that’s the sky." Production. The play is written to include a cast of eight men, including "Tap Griot," a dancer who uses tap dance steps to set a mood that is "part sublimated anger, part empowerment." This character appears numerous times throughout the play, "commenting choreographically on events and emotions." As one review notes, "Griot" is defined as "a member of a caste of professional oral historians in the Mali Empire." Keepers of history, if you will, who continue their oral traditions in Western Africa to this day." Khan, one of the co-writers, notes that the Tap Griot is especially important as a backdrop for the character of Chet, who functions as a narrator for the story: "When Chet’s feeling anger or rage, the tap-dancer uses hard heels to stomp the ground. However, when he feels a moment of beauty or excitement, the tap dancer can express that, too, in a much different way." Ellis, the other co-writer, adds that another reason the Tap Griot was important is that the characters represented men who had to "restrict their behavior" and hide their emotions during their military service, and so this character was able to "express their feelings in a way that permits their anger to go into the ground and their elation into a jump for joy." This character "tells the part of the story that is about rage when they’re not allowed to, or fear when they’re not allowed to, or mourning when they’re not allowed to," according to Khan. Large video screens are used in a number of ways during the performance, from opening images of black history in the United States; to scenes of the ground from the cockpit windows of a plane, to give the impression of flight; to final scenes of the actual Tuskegee Airmen. Khan relates that he and Ellis did not simply want to tell a story or show a piece of history, but instead wanted to create a real piece of theater. In some ways, their vision was to expose the audience to a "video game onstage," where their senses would be constantly "stimulated by the resources of the theater." As one review noted, the production is "an exciting war story; it is not a history lecture...and yet that [history] message is there." When President Obama invited the surviving Tuskegee Airmen to his inauguration, Khan decided to "weave that moment" into the play. The Tuskegee Airmen returned to a nation that was still segregated, but ultimately, their service helped pave the way for changes that would one day come. The play is written to be performed in 90 minutes, with no intermission. Performances. After the world premiere at the Crossroads Theater in New Brunswick, the play was performed at the historic Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., in September 2012, as the second production in a special multi-year "Lincoln Legacy Project," "an effort to create dialogue around the issues of tolerance, equality, and acceptance." A number of Tuskegee Airmen (World War II veterans) attended the opening night performance. There have been a number of productions and co-productions in theaters nationwide, including Florida Studio Theatre, New Victory Theater, a revival at Crossroads Theatre Company, and Cincinnati Playhouse. In 2016, the Pasadena Playhouse production received eight NAACP Theatre Award nominations, winning for Best Lighting, Best Choreography, and Best Production. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival presented the play in 2018.

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Taboo (1922 play) Taboo is a play first performed in 1922, written by Mary Hoyt Wiborg. It is set on a plantation in Louisiana before the American Civil War and in Africa. It opened on April 4, 1922 in the Sam Harris Theater, Harlem. It starred Margaret Wycherly, the only white member of the cast, Paul Robeson, other African American actors, and African students at Columbia University. An African dance was performed by C. Kamba Simango, a Mozambican student at Columbia. This was one of Robeson's first stage opportunities and his performance was praised by critics.

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The Green Pastures The Green Pastures is a play written in 1930 by Marc Connelly adapted from "Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun" (1928), a collection of stories written by Roark Bradford. The play was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930. It had the first all-black Broadway cast. The play and the film adaptation were generally well received and hailed by white drama and film critics. African-American intellectuals, cultural critics, and audiences were more critical of Connelly's claim to be presenting an authentic view of black religious thought. The play portrays episodes from the Old Testament as seen through the eyes of a young African-American child in the Great Depression-era Southern United States, who interprets "The Bible" in terms familiar to her. Following Bradford's lead, Connelly (a white man) set the biblical stories in New Orleans and in an all-black context. He diverged from Bradford's work, however, in enlarging the role of the character "De Lawd" (God), played on stage by Richard B. Harrison (1864–1935). "The Green Pastures" also featured numerous African-American spirituals arranged by Hall Johnson and performed by The Hall Johnson Choir. The cast also included singer Mabel Ridley.The chorus included torch singer Eva Sylvester and members of the Sylvester family as cherubs. Adaptations. Connolly later collaborated with William Keighley in the direction of a Hollywood film adaptation of the play, which was made in 1936, starring Rex Ingram as "De Lawd". At the time the film caused some controversy. It was banned in Australia, Finland, and Hungary on the grounds that it was "blasphemous" to portray Biblical characters in this way. The play was adapted for television, and presented twice during the days of live TV on the "Hallmark Hall of Fame" in 1957 and 1959. Both productions starred William Warfield as "De Lawd", in the largest dramatic acting role he ever had on television.

