Published December 2014
Elfriede Jelinek in the Arena: Sport, Cultural Understanding and Translation to Page and Stage
Edited by Allyson Fiddler and Karen Jürs-Munby
Austrian Studies 22
Books and Periodicals in Brazil 1768-1930: A Transatlantic Perspective
Edited by Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 9
Dostoevsky and the Epileptic Mode of Being
Paul Fung
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘Fung avoids the trap of a simplistic focus on Dostoevsky’s own real-life epilepsy. While noting the author's terror at the illness [...], he remains wisely off-trend by withholding any cod-scientific correlation between epilepsy and literary creativity. Fung’s interest is, rather, in what Dostoevsky wrote, more than the fact that his slow periods of recovery meant that he often could not write anything at all. And by focusing on ‘moments of caesuras and breaks’, Fung also sets himself apart from the myriad critics drawn to the famous scenes where verbal, and sometimes physical, arguments erupt with astonishing force... A Dostoevsky scholar to watch.’ — Andre van Loon, Review 31 online
- ‘It’s a great philosophical read, which squeezes Dostoevsky and his characters in and out of the minds of any number of puissant Western thinkers. It deserves a welcome and respected place up on the bookshelves of Academia, next to the many fascinating books on the life and works of that perverse and talented genius of Russian literature: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.’ — U. R. Bowie, classical-russian-literature.blogspot.co.uk 7 July 2015
- ‘This book continues the philosophical discussion of Fedor Dostoevskii started by Friedrich Nietzsche, Lev Shestov, Alex de Jonge, and many others. Paul Fung de- scribes existential experiences of caesura (suspension), timelessness, and anticipation of death, which he attributes to some of Dostoevskii’s characters and, possibly, to the writer himself.’ — Irina Sirotkina, Slavic Review 75.1, Spring 2016, 210-11
- ‘Paul Fung opens new perspectives onto Dostoevsky's post-Siberian novels by focusing on their preoccupation, at once morbid and exalted, with the moment, whose ineffable paradoxes congeal metaphorically around the epileptic attack.’ — Mark R. Pettiss, Russian Review 75.1, 2016, 140-42
Published November 2014
Spanish New York Narratives 1898-1936: Modernization, Otherness and Nation
David Miranda-Barreiro
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 5
- ‘A well-organized and clearly argued study that situates Spain’s view on modernity within the European context. It will be of interest to scholars on early twentieth-century Spain, Modernism, transnationalism and popular narratives.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51.4, October 2015, 502-03
- ‘What could have been a niche study derives its strength and originality from offering new insights into debates on Spanish modernity. This is illustrated well by the primary materials chosen, since they do not necessarily have great literary merit in their own right but serve as the testament to a certain Zeitgeist. Students of Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York would, for example, benefit from the context on race and multiculturalism provided by the book.’ — Daniela Omlor, Modern Language Review 112.3, July 2017, 728-29 (full text online)
- ‘El estudio de Miranda-Barreiro, que explora la imagen de Nueva York como símbolo de la modernidad, es de gran actualidad... hay que felicitar a Miranda-Barreiro por incluir géneros poco estudiados hasta ahora en la prosa de los años veinte, así como por el carácter comparatista que adopta. Aunque su aportación más importante es, en mi opinión, su capítulo sobre la raza, la nación y la modernidad, el libro es también de gran interés para el especialista que quiera profundizar en el tratamiento de Nueva York en la narrativa de esta época.’ — María Soledad Fernández Utrera, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 94, 2017, 902-04
- ‘A well-written book that stands as a major contribution to the field.’ — Anna Vives, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 78, 2018, 190-91
The Latin American Short Story at its Limits: Fragmentation, Hybridity and Intermediality
Lucy Bell
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 4
- ‘This study adds to the scholarly criticism of these three authors [Rulfo, Cortázar, Monterroso] and suggests a potentially productive approach that extends beyond Latin American studies into the field of Comparative Literature.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 52.1, 2016, 113-14
Artifice and Invention in the Spanish Golden Age
Edited by Stephen Boyd and Terence O'Reilly
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 3
Gadda and Beckett: Storytelling, Subjectivity and Fracture
Katrin Wehling-Giorgi
Italian Perspectives 29
- ‘Katrin Wehling-Giorgi’s comparative reading of the works of two giants of European literature is both enlightening and fascinating... The book is written in an elegant style and has the great merit of spelling out with admirable clarity the philosophical implications of Gadda’s and Beckett’s narrative projects.’ — Olivia Santovetti, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 225-27 (full text online)
