Questions of the Liminal in the Fiction of Julio Cortázar
Dominic Moran
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2000
- ‘An ambitious attempt to improve the level of sophistication of Cortázar criticism and, at the same time, to nudge the existing consensus about the meaning of Cortázar's work in a specific direction... What is important is not that Moran shows us yet again that Cortázar's fiction emphasizes the ambiguity and mystery surrounding reality and the human psyche. It is that he offers a way to put that ambiguity and mystery into the context of some modern thinking.’ — Donald L. Shaw, Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXIX, 2002, 670-1
Ismail Kadare: The Writer and the Dictatorship 1957-1990
Peter Morgan
Legenda (General Series) •11 February 2010
- ‘Morgan shows convincingly why Kadare experienced this change of direction [from attempting to influence Hoxha to a more subversive approach], explaining the zigs and zags of Albanian politics which shaped the environment in which the writer worked, and in particular Hoxha’s ambiguous role as protector and persecutor... Thorough, erudite, and readable, with interesting photographs. Both Kadare and the Albanian Communist regime remain mysterious in many ways, but Morgan’s book sheds considerable light on both, and will be an invaluable companion to the novels.’ — Anne White, Modern Language Review 106.4, 2011, 1203-05 (full text online)
Haunted Serbia: Representations of History and War in the Literary Imagination
David A. Norris
Legenda (General Series) •1 September 2016
- ‘This is a remarkable study, which accomplishes a lot more than a brief review can mention. One of its greatest merits is the convincing and coherent narrative which strings together a large number of apparently disparate works around an axis which is at one and the same time a literary one — the uncanny and its Gothic repertoire — and extra-literary: searching for meaning in both recent past and in contemporary events. Admirably well researched, Haunted Serbia offers an invaluable insight into a turbulent though fruitful period of Serbia’s literary history, which up until now was uncharted territory.’ — Zoran Milutinović, Slavonic and East European Review 95.2, April 2017, 353-54 (full text online)
- ‘David A. Norris, direttore del Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies dell’Università di Nottingham, disegna un panorama della narrativa a tema bellico nella letteratura serba della seconda metà del XX secolo guardando ad essa dall’angolatura delle “ways in which narrative fiction represents the changing relationship between past and present in times of crisis” (p. 35)... L’interessante sintesi di D. A. Norris, proprio per la complessità del materiale da essa messo in circolazione, induce a più di qualche riflessione.’ — Janja Jerkov, Ricerche Slavistiche N.S. 14, 2016, 560-72
- ‘In this well-informed, logically structured study, David A. Norris o ers a lucid and original interpretation of important and in uential Serbian narrative ction between the demise of Tito in 1980 and the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.’ — Ralph Bogert, Slavic Review Summer 2018, 510-12
Authorial Echoes: Textuality and Self-Plagiarism in the Narrative of Luigi Pirandello
Catherine O'Rawe
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2005
- ‘A short review cannot do justice to this arresting critical work. A combination of bold ideas with a meticulous attention to detail and a broad theoretical foundation characterizes O'Rawe's critical approach. Insights are always well substantiated with abundant evidence... Both a major contribution to Pirandello scholarship and a seminal challenge to narrative criticism.’ — Jennifer Lorch, Modern Language Review 103.4, October 2008, 1140-41 (full text online)
Jacques Derrida and the Institution of French Philosophy
Vivienne Orchard
Legenda (General Series) •4 February 2011
- ‘Orchard’s careful attention to significant details promises to refresh thinking in an important area of theory and philosophy.’ — Sarah Wood, French Studies 66.4 (October 2012), 581
Traces of Trauma in W. G. Sebald and Christoph Ransmayr
Dora Osborne
Legenda (General Series) •4 March 2013
- ‘Brought countless things to light about The Emigrants and Austerlitz that I am extremely grateful for, and I know I’ll never read either of these books again without saying a silent “thank you” to Osborne for opening my eyes to a new way of looking at them.’ — Terry Pitts, Vertigo 8 June 2013
- ‘The detailed analyses and dynamic argumentation in addition to the illuminating introduction of the concept of ‘post-postwar literature’ make this study a significant contribution to scholarship on both Ransmayr and Sebald and to critical considerations of twentieth-century post-Holocaust literature in German more broadly.’ — Lynn L. Wolff, Modern Language Review 111.1, January 2016, 294-96 (full text online)
- ‘Osborne has done a great service in awakening Sebald scholars to a kindred spirit in Ransmayr with a long-overdue systematic comparison of “traces of trauma” in the works of both immensely important writers, one a storied member of the literary establishment, one who will remain, even posthumously, an outsider looking in.’ — Mark R. McCulloh, Monatshefte 108.1, 2016, 150-52
Reading Games in the Greek Novel
Eleni Papargyriou
Legenda (General Series) •25 March 2011
Poetry and the Realm of the Public Intellectual: The Alternative Destinies of Gabriela Mistral, Cecília Meireles, and Rosario Castellanos
Karen Peña
Legenda (General Series) •14 December 2007
- ‘By bringing together three of the principal Latin-American authors of the twentieth century, Poetry and the Realm of the Public Intellectual contributes enormously to our understanding of what inspired and motivated them as authors. Peña proves to have a very thorough understanding of poetry, providing a painstakingly close readings of the three poets analysed. She also demonstrates a great deal of familiarity with both Spanish and Portuguese bibliographical sources in her studies of each of the writers... A valuable contribution to the field of Latin-American poetry, especially in its discussion of the question of gender and the place of female intellectuals in Latin America.’ — Vivaldo Santos, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 87.7, 2010, 1020-21
- ‘Resumiendo, se trata de una contribución valiosa e importante sobre la conflictividad americana mediada por las voces femeninas. Por encima de todo, Peña nos muestra que la poesía es más vital y resonante en sus momentos de rebeldía.’ — Roland Spiller, Iberoamericana 43, 2011, 200-01
Artful Seduction: Homosexuality and the Problematics of Exile
Karl Posso
Legenda (General Series) •1 December 2003
Postcolonial Fiction and Sacred Scripture: Rewriting the Divine?