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The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda is a play by American writer Ishmael Reed. It critiques the acclaimed historical musical "Hamilton" (2015) through a depiction of a fictionalized version of "Hamilton"s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is visited by several historical figures missing from the musical in a style similar to Charles Dickens' 1843 novella "A Christmas Carol". The play echoes many critiques made by historians, such as the whitewashing of Alexander Hamilton. Reed debuted the play in January 2019 with a four-night reading at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and the play was fully staged in May 2019 and ran for several weeks in the same location. "The Haunting" received mixed reviews from critics; some praised the acting but others characterized the tone as overly didactic. Background and development. Reed wrote a critique of the musical "Hamilton" shortly after its debut for the August 2015 edition of the magazine "CounterPunch", titled ""Hamilton: the Musical": Black Actors Dress Up like Slave Traders... and It's Not Halloween." In it he accused Lin-Manuel Miranda of whitewashing Alexander Hamilton's role as a slave owner and his involvement in the genocide of Native Americans. Reed followed this with a second critique for the magazine in April 2016, titled ""Hamilton" and the Negro Whisperers: Miranda's Consumer Fraud." Reed likened the casting of a black actor in the role of George Washington to a scenario where Jewish actors would portray Nazi officials Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Eichmann, and Adolf Hitler. The play offers Reed's critiques of "Hamilton", which include "turning a blind eye to the Schuyler family's ownership of slaves and soft-pedaling Alexander Hamilton's elitist politics and his attitude toward slavery." Reed stated that his goal for writing "The Haunting" was to "be a counter-narrative to the text that has been distributed to thousands of students throughout the country." Reviewers noted that Reed's perspectives are shared by many historians, who levied critiques about the historical accuracy of Hamilton after its release. Critics also noted that "The Haunting" fits with Reed's long career of questioning white supremacy in cultural institutions, such as in his novel "Mumbo Jumbo" (1972); Nawal Arjini wrote in "The Nation" that "[b]oth works attempt, with varying degrees of success, to reimagine the history taught in school as one in which people of color have power." Plot summary. After taking Ambien given to him by his agent, "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is visited by the spirits of the historical figures George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, and spirits representing those who speak for those left out of his musical, including enslaved Africans, Native Americans, a white indentured servant, and Harriet Tubman. In a dream, Washington and Hamilton reveal their contempt for Africans and Native Americans. After Miranda wakes up, the other spirits appear to inform Miranda about their lives, while Lin-Manuel appears confused. He continuously defers to Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography "Alexander Hamilton" to justify the content of the musical. After Lin-Manuel becomes convinced by the spirits' accounts of their lives and the consequences of the actions of Washington and Hamilton, he goes to confront Chernow, who is unapologetic. At the conclusion, Lin-Manuel's agent tells him he has been commissioned to write a play about Christopher Columbus, which Miranda refuses to write. Throughout, the play critiques "Hamilton"'s high ticket prices and "corny" songs. Productions. Reed hosted a debut reading of the two-act play at Nuyorican Poets Café in January 2019. Reed stated at the initial reading that the play is meant to critique Miranda for his "shoddy research" rather than portray him as a villain. It ran for four nights and simultaneously served as a fundraiser for a full-length production. It sold out each night. The fundraiser was successful, and Reed stated in an interview that Toni Morrison made the second-largest contribution to the campaign, with writer/activist Robert Mailer Anderson providing the bulk of the funding as well as playing the role of historian Ron Chernow for the first four staged readings in January 2019. "The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda" premiered a full staging at the Nuyorican Poets Café on May 23, 2019 and ran through June 16, 2019. It ran a second time, from October 4–27, 2019, in the same location. It was directed by Rome Neal. Similar to "Hamilton", several of the characters are played by actors of different races, such as Robert Turner, a black actor who portrays George Washington. Critical reception. The play received mixed critical reception. Critics spoke positively of the acting, the "wit" of Reed's script, and the "catharsis" of Miranda's character being dressed down in the play. Nawal Arjini of "The Nation" commented positively on the quality of the acting, stating in their review, "Turning what are essentially history lectures into riveting theater is a tall order for most actors, but the cast is for the most part up to the challenge." Critics also noted that the play ends by painting Miranda's fictionalized character with a sympathetic brush, as someone who has been taken advantage of by institutional powerholders, a notion Reed supported in an interview for "Current Affairs". Negative criticisms of the play described it as overly didactic. In a review for "The New York Times", Elizabeth Vincentelli stated, ""The Haunting" is classic activist theater—the haphazard acting is typical of the genre—that prefers didacticism to dialectic. Miranda merely submits to a series of impassioned monologues, a format that saps the show of the energy that would have been generated by back-and-forth exchange." The play was mocked by Peter Sagal of NPR's quiz show "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!", who expressed disbelief that anyone could dislike "the most beloved musical of modern times." It was also described as low-energy and "boring" by Jeremy Gordon of The Outline, who said "even though the reading couldn't be judged as a completed play—only a few of the actors were in costume, and there was no set nor action—it was hard to imagine how Miranda getting educated in long, unbroken chunks of dialogue could be staged in an interesting way." Similarly, Hua Hsu of "The New Yorker" wrote, "Some of the history lessons were long-winded and meandering—and maybe slightly confusing without a basic grasp of the original musical... "The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda" is a minor entry in an important and sometimes overwhelming body of work." After the reading, Twitter users questioned the validity of the play after critics noted that Reed had not seen "Hamilton". In an interview, Reed stated that he had "extensively studied" the script before writing "The Haunting". However, by the time the full production premiered, Reed was able to insert a joke in the script concerning how he had missed a mortgage payment to see the show, as performed by the national touring company in San Francisco. Book. "The Haunting" was published in book form by Archway Editions (distributed by Simon & Schuster) on October 20, 2020.

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The World of Suzie Wong (play) The World of Suzie Wong is a 1958-premiered stage play, adapted from the eponymous 1957 novel by Richard Mason, "The World of Suzie Wong". The play was in turn adapted into the 1960 Hollywood British-American feature film "The World of Suzie Wong". The novel was adapted into a play by playwright Paul Osborn. It is one of the major elements of the Suzie Wong franchise. Plot. The play dramatizes the story of the eponymous Richard Mason novel, "The World of Suzie Wong", upon which it is based. History. The play opened for the 1958-1959 Broadway season in New York City on October 14, 1958. It opened at the Broadhurst Theatre for the 1958–1959 season, and went on to the 54th Street Theatre for the 1959–1960 season. It closed its first Broadway run on January 2, 1960. The Broadway run was directed by Joshua Logan, with sets designed by Jo Mielziner, and costumes designed by Dorothy Jeakins; and starring France Nuyen as "Suzie Wong", and William Shatner as Robert Lomax. During its first shows, the play was constantly improved from being a turgid drama to having a more comedic tone, evolving from a play that was panned to an award-winning play. At the time she was cast, France Nuyen spoke little English and learned her lines phonetically. The play opened for the 1959-1960 West End season in London. The West End run starred Tsai Chin as "Suzie Wong". Peter Coe later signed on as director. Film adaptation. The play was adapted into an eponymous motion picture feature film, "The World of Suzie Wong", that premiered in 1960. France Nuyen, who played Suzie Wong on Broadway, would go on to be cast for the film adaptation, but fell ill during filming, and needed to be replaced by Nancy Kwan. In lieu of William Shatner, the film cast an older male lead, William Holden, which changed the dynamic between the male and female leads.

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Indians (play) Indians is a 1968 play by Arthur Kopit. At its core is Buffalo Bill Cody and his "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show". The play examines the contradictions of Cody's life and his work with Native Americans. Alvin Klein, writing in "The New York Times", wrote that the play intended "...to open up the real savage story of how the West was won, to demythologize that old game of cowboys and Indians..." Productions. "Indians" premiered in London in July 1968 in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, directed by Jack Gelber. The play had its US premiere at the Arena Stage, Washington, DC., from May 1, 1969 to June 8, 1969, directed by Gene Frankel. The play opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on October 13, 1969. Directed by Gene Frankel, the cast included Stacy Keach as Buffalo Bill, Manu Tupou as Sitting Bull, Tom Aldredge, Kevin Conway, Charles Durning, Raul Julia, and Sam Waterston. The play ran for 96 performances and 16 previews. In 1976, Robert Altman wrote and directed a screen adaptation titled "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson". The cast included Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Kevin McCarthy, Geraldine Chaplin, Denver Pyle, and Harvey Keitel. The play was presented at the McCarter Theater, Princeton, New Jersey in October 1991, directed by George Faison. Analysis. Michael Patterson, professor of Theater at De Montfort University, Leicester), wrote in "The Oxford Guide to Plays" that "Kopit turned to a more serious political investigation of the white settlers' treatment of Native Americans... Kopit's play was one of the first major pieces to confront the issue and to relate it to continuing genocide in South-East Asia." Otis L. Guernsey wrote in "Curtain Times: The New York Theatre, 1965-1987" that "the best script of the 1969-70 bests, in our opinion, was "Indians", about the opening of the American West... It is destined, certainly, for an illustrious career...where it will enhance the reputation of American playwriting..."Indians" reached its...fulfillment not in the events on the stage...but out in the auditorium where we were forced to re-examine some of our value judgments through a crack in our beloved national epic of the Old Wild West." John Lahr of "The Village Voice" wrote: ""Indians" deals with the most incendiary truth: myth being created to justify a lost dream." Broadway awards and nominations. Source:

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A Passage to India (play) A Passage to India is a stage play written by Indian-American playwright Santha Rama Rau (1923–2009), based on E.M. Forster's 1924 novel of the same name. Synopsis. The play begins with two English women, Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested. They travel to 1920s India, where Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny, is working. Ronny is supposed to be engaged to Adela. The women hope to experience India while they are there. Adela and Ronny are unsure if they are meant to be together. While on a hike led by Dr. Aziz, Adela is attacked in a cave. She assumes it was Dr. Aziz, but later while testifying in court, which becomes a media sensation, she realizes Dr. Aziz is not the person who attacked her. Dr. Aziz brings up the racial tensions he feels between the English and the Indians. Background. In the early 1950s, the play's creator, Santha Rama Rau, had dinner one evening with producer Cheryl Crawford. Crawford remarked to Rau that there had never been a distinguished play on Broadway before that dealt with India. This conversation brought up the E.M. Forster novel that was first published in 1924, titled "A Passage to India". Rau mentioned to Crawford the possibility of her adapting the novel for the stage. In 1957, Rau met with Forster and presented him with a copy of her working script. Forster gave his blessing for her to move forward with the production and gave her several suggestions for changes in the script. Production history. The play was first staged by the Oxford Playhouse in January 1960. The play then went on a short tour with the same cast, before transferring to the Comedy Theatre on London's West End in April 1960. Forster attended the West End production and was pleased with it. He died in 1970. The play next transferred to the Broadway stage, with a slightly different cast. The production opened in January 1962 and played for 109 performances, closing in May. The play received two Tony Award nominations, one for Best Lead Actress for Gladys Cooper, and one for Best Scene Design. Director David Lean saw the play and was interested in making a film in the 1960s, but Forster refused to allow it to be made. Instead, he allowed a television production. This version, directed by Waris Hussein and adapted from the stage version, was transmitted on November 16, 1965 on BBC 1, as a part of the series "Play of the Month". In 1981, David Lean gained the rights to make a feature film based on the play. Filmed in 1983, and released in 1984, from a script almost entirely rewritten by Lean, the film received a largely positive reception from critics. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two. Peggy Ashcroft won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Mrs Moore, and Judy Davis was nominated for Lead Actress. The film also won for Best Original Score.

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Offensive Fouls Offensive Fouls is a Canadian play about racism written for young adults, for use in secondary schools. It was written by Jason Long. History and plot. The play premiered in 1999 and was initially produced by All Nations Theatre, the organization that commissioned Long to write the play. Hustle n' Bustle Theatre made its debut with the play in 2011. There are only two characters in the play: Joey, a 17-year-old Irish-Canadian basketball player; and Christine, his Chinese-Canadian girlfriend. The plot follows Joey as he is benched from his basketball team after Christine suspects that he was involved in a racially motivated corner-store vandalism incident. "Offensive Fouls" is intended for an adolescent audience. Reception. The play was written for performances in secondary schools, and has been performed throughout Alberta. Performances have also been held in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Neptune Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as well as in Winnipeg. It was performed in Edmonton, Alberta as recently as 2011. The dialogue has been praised for presenting "teenagers who really sound like teenagers.” The play was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award. One reviewer remarked, "It’s not often the public gets a chance to see “what they’re teaching the kids these days,” so when you do, it behooves us to pay attention because the target audience will be calling the shots before too long." "Offensive Fouls" was published in a collection of Canadian plays for young adults titled "Things That Go Bump" in 2009.

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Six Degrees of Separation (play) Six Degrees of Separation is a play written by American playwright John Guare that premiered in 1990. The play was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. The play explores the existential premise that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else in the world by a chain of no more than six acquaintances, thus, "six degrees of separation". Synopsis. A young black man named Paul shows up at the home of art dealer Flan Kittredge and his wife Louisa, known simply as "Ouisa", who live overlooking Central Park in New York City. Paul has a minor stab wound from an attempted mugging, and says he's a friend of their children at Harvard University. The Kittredges are trying to get the money to buy a painting by Paul Cézanne and now have this wounded stranger in their home. Paul claims he is in New York to meet his father, Sidney Poitier, who is directing a film version of the Broadway musical "Cats." Paul continues to charm them with his story, though, in reality, it is all a lie: Paul is not a Harvard student but obtained details on the Kittredges from another male student he had seduced. Eventually Paul uses their home for an encounter with a hustler, but is caught red-handed. The police are called, but Paul escapes. Soon after, Paul starts up another con against a sensitive young man named Rick and his live-in girlfriend, Elizabeth. The naive young couple are new to the big city having just moved to New York from Utah and, based on Paul's con, invite him to live with them until he gets everything sorted out with his wealthy father—who Paul tells them is Flan Kittredge. The trio become good friends, with Paul spinning a tale of being estranged from his racist father; the girlfriend tells Rick not to lend Paul any money. One night Paul takes Rick out on the town, and seduces him in order to get the money. Later that night, Rick tells Elizabeth that Paul is gone, that he has all their money, and that he and Paul had sex. In a fit of fury, she cruelly suggests that Rick's father had always questioned his son's sexuality. Soon afterwards Rick commits suicide. In desperation, Paul calls the Kittredges for assistance. Partly due to strained relations with her children, Ouisa finds herself feeling emotionally attached to Paul, hoping to be able to help him in some way despite the fact that he has victimized them. Over a protracted and laborious phone call, he agrees to give himself up to the police; however, during the arrest, he and the couple are separated. Despite their efforts—Ouisa's more than Flan's—his fate is unresolved, except for a possibly tragic end. Towards the end of the play, in a climactic moment of reflection, she delivers the play's most famous monologue: Historical casting. Kristin Griffith and Swoosie Kurtz read the role of Ouisa Kittredge in workshops in 1989 before Stockard Channing was cast. Channing was originally unavailable and was committed to coming to Broadway in another play, Neil Simon's "Jake's Women". The play's Broadway run was canceled. Channing had starred previously in John Guare's "The House of Blue Leaves", and he offered her the role for the official Off-Broadway run. Kurtz later replaced Channing during the Broadway run. Production history. The play premiered Off-Broadway at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Lincoln Center, on May 16, 1990. Stockard Channing won an Obie Award for Best Actress for her performance. Guare won an Obie Award for his script. The production transferred to the Vivian Beaumont Theater for its Broadway debut on November 8, 1990. The production closed on January 5, 1992 after 485 performances, directed by Jerry Zaks. Kelly Bishop played the role of Ouisa as a replacement on Broadway, and Laura Linney made her Broadway debut as a replacement for the role of Tess. The original Broadway production was nominated for four Tony Awards, winning for Best Direction for Zaks. A US. National tour was launched in 1992. Veronica Hamel also played Ouisa in the first production in Chicago. The play made its UK debut in 1992 at the Royal Court Theatre and then transferred to the West End's Comedy Theatre. In 2010, the play was revived at the Old Vic theatre in London starring Lesley Manville as Ouisa. A 1995 production at Canadian Stage in Toronto, Ontario starred Fiona Reid as Ouisa, Jim Mezon as Flan and Nigel Shawn Williams as Paul. Both Williams and Reid won Dora Mavor Moore Awards for their performances, Williams as Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role – Play and Reid as Outstanding Performance by a Female in a Principal Role – Play. In May 2004 Michael Buffong directed a production at the Royal Exchange, Manchester with Lisa Eichhorn as Ouissa Kittredge, Phillip Bretherton as Flanders Kittredge and O-T Fagbenle as Paul. O-T Fabenle won a MEN Award for his performance. The play was revived on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in a limited engagement opening on April 5, 2017, starring Allison Janney, John Benjamin Hickey and Corey Hawkins, with direction by Trip Cullman. Background. The play was inspired by the real-life story of David Hampton, a con man and robber who managed to convince a number of people in the 1980s that he was the son of actor Sidney Poitier. The writer John Guare was a friend of Inger McCabe Elliott and her husband Osborn Elliott. In October 1983 Hampton came to the Elliotts' New York apartment and they allowed him to spend the night. The next morning Inger Elliott found Hampton in bed with another man and later called the police. The Elliotts told Guare about the story and it inspired him to write the play years later. After the play became a dramatic and financial success, Hampton was tried and acquitted for harassment of Guare; he felt he was due a share of the profits that he ultimately never received. A strong influence on the play is the novel "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger. There are some very overt references to it, as when the protagonist explains the thesis paper he has just written on "The Catcher in The Rye" to the family who takes him in for the night. There are also more subtle allusions made both in the script and in the cinematography of the film version, such as when various characters begin to take on Holden Caulfield-esque characteristics and attitudes. Film adaptation. Guare adapted the play for a film released in 1993 directed by Fred Schepisi. Channing was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.

