検索キーワード： 著者 "Willa Cather" すべてのカテゴリー

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this Century of profound change for women our Atlantic neighbours produced authors of extraordinary ability that dazzled us all with a range of ideas, characters and stories of such magnificence that literature would never be the same again. Genius is written in their names.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. A new century dawns, one in which America would become pre-eminent as its industrial might and military power rose above all others. In literature too its authors tackled new forms and new ideas, they shied away from little, immersing themselves and their readers in the promise of a new Century.

Willa Cather weaves a poignant and evocative tale of pioneer life on the Nebraska plains. In My Antonia we follow Jim Burden, a young boy who moves to Nebraska to live with his grandparents, and his close bond with Ántonia Shimerda, the spirited and resilient daughter of Bohemian immigrants. As they grow up, Jim and Ántonia experience the challenges and triumphs of life on the frontier, marked by hardship, love, loss, and the indomitable strength of the human spirit.

Christmas may come but once a year but human emotions, the driving force of our characters, are with us every day. Yet, somehow these same emotions when they happen at Christmas seem amplified; we seem more tender to their touch, their words. Whether it’s a long-lost returning soldier wondering how best to return to the arms of his family without too great a risk of shock... Or a prodigal son whose taken path has driven pain into his own and others hearts… These stories reveal much about the human condition.

Christmas may come but once a year but evil, intrigue and malevolence are everyday events. Within this volume Christmas is a time when these dark forces form and coalesce to take life and liberty from people who may and who may not deserve the spin of its wheel. Some are merely evil, others have the beginnings of a conscience that displays itself in a dialogue with the devil, or perhaps only themselves. But, in this volume Christmas takes a ringside seat to the horrors of the human heart.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

In the late 1800's, Bishop Jean Marie Latour and Vicar Joseph Vaillant are assigned to travel to the newly founded territory of New Mexico in order to establish a religious diocese there. Their year-long journey exposes them to many hardships and dangers. It also brings them in contact with a variety of individuals–priests (both good and bad), poor people who live on the edge of starvation and one Kit Carson.

The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness. The sadness and often depression, the lack of will to continue may swamp us all. Unquenchable, undeniable. But loss can, after mourning, give the opportunity to reappraise the lost and how we can each move forward. In the literary world an accessible balance can be given.

Mental illness though can still carry a stigma. A case of ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, ‘or knuckling down and getting on with it’. But in more recent decades mental issues have come to be recognised as an illness, a disease rather than an affliction. We all remember horror stories of lobotomy’s and electric shock being used to ‘cure’ what society viewed as anti-social behaviour but illness, mental or physical is very real. Depression, schizophrenia, breakdown, psychosis are alarming events to have or to witness.

When we read or listen, words can have a transforming effect. Our mood can alter in the space of a few sentences from joy to sadness. And not just our mood. These words can affect us physically, they can engage our emotions and even in their sadness bring a lump to our throat and tears to our eyes. Sometimes the relief can be palpable. Our authors, from Anton Chekhov, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Katherine Mansfield and a wealth of others, are well aware of what their talents will evoke. Genius has many names.

My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia. The book’s narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for Ántonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views Ántonia’s life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, ...

In "The Song of the Lark," we follow the life of budding artist Thea Kronbog, who rises from complete obscurity in a tiny Colorado town to become a world-renowned opera singer. A fascinating look at life in the early 20th century as well as a deep dive into the life and struggles of a creative artist rising to the top of her profession, "The Song of the Lark" was universally praised for its realism and meticulous depiction of Thea's journey. One of the most important and powerful novels of the early 20th century, "The Song of the Lark" is presented here in its original and unabridged format.

The Prairie Trilogy is a series of three novels centered around life in the Midwest during the late 19th/early 20th centuries by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather. First, in "O Pioneers!," we meet Alexandra Bergson, who inherits the family farm after her father dies and leaves her to care for her three siblings. While many immigrant families are giving up their farms and moving back to the city (or to their home countries), Alexandra decides to try to tough it out on the prairie.

In O Pioneers, we meet the Bergsons, a family of farmers in the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska who have emigrated to America from Sweden. When the family patriarch dies, the running of the farm falls to the eldest daughter, Alexandra, who struggles to make the farm viable and provide for the family. Eventually, the focus turns to the romantic entanglements of Alexandra and her brother as well as touching upon the enormous difficulties of running a farm at the turn of the last century.

Seen through the eyes of a French Catholic missionary, Death Comes for the Archbishop is a tale about the development of the 19th-century American Southwest as the Indians and Spanish deal with each other and the arriving Americans.

Mujeres que reclaman su derecho a trabajar en un mundo de hombres, valientes guerreras indias, forajidas del Oeste americano, inmigrantes sin pelos en la lengua, heroínas atrapadas en tenebrosos bosques… Estas son algunas de las protagonistas de La nueva mujer: relatos de escritoras estadounidenses del siglo XIX. Las autoras elegidas por Gloria Fortún para esta antología —mujeres de vanguardia que desafiaron con la pluma y el papel las convenciones sociales— son el símbolo de los anhelos y luchas de una época que asistió al surgimiento del empoderamiento femenino.

One January day, many years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under a gray sky. The dwelling-houses were set about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in overnight, and others as if they were straying off by themselves, headed straight for the open plain. None of them had any appearance of permanence, and the howling wind blew under them as well as over them.

In this volume our authors explore the terrors of the mind rather than the horrors of reality, although with their pens the difference makes little difference. We twist this way and that as their talents shape our path towards endings of the nerve-shredding kind.

Sadness can be about so many things from places to people, from thoughts to actions. Our classic authors including Arnold Bennett, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Ivan Turgenev and many others use their pens and stories to demonstrate the many ways this feeling can take a hold of lives and its consequences.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.