Women, Emancipation and the German Novel 1871-1910: Protest Fiction in its Cultural Context
Charlotte Woodford
Germanic Literatures 6
- ‘This substantial, illuminating, and crisply written study looks once again at women’s writing in Germany and Austria in the period of its major impact on a wide reading public between the Franco-Prussian and First World Wars... The book is not only a nuanced contribution to feminist scholarship but also a significant intervention in the wider debate about committed literature. Woodford argues unambiguously for literature’s capacity to function as a driver of social change.’ — Helen Chambers, Modern Language Review 110.4, October 2015, 1161-62 (full text online)
- ‘It has been estimated that women constituted one-third of the authors of the century. However, women’s protest writing encountered a backlash around the time of World War I: it was viewed as contrary to the true German attitude to gender relations, despised as a foreign implant from France and Scandinavia, and somehow Jewish. The women writers disappeared from the literary histories, and most of them remained invisible until the time I was a student... Woodford’s book is recommendable to teachers and students working in this period because it is full of indicators of how one might enrich the fabric of literary life of the time.’ — Jeffrey L. Sammons, Monatshefte 107.4, December 2015, 673-76
Published July 2014
Exile and Nomadism in French and Hispanic Women's Writing
Kate Averis
Studies In Comparative Literature 31
- ‘Averis skilfully negotiates a corpus that encompasses six writers, two languages, and several nations in an engaging style and with careful structuring, which unfailingly maintains her reader’s engagement. This study offers a very welcome re-evaluation of exile as a linguistic, psychological, gendered, and existential site.’ — Trudy Agar, French Studies 69.4, October 2015, 560-61
- ‘The originality and importance of this study in the field of Comparative Literature lies in the fact not only that it analyses exiled women writers (instead of exiled men writers) but also that these writers’ homelands are different, making the research findings more valid as they are extremely representative of women who write away from their birth countries... Averis’ analysis is extremely comprehensive, clearly exposed and well supported with a solid and respected bibliography.’ — Verónica Añover, Modern and Contemporary France 23.3, 2015, 410-11
- ‘This book draws a new and original path within the analysis of contemporary women’s exilic writing and the nomadic configuration of identity. Not only does it develop key notions of exile and women’s writing, applying them to illustrative cases, it also articulates connections that overturn preconceived arguments, such as the exilic stereotyped figures still in use in Euro-American theorizations, or the negative connotations of exile, which are replaced by the idea of exile as a productive and creative site in which more fluid identities are rebuilt.’ — Marianna Deganutti, OCCT Review online, October 2015
Unamuno’s Theory of the Novel
C. A. Longhurst
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures 1
- ‘A highly illuminating exploration regarding Unamuno’s views on narrative fiction that pays attention to the pervasiveness of elements referring to the physical and mental worlds, the author, the word, the reader, the person, the double and philosophical investigations.’ — Anna Vives, The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 78, 2018, 193-94
Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship: The Aesthetics of Tyranny
Cécile Bishop
Research Monographs in French Studies 41
- ‘This is an impressive first book that calls for renewed engagement with established critical approaches and opens up intriguing new avenues of research.’ — Charlotte Baker, French Studies 69.3, July 2015, 430
- ‘A cultural interpretation that often transcends its focus on the postcolonial project in order to raise important questions regarding the work of criticism more generally... Ultimately, the book is an example of excellent scholarship that leads to a very thought-provoking consideration of the work of critical interpretation more widely.’ — Aedín Ní Loingsigh, H-France 15, November 2015, no. 163
- ‘Une problématique intéressante et une contribution pertinente construite sur des travaux théoriques majeurs et un corpus littéraire et cinématographique qui demeurent d’actualité.’ — Parfait Bonkoungou, French Review 89.3, 2016, 13-14
- ‘Indeed, the monograph convincingly demonstrates that the political and the aesthetic interact in complex and often contradictory ways in a fictional text, with Bishop effectively highlight- ing a system by which political readings are inevitably assigned more value in scholarship... A welcome contribution to the field of postcolonial criticism.’ — Kathryn Mara, Research in African Literatures 47.4, Winter 2017, 188-89
Postcolonial Fiction and Sacred Scripture: Rewriting the Divine?