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Golden Boy (musical) Golden Boy is a 1964 musical with a book by Clifford Odets and William Gibson, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. Based on the 1937 play of the same name by Odets, it focuses on Joe Wellington, a young man from Harlem who, despite his family's objections, turns to prizefighting as a means of escaping his ghetto roots and finding fame and fortune. He crosses paths with Mephistopheles-like promoter Eddie Satin and eventually betrays his manager Tom Moody when he becomes romantically involved with Moody's girlfriend Lorna Moon. Background. Producer Hillard Elkins planned the project specifically for Sammy Davis, Jr. and lured Odets out of semi-retirement to write the book. The original play centered on Italian American Joe Bonaparte, the son of poverty-stricken immigrants with a disapproving brother who works as a labor organizer. Elkins envisioned an updated version that would reflect the struggles of an ambitious young African American at the onset of the Civil Rights Movement and include socially relevant references to the changing times. In Odets' original book, Joe was a sensitive would-be surgeon fighting in order to pay his way through college, but careful to protect his hands from serious damage so he could achieve his goal of saving the lives of blacks ignored by white doctors. In an ironic twist, the hands he hoped would heal kill a man in the ring. Productions. Following the Detroit tryout, Odets died and Gibson was hired to rework the script. The ideals of the noble plot were abandoned in a revision in which Joe evolved into an angry man who, embittered by the constant prejudice he faces, uses his fists to fight his frustrations. His brother became a worker for CORE, and the subtle romance between Joe and the white Lorna developed into an explicit affair capped by a kiss that shocked audiences already having difficulty adjusting to a heavily urban jazz score and mentions of Malcolm X. This was a far cry from the musical comedies "Hello, Dolly!" and "Funny Girl", both popular holdovers from the previous theatrical season. The Broadway production, directed by Arthur Penn and choreographed by Donald McKayle, opened on October 20, 1964 at the Majestic Theatre, where it ran for 568 performances and twenty-five previews. In addition to Davis, the cast included Billy Daniels as Eddie Satin, Kenneth Tobey as Tom Moody, Jaimie Rogers as Lopez and Paula Wayne as Lorna Moon, with Johnny Brown, Lola Falana, Louis Gossett, Al Kirk, Baayork Lee, and Theresa Merritt in supporting roles. An original cast recording was released by Capitol Records. One song from the score, "This Is the Life", later became a hit in a cover version recorded by Matt Monro. Art Blakey recorded a jazz version of the score in 1964 and Quincy Jones' "Golden Boy" (Mercury, 1964) featured three versions of the theme. Davis reprised his role for the 1968 West End production at the London Palladium, the first book musical ever to play in the theatre. Porchlight Music Theatre presented "Golden Boy" as a part of "Porchlight Revisits" in which they stage three forgotten musicals per year. It was in Chicago, Illinois in February 2014. It was directed by Chuck Smith, choreographed by Dina DiCostanzio, and music directed by Austin Cook. In other media. Necco (New England Confectionery Company) created a short-lived candy bar inspired by Davis and the musical. It was called "Golden Boy". References. "Open a New Window: The Broadway Musical in the 1960s" by Ethan Mordden, published by Palgrave, 2001 ()