Sura Qadiri
Legenda (General Series) •1 July 2014
- ‘This is an important intervention into discussions of the relationship between literary discourses and sacred scripture. Focusing primarily on recent francophone North African novels, Sura Qadiri examines the positions that literary works take with respect to sacred texts, from latent and inadvertent engagements with the divine, to outright assertions of distinction, in which literary forms are construed as anti-doctrinal and subversive of religious orthodoxies.’ — Neil Doshi, French Studies 69.4, October 2015, 566-67
Pinter and the Object of Desire: An Approach through the Screenplays
Linda Renton
Legenda (General Series) •1 May 2002
- ‘Linda Renton's superb study of Pinter as screenwriter quotes him saying how natural the process seemed when he started to write for films in the early 1960s... A strong commitment to the power of the image runs through his screen work, however paradoxical this might seem in a writer famed for his sparring dialogue. Renton argues that the image was central to his approach to film, suggesting that there is an "an object of desire" at the heart of all Pinter's screenplays: one which is often barely visible - or even invisible - to the characters in the story.’ — Ian Christie, Sight & Sound June 2009, 33
Translating the Perception of Text: Literary Translation and Phenomenology
Clive Scott
Legenda (General Series) •10 October 2012
- ‘In echoing Walter Benjamin’s disapproval of the view that a translation is intended for ‘readers who do not understand the original’, Clive Scott convincingly argues in favour of translation as a literary art that helps promote the language of the source text rather than seeks to provide substitutes for it.’ — Ramona Fotiade, French Studies 68.1, January 2014, 143-44
- ‘The literary translation urged on us in this seismic manifesto is neither the creation of an object nor the reaching of a target: ‘Translation’s area of operation is not two langues, but language itself, and translation’s business is not merely to provide a version of a text, but to make the provision of that version a fruitful con- tribution to the development of the expressive potentialities of the language medium’.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 50.1, January 2014, 130-31
- ‘The real achievement of this volume, I think, is that it pushes for an overhaul of current understanding of the task of the (literary) translator. Even readers and translators who reject some of his individual claims and particular ideas will find that the thrust of the work as a whole leaves a lasting impression. If all this does is serve to remind the translator not to translate as would a machine (word for word, from one language to another, searching for sameness), this is still a valuable contribution.’ — Mairi McLaughlin, Comparative Literature Studies 52.3, 2015, 653-56
Secrets and Puzzles: Silence and the Unsaid in Contemporary Italian Writing
Nicoletta Simborowski
Legenda (General Series) •1 June 2003
- ‘Simborowski's book provides a novel, interpretative angle for some of the most studied authors of 20th century Italian literature, inviting a reading which overcomes the limitations of the said by engaging the reader in an operation of 'voicing the silence.' The book is clearly written and Simborowski's positions convincingly argued.’ — Nicoletta Di Ciolla McGowan, Forum Italicum 38/1, 2004, 267-9
- ‘This book throws new light on a crucial period of Italian culture. In the analysis of silence and the unsaid it provides a key for interpretation, which works well (although not infallibly), and which highlights fundamental issues in Italian literature of the second half of the twentieth century.’ — Olivia Santovetti, Modern Language Review 100.3, 7 July 2005, 843-44 (full text online)
- ‘Secrets and Puzzles foregrounds and consolidates an important interpretative issue, offering a new perspective on mainstream authors and a new critical context in which to view other writers of the post-war period. An impressive contribution to the study, at undergraduate level and beyond, of contemporary Italian literature.’ — Jennifer Burns, Italian Studies 60.1, 2005, 111-12
Jorge Semprún: Writing the European Other
Ursula Tidd
Legenda (General Series) •23 April 2014
Poetry and the Leningrad Religious-Philosophical Seminar 1974-1980: Music for a Deaf Age
Josephine von Zitzewitz
Legenda (General Series) •1 September 2016
- ‘Von Zitzewitz convincingly demonstrates that the religious-philosophical impulse in general, and a pull to Russian Orthodoxy in particular, was a widespread cultural phenomenon in the late Soviet period, cutting across the official/unofficial divide... von Zitzewitz’s precise situating of her subjects in their unofficial environment constitutes a crucial key to understanding the semantic and formal features of their work, and in turn, the lonely and frustrated spirit of their time.’ — Ainsley Morse, Modern Language Review 112.4, 2017, 1053-55 (full text online)
- ‘In her impeccably researched and documented book, Josephine von Zitzewitz combines an examination of the Religious-Philosophical Seminar with five case studies of poets from the Leningrad underground of the 1970s and 80s... An important contribution to the study of both late-Soviet poetry and religious literary culture.’ — Sarah Clovis Bishop, Slavic and East European Journal 61.4, Winter 2017, 913-14