Sura Qadiri
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘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
Published June 2014
Eugénie et Mathilde by Madame de Souza
Edited by Kirsty Carpenter
Critical Texts 26
- ‘I will be including Souza’s novel in my courses and am grateful to scholars such as Kirsty Carpenter for making these obscure but important texts available.’ — Antoinette Sol, Modern Language Review 111, 2016, 553 (full text online)
- ‘Kirsty Carpenter’s edition of Madame de Souza’s 1811 novel ... contributes to the rediscovery, understanding and appreciation not just of a writer too often considered as a minor author, but also of an overlooked period in the history of French literature, between the Revolution of 1789 and the first Napoleonic campaigns (1798–1800s).’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51, 2015, 87-88
- ‘Réjouissons-nous donc que Mme Carpenter nous ait restitué ce roman parfaitement oublié, qui se trouve être, à la relecture, un des textes les plus lucides de son époque.’ — Paul Pelckmans, Dix-huitième siècle 47, 2015, 645-46
- ‘"a valuable resource for students, professors, and researchers interested in the history of the French Revolution, eighteenth-century society, women's studies, or the development of literary genres in France."’ — Theresa Kennedy, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 36, 2015, 161-62
Published May 2014
The Making of Jorge Luis Borges as an Argentine Cultural Icon
Mariana Casale O'Ryan
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 99
Nicolas Edme Rétif de la Bretonne's Ingénue Saxancour
Edited by Mary S. Trouille
Critical Texts 33
- ‘Mary S. Trouille’s critical edition ... represents an invaluable tool to discover and understand Rétif de la Bretonne. It is the first edition of this novel since Pierre Testud’s and Daniel Baruch’s own editions of the text (now out of print). This new MHRA volume therefore fills in a lacuna, and it does so authoritatively. This beautiful edition of Ingénue Saxancour is adorned by 27 figures: portraits of Rétif and his relatives or friends, illustrations from his works, and engravings of eighteenth-century Paris. The volume is indeed not only an introduction to a novel but also an invitation to Rétif's universe."’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 51, 2015, 87
- ‘Trouille presents a novel that remains as unsettling for the modern reader as it was when it was first published. It offers a valuable entry point for scholars and students alike into the dark Restivian world.’ — Gemma Tidman, Modern Language Review 112.1, January 2017, 252-53 (full text online)
Published April 2014
Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister
Edited by Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge and Mikhail Krutikov
Studies In Yiddish 12
- ‘I’ve often hoped that a collection would come out that would help me grapple with this mysterious individual and his extraordinary yet often enigmatic writings, and so I was pleased to read this excellent new collection... All of the chapters in this book offer important new insights into Der Nister the man and the artist.’ — Leah Garrett, Slavic Review 74.2, Summer 2015, 423-24
- ‘A very welcome addition to the scarce literature on Soviet Yiddish writer Pinkhas Kahanovitsh (1884–1950)... Fifteen years prior to his arrest, Der Nister wrote that 'history will judge us by our construction work: how our regime was built, on what kind of underlying moral foundations, and in what kind of political and cultural-customary forms it was shaped'. For an author who wished to remain 'hidden' on the sidelines of political life, the wide range of articles exhibited in this collection attest to how the author himself would have wanted his literary 'construction work' to be judged.’ — Naya Lekht, Slavic and East European Journal 59.2, Summer 2015, 325-27