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Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags is a play written in 1829 by John Augustus Stone. It was first performed December 15, 1829, at the Park Theater in New York City, starring Edwin Forrest. History. On November 28, 1828 a contest was posted in the New York Critic by American actor Edwin Forrest offering a prize of 500 dollars for an original play which met such criteria as, “a tragedy, in five acts, of which the hero, or principal character, shall be an aboriginal of this country". Forrest, looking to produce a play suiting his strengths, created the contest as an opportunity to boost his acting career. With his play, "Metamora, or the Last of the Wampanoags", playwright and actor John Augustus Stone stood out among his competitors and took home the prize. The play, which opened on December 15, 1829, was an instant hit. Due to a combination of the highly publicized contest, Forrest's growing celebrity, and the timely subject matter of the play itself, the performances resonated with audiences across the growing country, earning theaters record profits, of which Stone received very little. Although Stone had written many other plays "Metamora" was by far the most critically acclaimed. After its debut the play quickly spread into various cities where it was continuously performed. During the 19th century there were over seventy-five Indian Dramas written, and even though "Metamora" shared a very similar plot line as the rest of plays, it was the only one to be successful. John Augustus Stone. John Augustus Stone was born in Concord, Massachusetts on December 15, 1800. He started his theatrical career as an actor in his early 20s, portraying mostly comic roles, and was considered a crowd favorite in the New York Theatres. Later on, he married an actress and together they had two sons who became actors as well. Again, while Stone was respected and known for the play, the name associated with Metamora was Edwin Forrest- in fact Stone's name is not on one surviving poster. Stone struggled with poor health issues and at the age of thirty-three committed suicide by jumping off the Spruce Street landing on June 1, 1834. Forrest was extremely grateful to Stone not only for his friendship, but for the role that changed his life, as well as his career. When Stone died, Forrest placed a monument on his grave that said, “To the Memory of John Augustus Stone, Author of Metamora, by His Friend Edwin Forrest." Synopsis. "Metamora" is set in 17th century New England around the arrival of the Puritans. The story deals with the conflict between the New English settlers, specifically Walter and Oceana, and the Wampanoags, specifically Metamora and his wife, Nehmeokee. Metamora is a tragic, noble Indian hero turned violent only by force. In the beginning there is actually peace, and a willingness to collaborate between the Wampanoags and the Puritans, however, as the play progresses, so does the rising conflict that leads to the full-on attack on Metamora's tribe. During the ending scene, Stone provides the long-awaited marriage between Walter and Oceana. However, in the last moment, Metamora kills his wife in order to protect her from the New English settlers’ invasion, leaving the audience with the image of Metamora, his wife, and his son all slain as a result of the white man. He cursed the English with his final breath. Themes and criticism. Though "Metamora" is referred to as an Indian tragedy, its themes of love, war, dramatic deaths and suicides, and declaratory speeches make the play better described as a romantic melodrama. The depiction of Metamora as a kind and “noble savage,” turned violent by force especially resonated with the mid-19th century audience. Most critics raved over the play, however, some critical response was negative, and as one critic very harshly put it, “Mr. Stone did what he could to atone for the injury which he had inflicted upon the world by the production of this play. He drowned himself. We will accept the presumptive apology.” American character types: the Indian. In the years following such pivotal events in history as the American Revolution and the War of 1812, a strong feeling of nationalism infiltrated early America. This sense of national pride influenced not only everyday life, but also became evident in the arts, including early American theatre. After a time when mostly British theatre was performed in America, a desire to create drama specific to America emerged. America needed to establish itself in the midst of the well-developed drama and literature of other nations, as well as set a standard for what is uniquely American. However, this need for nationalism soon manifested itself in drama through American character types: the Negro, the Yankee, and in the case of "Metamora", the Indian. As historian Walter Meserve points out, “American literature became identifiable only after writers had recognized the potential of American scenery, custom, characters, and ideas... in a sense, they were bound together by a similar desire for freedom: the Yankee from the English, the Indian from the Yankees, and the Negro from bondage.” Depictions of oppressed, underdog characters such as the Yankee, Negro, and Indian overcoming captivity, or dying gloriously, represented the themes of freedom and liberty that characterized the newly independent America. Indian drama. In the nineteenth century, about seventy-five Indian-related plays were written. The success of "Metamora" was due to Stone's ability to create a lead character that was a combination of the sublime, the grotesque, and the natural state in order to produce a believable and gratifying story. Not only did he create a character that the audience could believe, but that the audience could sympathize with. The first American play with an Indian hero was a closet drama from 1776, marking the beginning of what would become one of the biggest trends of the century. The character Metamora was inspired by New England Chief, Metacom or King Philip, who was famous for attacking the English in 1675-1676. In 1671 the English settlers grew suspicious of Metacom and demanded that the tribe surrender their guns. Finally in 1675 when three Wampanoag's were tried and executed for the murder of another Native American, who had been acting as an informer for the settlers, Metacom led a bloody uprising. This marked the last major attempt by the Indians to drive out the New England Settlers. It lasted for fourteen months and twelve frontier towns were destroyed as a result. The war came to an end in August 1676 when Metacom was captured and executed. Though King Philip's War was greatly ignored by the public, it “stands as perhaps the most devastating war in this country’s history." Metamora and the Indian Removal Act. Opening only one year before the passage of Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, "Metamora"’s depiction of a scorned and violent savage against English settler victims raises questions about the motives of both Forrest and Stone. In an essay analyzing the issue, Scott Martin remarks, “Recent interpretations insist that Stone’s play and Forrest’s personation of the title character, coming as they did when the fate of the southeastern tribes emerged as an urgent issue in congressional debate and the public mind, represented more than a mere coincidence in the realm of popular culture." Mark Mallett argues that Forrest's partiality to the Democratic Party, and to Jackson, was the driving force behind "Metamora". “Forrest’s play,” he asserts, “brought the Democrat’s message back into the theatre... effectively distracting public attention from the horrors of the government’s Indian Removal campaign.” However, others contend that "Metamora" was simply a vehicle for Forrest's career and a story that suited the romantic ideals of its audience. “The overemphasis of political and racial ideology as the preeminent analytical context may cloud rather than clarify the relationship between "Metamora" and Jacksonian Indian policy. A close consideration of "Metamora"’s place in antebellum culture, and the contexts in which it can be interpreted, should give pause to scholars who are quick to detect efforts to engineer political advantage in very corner of art and popular culture." Revivals. In October 2004, the play was performed at the Metropolitan Playhouse in New York City as Metamora: Last of the Wampanoags!, directed by Alex Roe and starring Matthew Trumbull as Metamora. Bibliography. “Metamora, by John Augustus Stone ROMANTICIZING WAR.” Metropolitan Play House. n.d. Web. 2/24/16 Stone, John Augustus. Metamora: Or, The Last of The Wampanoags. 1829. Web.

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Calpurnia (play) Calpurnia is a 2018 play by Canadian playwright Audrey Dwyer. It is named after Calpurnia, a character in Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird". Synopsis. "Caplurnia" centres around Julie, a twenty-something Black woman living with her father, an Afro-Caribbean judge, in Toronto. She is a screenwriter attempting to write a film about Calpurnia, the Finches' maid in "To Kill A Mockingbird". Julie's brother, Mark, is an up-and-coming lawyer struggling to live up to his father's expectations. Julie's research on racial prejudice spark debates between her and her brother as Mark feels Julie is "not Black enough". Julie asks the family's Filipina housekeeper, Precy, about her life to further her research while Precy cooks dinner for Lawrence and his friend James. Mark's white girlfriend, Christine, also attends the dinner and sparks discussions of white privilege and respectability politics. Productions. "Calpurnia" premiered in 2018 at Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto. The premiere was directed by Dwyer and co-produced by Nightwood Theatre and Sulong Theatre. The premiere starred Meghan Swaby as Julie, Carolyn Fe as Precy, Matthew Brown as Mark, Andrew Moodie as Lawrence, Don Allison as James, and Natasha Greenblatt as Christine. Anna Treusch designed the set which stadium-style seating on either side of the stage. In March 2021, "Calpurnia" is set to be performed at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Analysis. "Calpurnia" examines what it means to be Black in Canada and focusses on how its characters shift their identities to suit their environments. The character of Lawrence embodies the traditional image of an immigrant parent trying to make the best life for their children while also trying to educate them about their culture. However, Laurence does not speak Patois to his children, indicating his attempt to make his children "more Canadian". Julie and Mark engage in several conversations about the usefulness and worth of updating canonical texts as well as who has a right to tell what stories. "To Kill A Mockingbird" is Mark's favourite book and he does not feel as though it needs any retelling. He also feels that Julie, a rich woman living in Toronto with no Black friends, does not know any more about being African-American in Alabama in the 1930s than Harper Lee did. Julie, on the other hand, faults Atticus Finch for his "slut-shaming" and refusing to call out the prejudice of white jury members. The character of Precy acts as a model for Lee's Calpurnia, in that she serves Lawrence and his children the same way Calpurnia serves the Finch family. Dwyer was interested in using Precy to examine how different racial minorities interact with each other as well as to examine the concept of allyship. Development. Dwyer began writing "Calpurnia" in 2012 after playing a maid in a show. She developed the play with Obsidian Theatre as part of their playwriting unit.

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Osawatomie Brown Osawatomie Brown is an 1859 play by Kate Edwards, about John Brown's attack on slave owners in Kansas, and its sequel, his raid on Harper's Ferry. The play premiered just two weeks after Brown's execution.

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Da Kink in My Hair Da Kink in My Hair is a play by Trey Anthony, which debuted at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2001. The play's central character is Novelette, the Caribbean Canadian owner of Letty's, a Toronto hair salon. Novelette is forced to confront her goals and ideals in life when she receives news that her onetime boyfriend Cedric, who loaned her the money to open the salon, has died and his daughter Verena is demanding repayment of the loan. The play subsequently expanded to Theatre Passe-Muraille in 2003, and was nominated for four Dora Awards. Mirvish Productions then underwrote a larger production at the Princess of Wales Theatre in 2005. The show has also been produced at the San Diego Repertory Theatre in San Diego, and at the Hackney Empire in London. Television adaptations. A one-hour television pilot based on the play was produced in 2004 by VisionTV's Cultural Diversity Drama Competition. The pilot starred Sheryl Lee Ralph as Novelette, Shakira Harper as her daughter Michelle, Kim Roberts as Verena, Mimi Kuzyk as Novelette's friend and client Iris, Trey Anthony as Novelette's sister Joy, and Ngozi Paul, James Codrington and Richard Chevolleau as stylists working at Letty's. TV series. A half-hour weekly series adaptation began aired for two seasons Global Television Network beginning in the 2007–08 television season. A total of 26 episodes were produced. The series cast includes Ordena Stephens-Thompson, Trey Anthony, Ngozi Paul, Richard Fagon, and Conroy Stewart.