Richardson and the Philosophes
James Fowler
Legenda (General Series)
- ‘James Fowler aims to restore Richardson to his proper place in an Enlightenment that resisted stratification along na- tional lines, and one in which Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment ideals inter- sected productively to engender the ideological dynamism we associate with the second half of the eighteenth century... Fowler initiates an important conversation about Richardson’s influence on the Continent.’ — Hans Nazar, French Studies 69.2, April 2015, 245
- ‘The strength of Fowler’s study is found in his examination of a debate that perplexed Christians and deists alike (and with which atheists, too, had to engage): the role of Providence in conducting human affairs (or not) and the subsequent question of whether justice is to be achieved in this world or the next.’ — Karen Lacey-Holder, Modern Language Review 110.3, July 2015, 785-86 (full text online)
- ‘The book is the most sustained examination to date of why Richardson, ‘a ‘‘counter-Enlightenment’’ writer’ who ‘claimed to write religious novels in order to counter anti-Christian tendencies in Britain’, should find such a sincere, serious, and even emulative audience in a generation of French intellectuals who ‘almost by definition, saw revealed religion as a source of prejudice and superstition’.’ — James Smith, The Year's Work in English Studies 95.1, 2016, 655-56
Walter Pater: Imaginary Portraits
Edited by Lene Østermark-Johansen
Critical Texts 35 / Jewelled Tortoise 1
- ‘Long out of print, Imaginary Portraits has finally found a worthy home in print, thanks to what Pater might have characterized as Østermark-Johansen’s ‘minute and scrupulous’ lapidary care.’ — Kit Andrews, Modern Language Review 111.3, 2016, 861-63 (full text online)
- ‘It makes the portraits accessible through the lucid, highly original, and perceptive critical introductions and the useful, often necessary annotations. This is an essential text for students of Pater and Aestheticism.’ — David Riede, Pater Newsletter 65, 2014, 92
- ‘"[Østermark-Johansen] combines an encyclopedic knowledge of Pater's influences and allusions, and an astute understanding of his works and life, with enviable lightness of touch."’ — Kate Hext, Times Literary Supplement 8 August 2014, 11
- ‘The annotations are perhaps the most significant contribution this collection will make, as Pater’s highly allusive prose poses difficulties even to trained scholars – there is nothing close to its combination of comprehensiveness and critical apparatus on the market right now.’ — Matthew Potolsky, Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 24, 2015, 112
- ‘Lene Østermark-Johansen’s magisterial new edition ... offering incisive critical and historical contexts for the individual texts.’ — James Eli Adams, English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 59, 2016, 105-08
- ‘Remarkable value and puts the exorbitant prices charged by some other publishers of textual editions to shame.’ — William Baker, The Year's Work in English Studies 95.1, 2016, 1472
- ‘This invaluable edition will hopefully bring some hitherto neglected texts of the Pater canon to a wider readership including undergraduates, especially as it comes for a very reasonable price. A definite "must-buy".’ — Bénédicte Coste, Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens 82, 2015
Published January 2014
Caroline Literature
Edited by Rory Loughnane, Andrew J. Power and Peter Sillitoe
Yearbook of English Studies 44
Narrative Structure and Philosophical Debates in Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste
Margaux Whiskin
MHRA Texts and Dissertations 95
- ‘Whiskin proves a perceptive and engaging commentator who will aid readers in their journeys through a literary world of orderly disorder.’ — Simon Davies, French Studies 68, 2014, 546-47