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Clybourne Park Clybourne Park is a 2010 play by Bruce Norris written as a spin-off to Lorraine Hansberry's play "A Raisin in the Sun" (1959). It portrays fictional events set during and after the Hansberry play, and is loosely based on historical events that took place in the city of Chicago. It premiered in February 2010 at Playwrights Horizons in New York. The play received its UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London in a production directed by Dominic Cooke. The play received its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in a production directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton. As described by "The Washington Post", the play "applies a modern twist to the issues of race and housing and aspirations for a better life." "Clybourne Park" was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play. Plot. Act I: 1959. Grieving parents Bev and Russ are planning to sell their home in the white middle-class Chicago neighborhood of Clybourne Park. They receive a visit from their local clergyman, Jim, as well as their neighbor Karl and his deaf, pregnant wife Betsy. Karl informs them that the family buying their house is black, and pleads with Russ to back out of the deal, for fear that falling area property values will drive the Lindners' neighbors away and isolate them if black residents move in. It becomes apparent that the black family moving in are the Youngers, the protagonists of "A Raisin in the Sun", and the neighbor is Karl Lindner, the minor character from that play who attempted to bribe the Youngers into abandoning their plans to move into the neighborhood. The action is taking place approximately an hour following Karl Lindner's departure from the Youngers' Hamilton Park residence, where they have rejected his first bribery attempt. As arguments ensue about the potential problems of integrating the neighborhood, both couples awkwardly call on Russ and Bev's black housekeeper and her husband, Francine and Albert, to express their opposing views. Russ finally snaps and throws everyone out of the house, saying he no longer cares about his neighbors after their community's shunning his son Kenneth when he returned home from the Korean War, which contributed to Kenneth's suicide, which occurred inside the house. Act II: 2009. Set in the same home as Act I, the same actors reappear playing different characters. In the intervening fifty years, Clybourne Park has become an all-black neighborhood, which is now gentrifying. A white couple, Steve and Lindsey (played by the same actors who played Karl and Betsy in Act I), are seeking to buy, raze and rebuild the house at a larger scale, and are being forced to negotiate local housing regulations with a black couple, Kevin and Lena (played by the same actors as Francine and Albert), who represent the housing board. Lena is related to the Younger family (and named after matriarch Lena Younger), and is unwilling to have the house torn down. Steve and Lindsey's lawyer, Kathy (played by Bev) is revealed to be the daughter of Karl and his deaf wife, Betsy, and mentions that her family moved out of the neighborhood around the time of her birth. A cordial discussion of housing codes soon degenerates into one of racial issues, instigated by a concerned Steve, who feels that the mask of "political correctness" is allowing for a more subtle kind of prejudice against them. The alternating disgust and dismissal that follows reveals resentments from both parties, and several awkward comments lead to Steve being goaded into telling a racist, homophobic joke that offends both Kevin and the other lawyer, Tom (played by Jim), who is gay. The discussion is interrupted several times by Dan (played by Russ), a workman who has found Kenneth's army trunk buried in the back yard. As fighting erupts and the two couples turn on each other and themselves, Dan opens the trunk and finds Kenneth's suicide note. In a short coda, we see Bev back in 1957, catching her son awake late at night, dressed in his army uniform. He claims to be dressing for a job interview, though it is clear that he is in the act of writing his suicide note. Leaving him to tend to the house, Bev observes that "I really believe things are about to change for the better." Historical context. Hansberry's parents bought a house in the white neighborhood known as the Washington Park Subdivision, which gave rise to a legal case ("Hansberry v. Lee", 311 U.S. 32 [1940]). The Hansberry family home, a red brick three-floor at 6140 S. Rhodes, which they bought in 1937, is up for landmark status before the Chicago City Council's Committee on Historical Landmarks Preservation. Productions. The play premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on February 21, 2010, before closing on March 21, 2010. Directed by Pam MacKinnon, the cast featured Frank Wood, Annie Parisse, Jeremy Shamos, Crystal A. Dickinson, Brendan Griffin, Damon Gupton, and Christina Kirk, The play premiered in the UK in August 2010 at the Royal Court Theatre in London directed by Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the theatre, and starring Sophie Thompson, Martin Freeman, Lorna Brown, Sarah Goldberg, Michael Goldsmith, Lucian Msamati, Sam Spruell and Steffan Rhodri. It transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in the West End with most of the original cast, with the exceptions of Martin Freeman, who was replaced by Stephen Campbell Moore; and Steffan Rhodri, who was replaced by Stuart McQuarrie. Even before the play premiered on Broadway, it had several notable productions in regional theatres: The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Washington D.C.) staged it in March, 2010, with artistic director Howard Shalwitz directing. The Caldwell Theatre Company (Boca Raton, Florida) staged it in January 2011, with Clive Cholerton directing and starring Gregg Weiner, Karen Stephens, Brian D. Coats, Kenneth Kay, Patti Gardner, Cliff Burgess, and Margery Lowe. The play's Chicago premiere took place in September 2011 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton and featuring ensemble member James Vincent Meredith along with Karen Aldridge, Cliff Chamberlain, Stephanie Childers, Kirsten Fitzgerald, John Judd, and Brendan Marshall-Rashid; the production closed in November 2011. In October/November 2011, the play was in residence with the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, with Brian Mertes directing and starring Mauro Hantman, Rachael Warren, Mia Ellis, Anne Scurria, Timothy Crowe, Tommy Dickie, and Joe Wilson Jr. From January to March 2012, the play ran at Arden Theatre Company in Old City, Philadelphia, directed by Ed Sobel and starring David Ingram, Julia Gibson, Erika Rose, Steve Pacek, Josh Tower, Ian Merrill Peakes, and Maggie Lakis. "The Philadelphia Inquirer" claimed, "A remarkably skillful cast directed by Edward Sobel creates characters that flirt with stereotypes, but become real and believable...This is a bitter satire that makes us laugh while it indicts us." The play opened on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 19, 2012 (in previews starting March 26, 2012) for a 16-week limited engagement. The Off-Broadway cast reprised their roles. The play was nominated for several Tony Awards, and won the one for Best Play. In 2013, the play was staged at the Guthrie Theater (May to June 2013), in rotating repertory with "A Raisin in the Sun" at the Dallas Theater Center, and in rotating repertory with Kwame Kwei-Armah's "Beneatha's Place" at Center Stage in Baltimore. The play had several productions in 2014: in January at the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, in February 2014, at the Wichita Center for the Arts in Wichita, Kansas, and in September as the season opener for the Hippodrome State Theatre in Gainesville, Florida. Also, the play's Australian premiere took place in March at the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney; the run was scheduled for five weeks, but sold out before opening night and was subsequently extended at another location.

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Fires in the Mirror Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities (1992) is a one-person play by Anna Deavere Smith, an African-American playwright, author, actress, and professor. It explores the Crown Heights riot (which occurred in Crown Heights, Brooklyn in August 1991) and its aftermath through the viewpoints of African-American and Jewish people, mostly based in New York City, who were connected directly and indirectly to the riot. "Fires in the Mirror" is composed of monologues taken directly by Smith from transcripts of the interviews she conducted with the people whom she portrays in the play. She interviewed more than 100 individuals in the course of creating this play. It is considered a pioneering example of the genre known as verbatim theatre. It received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. Context. Anna Deavere Smith's play "Fires in the Mirror" is a part of her project "On the Road: A Search for the American Character". It is a series of monologues which she has created from interviews. "Fires in the Mirror" chronicles the Crown Heights riot in Brooklyn, New York in August 1991. In that racially divided neighborhood, populated largely by African Americans and Chabad Hasidic Jews, a car driven by a Jewish man veered onto a sidewalk and struck two children, killing Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old Caribbean-American boy. The death, and what the African-American community perceived as a delayed response of city emergency medical personnel, sparked protests by them in the neighborhood. During these, a group of black youths attacked and fatally injured Yankel Rosenbaum, a Jewish student visiting from Australia. Days of rioting ensued, exposing to national scrutiny the depth of the racial divisions in Crown Heights. The rioting resulted in 190 injuries, 129 arrests, and an estimated one million dollars in property damage. Smith interviewed residents of Crown Heights, including participants in the disturbances, as well as leading politicians, writers, musicians, religious leaders, and intellectuals. From this material, she chose which figures to highlight and speeches to use in the monologues of her play. Through the words of 26 different people, in 29 monologues, Smith explores how and why these people signaled their identities, how they perceived and responded to people different from themselves, and how barriers between groups can be breached. "My sense is that American character lives not in one place or the other", Smith writes in her introduction to the play, "but in the gaps between the places, and in our struggle to be together in our differences." The title of the play suggests a vision of art as a site of reflection where the passions and fires of a specific moment can be examined from a new angle, contemplated, and better understood. Synopsis. The play is a series of monologues based on interviews conducted by Smith with people involved in the Crown Heights crisis, both directly and as observers and commentators. Each scene is titled with the person's name and a key phrase from that interview. There are a total of 29 monologues in "Fires in the Mirror" and each one focuses on a character's opinion and point of view of the events and issues surrounding the crisis. Most characters have one monologue; the Reverend Al Sharpton, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Norman Rosenbaum have two monologues each. "Fires in the Mirror" is divided into themed sections. The themes include elements of personal identity, differences in physical appearance, differences in race, and the feelings toward the riot incidents. The overall arc of the play flows from broad personal identity issues, to physical identity, to issues of race and ethnicity, and finally ending in issues relating to the Crown Heights riot. The play is structured as follows: Style. "Fires in the Mirror" is a collection of multiple voices and points of view. It is a hybrid of theater and journalism. Smith provides information as to where each interview was done, including the settings and environment, other people who were near, and when the interviews took place. This emphasizes the fact that the play was drawn from the words of people who were directly involved with events. The play is written as verse. Smith uses lines, ellipses, and other notation, to express how people expressed themselves in each interview. "Fires in the Mirror" is a postmodern play. According to David Rush, characteristics of a postmodern play include the minimization of a single "author"; its purpose is to engage the audience rather than express one point of view. There may be multiple narratives interacting with each other, the structure departs from the conventional play pattern, and the play is usually fragmented. "Fires in the Mirror" encompasses all of these characteristics. Themes. Racial tensions. The central focus of "Fires in the Mirror" is the resentment anger between two ethnic groups in the densely populated area of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in New York City: the Lubavitcher Orthodox Jewish community and the African-American community. The monologues refer to such historic events as The Holocaust of World War II and slavery history of the United States, defining periods for each ethnic group. In addition, they express the often-fraught relationships between the two ethnic groups and the police, as well as the perceptions of the relationships between each other. Individual identity and attitudes. By showing many different points of view and opinions on the issue of the riot, the play highlights that there are not just two sides, divided by race, but rather many different individual attitudes, emotions, and opinions. Staging. "Fires in the Mirror" is staged as a one-person play. In the original production, there was no real physical set and Deavere used a limited number of props and costumes. Black-and-white photographs were displayed behind Smith as she moved from one monologue and character to the next. She slightly changed her appearance and mannerisms for each character. Throughout most of her performance, she was dressed in black pants and white shirt, and was barefoot. Many of the monologues are accompanied by music, ranging from black hip hop to Jewish religious chants. The music is meant to pair with the author's background or the essence of each monologue. Production history. Smith presented a first workshop production of the play in December 1991 at George Wolfe's Festival of New Voices. "Fires in the Mirror" had its world premiere at the New York Shakespeare Festival on May 1, 1992. Its official press opening was on May 12, 1992. "Fires in the Mirror" has also been produced by the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey; Brown University, Stanford University, Royal Court Theatre in London, and many others. It was presented as part of the 1994 Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia at the Victorian Arts Centre (now Arts Centre Melbourne). Television film. A film of the play was adapted under the direction of George C. Wolfe and starred Anna Deavere Smith. Aired in 1993, it was produced by Cherie Fortis and filmed by "American Playhouse" for PBS. Awards. It received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show in 1993. In 1994, Deavere received the award again, for her "", another example of verbatim theatre, based on the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

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Blood at the Root (play) Blood at the Root is a play by Dominique Morisseau that premiered in 2014 at Pennsylvania State University. The title "Blood at the Root" comes from the song "Strange Fruit" about the lynchings of African Americans in the South. The show was based on the Jena Six. Productions. The show premiered at Penn State Center Stage at Pennsylvania State University on March, 28, 2014, directed by Steve H. Broadnax, choreography Aquila Kikora Franklin, set design Karl Jacobsen, costume design Montana Carly Reeder, lighting design Nathan Hawkins, and sound design Liz Sokolak. The cast included Stori Ayers (Raylynn), Allison Scarlet Jaye (Toria), Kenzie Ross (Asha), Brandon Carter (Justin), Tyler Reilly (Colin), and Christian Thompson (De'Andre). It would premiere two years later in New York City at the National Black Theatre

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Spell No. 7 spell #7, or "spell #7: geechee jibara quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people", is a choreopoem written for the stage by Ntozake Shange and first performed in 1979. The story is about a group of black friends who are actors, musicians, and performers. In a series of dreamlike vignettes and poetic monologues, they commiserate about the difficulties they face as black artists. The piece is framed by the narrator, lou, a magician who wants to use his magic to help the characters come to terms with their blackness and rejoice in their identities: "i'm fixin you up good/ fixin you up good & colored / & you gonna be colored all yr life / & you gonna love it/ bein colored/ all yr life/ colored & love it / love it/ bein colored. SPELL #7." The set design calls for a "huge black-face mask" to dominate the stage, and minstrel masks are worn in the opening. These images put frustrations of the characters in conversation with the history of racism in theater, as the images of "grotesque, larger than life misrepresentation" call forth minstrel shows and Blackface. "spell #7" culminates in a repetition of lou's refrain, with all the cast members singing together. Performance and publication history. "spell #7" was first produced It was also produced at Crossroads Theatre (New Jersey) under the direction of Dean Irby and choreography by Dyane Harvey-Salaam. In 1979 as part of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival it was restaged. It was directed by Oz Scott and choreographed by Dianne McIntyre, with original music by David Murray and Butch Morris. The cast included Mary Alice, Avery Brooks, LaTanya Richardson, Reyno, Dyane Harvey-Salaam, Larry Marshall, Laurie Carlos and Ellis E. Williams. During the play's run Samuel L. Jackson and Jack Landron also made appearances. It first opened as a free workshop, under the title "Spell #7: A Geechee Quick Magic Trance Manual." After receiving good reviews the production was moved up to the Anspacher Stage at The Public Theater. natalie's sharp monologue in the final act about her hypothetical life as a white woman was cut from this revised version, and Shange herself acted in a scene as sue-jean, a conflicted and violent mother. Her performance had "an unforgettable quality of coming from inside." After the New York run, "spell #7" went on to be performed by other companies. Some productions include one in 1982 at Clark College, another in 1982 during the Philadelphia Black Theater Festival, one in 1986 from the Avante Theater Company in Philadelphia, a 1991 performance at the Studio Theatre (Washington, D.C.), and a 1996 production at Spelman College. The choreopoem was published in 1981 in "Three Pieces", a collection of Shange's theater works. In addition to "spell #7", the book contains "a photograph: lovers in motion" and "boogie woogie landscapes", and a foreword written by Shange. "spell #7" was also printed in the 1986 anthology "9 Plays by Black Women," alongside works by Beah Richards, Lorraine Hansberry, and Alice Childress, among others. Both of these versions restore the natalie monologue that was cut from the Anspacher performance. Style. Like Shange's more well known choreopoem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf", "spell #7" makes use of non-standard grammar and eschews generally accepted rules of capitalization and punctuation. The most recent editions of "Three Pieces" do not capitalize the title of the choreopoem or any of the names of the characters. Though the piece follows the structure of a three-act play, it utilizes elements that are uncommon in most modern traditional dramas, such as extended monologues. The story takes place in a bar, and the setting does not change. Most of the action unfolds indirectly, when the characters narrate stories about themselves and their friends, and occasionally they take on multiple personas at once. In the foreword to "Three Pieces" Shange explains why she avoids more traditional methods of playwriting, citing motivations related to her Black identity. "For too long now" she says "Afro-Americans have been duped by the same artificial aesthetics that plague our white counterparts/ "the perfect play," as we know it to be/ a truly European framework for European psychology/ cannot function efficiently for those of us from this hemisphere." Characters. In order of appearance, the characters are: Critical reception. Many responses to "spell #7" praise its poetic language and emotional depth. One reviewer called Shange's words "lyrical, wry, painful, and comically prosaic by turn." Another reviewer wrote that Shange is "incredible in her uncanny ability to capture the precision and intensity of the moment," but then went on to criticize her style for being "distracting and predictable." In a 1980 addition to the foreword, Shange writes about one reviewer, who criticized her for writing "with intentions of outdoing the white man in the acrobatic distortions of English." In reply, Shange says that he "waz absolutely correct," she, in writing "spell #7" aimed to "attack deform n maim the language that i waz taught to hate myself in...i haveta fix my tool to my needs/ i have to take it apart to the bone/ so that the malignancies/ fall away/ leaving us a space to literally create our own image." External links. Ntozake Shange Papers, 1966-2016; Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library, Barnard College.

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Sweat (play) Sweat is a 2015 play by American playwright Lynn Nottage. It won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015; it was produced Off-Broadway in 2016 and on Broadway in 2017. The play is centered on the working class of Reading, Pennsylvania. Background. Lynn Nottage began working on the play in 2011 by interviewing numerous residents of Reading, Pennsylvania, which at the time was, according to the United States Census Bureau, officially one of the poorest cities in America, with a poverty rate of over 40%. Nottage has said that she was particularly influenced by a "New York Times" article reporting on the city specifically, and by the Occupy Wall Street movement more generally. She explored the effects on residents of the loss of heavy industry and the changing ethnic composition of the city. She has compared her time talking to former steelworkers in Reading with the occasion when she stayed in the town of Mansfield in the English Midlands and interviewed workers during the 1984 miners' strike. Plot. The play portrays a meeting between a parole officer and two ex-convicts, and three women who were childhood friends and had worked in the same factory. The action takes place in a fictional bar in Reading, Pennsylvania. Nottage shifts in time, switching scenes and showing events of eight years earlier. "Variety" quotes the bartender, Stan, as warning the other characters that "You could wake up tomorrow and all your jobs are in Mexico", to which the characters respond with lethargy and disbelief. "Variety" described Nottage as going into "the heart of working-class America". Reviews of the play have described the characters as representing blue-collar workers who voted in Donald Trump as president. The play also examines the disintegration of a friendship, after two of the women – one white, one black – apply for the same management job. The latter character gets the position, but soon the company moves jobs to Mexico. The trade union goes on strike, and company management locks out the workers. The management/worker division begins to separate the friends, and racial tensions separate them further. Critical reception. The play has been described as "a powerful and emotional look at identity, race, economy, and humanity." The play's political context has also been noted. Reviews focused on the similarities between the portrayal of the industrial working class in a Rust Belt town, and that being a significant area and demographic in the 2016 United States presidential election. The "Wall Street Journal" review suggested the play "explained" Trump's win. It said that the city was "synonymous with deindustrialisation", for the effects there of loss of heavy industry and related jobs. "The New Yorker" said the play was "the first theatrical landmark of the Trump era". It also suggested that the play was reminiscent of the "working-class naturalism" of Clifford Odets, a playwright of the 1930s. The characters portrayed were associated with Trump's election campaign phrase of "the forgotten people". Production history. "Sweat" was first performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015 before playing at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. that year. After starting previews on October 18, 2016, "Sweat" opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on November 3, 2016. It closed on December 18, 2016 to transfer to Broadway. Directed by Kate Whoriskey (who also directed the earlier productions), the cast featured Carlo Alban (Oscar), James Colby (Stan), Khris Davis (Chris), Johanna Day (Tracey), John Earl Jelks (Brucie), Will Pullen (Jason), Miriam Shor (Jessie), Lance Coadie Williams (Evan), and Michelle Wilson (Cynthia). The production began previews on Broadway at Studio 54 on March 4, 2017, before opening on March 26. The production closed on June 25, 2017, after 105 performances. A London production opened at the Donmar Warehouse on 7 December 2018, running until 2 February 2019. The play was directed by Lynette Linton, and featured Clare Perkins and Martha Plimpton as the mothers and Osy Ikhile (Chris) and Parick Gibson (Jason). A five-star review of the production by Peter Mason in the "Morning Star" newspaper described Sweat as "a tension-filled drama with a turbulent, consuming plot and a cast of highly engaging characters who demand attention from the off," adding of the Donmar cast that "it would be difficult to imagine a better set of players to take on the difficult task of portraying such complex individuals". The production transferred to the West End's Guielgud Theatre, running from 7 June 2019 to 20 July. Awards and nominations. Original London production. The play was nominated for the 2017 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play and Outstanding Fight Choreography. The play won the 2017 Obie Award for Playwrighting for the production at the Public Theater. "Sweat" received three 2017 Tony Award nominations: Best Play and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for both Johanna Day and Michelle Wilson. The play won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.