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Book SynopsisWomen are in a bind. In the name of consent and empowerment, they must proclaim their desires clearly and confidently. Yet sex researchers suggest that women's desire is often slow to emerge. And men are keen to insist that they know what women-and their bodies-want. Meanwhile, sexual violence abounds. How can women, in this environment, possibly know what they want? And why do we expect them to?In this elegant, searching book-spanning science and popular culture; pornography and literature; debates on Me-Too, consent and feminism-Katherine Angel challenges our assumptions about women's desire. Why, she asks, should they be expected to know their desires? And how do we take sexual violence seriously, when not knowing what we want is key to both eroticism and personhood?In today's crucial moment of renewed attention to violence and power, Angel urges that we remake our thinking about sex, pleasure, and autonomy without any illusions about perfect self-knowledge. Only then will we fulfil Michel Foucault's teasing promise, in 1976, that 'tomorrow sex will be good again'Trade ReviewThe real joy lies in the artfulness with which she uses these intimate episodes as a way of unwrapping the larger issue of what it means to be a woman, both object and subject of desire. -- Olivia Laing * The Guardian *Offers an arresting mix of diaristic experiences with her lover . . . and heady reflections from feminist thinkers like Susan Sontag and Virginia Woolf. A genre-busting nonfiction account that reads like poetry, revels in ambiguity, and intentionally defies definition, the book explores the slippery emotions of sex in fiery, collage-like scenes intended to reconcile the contradictory 'metaphors we love by.' * O Magazine *Ghostly and poetic . . . [A] thinking woman's meditation on sexual desire. * Publishers Weekly *Unconventional, deeply personal . . . often poetic. * The New Yorker *Angel embraces the impossibility of extricating fact from feeling. -- Julia Klein * The Boston Globe *One of the most insightful and articulate writers at work today. -- Lauren Elkin, author of Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, andIn this impressive and intelligent examination of the father figure, Angel expertly intersects the subject with feminism, mythology, Donald Winnicott, Brett Kavanaugh and more. Her unstinting eye and intellectual vigour make Daddy Issues an engaging interrogation. It feels utterly vital in the context of #MeToo and the political flux the world currently finds itself in. -- Sinead GleesonAn ardent, rigorous, nuanced investigation into the question of consent, at once illuminating and empowering. A truly vital guide to navigating the difficult waters of 21st century desire. -- Olivia LaingThought-provoking ... [Angel's] jargon-free prose and nuanced readings of popular culture and postmodern theory enlighten. Readers will value this lively and incisive inquiry into the sexual dynamics of the #MeToo era. * Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) *One of our most daring, exciting and nuanced writers on the complexities of female desire, pleasure, autonomy and imagination. -- Deborah Levy, author of The Cost of LivingA provocative counterargument to recent feminist dogma. ... Angel raises intriguing questions about commonly accepted assumptions, and she offers reassurance to female readers. * Kirkus Reviews *[Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again] takes a taboo topic and removes the stigma by providing facts. Its titular refrain advocates for a better tomorrow. -- Ashley Holstrom * Foreword Reviews *[Angel] writes about complex questions with such clarity and elegance, and amid all the polarised spats that currently pass for considered debate, her work is a breath of fresh air. [Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again] is a provocative but clear-sighted analysis of female sexuality in the wake of #MeToo ... I'd urge anyone who cares about sexual ethics to read it. -- Bookseller (Editor's Choice) * Caroline Sanderson *Excellent -- Charlotte Higgins * The Guardian *[A] bible of modern sexuality and consent that all men and women should be reading * Evening Standard *She is reaching towards something else: a world where desire does not have to be known and fixed in advance to protect people from violence. -- Hettie O'Brien * Guardian *Tenderly inflected and meticulously argued, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again should be required reading * New Internationalist - Five Starred Review *A clear-eyed intervention in the crossfire of post-#MeToo sexual politics * TANK Magazine *Voyeuristically fascinating ... Angel dares to suggest that consent is not sexy . we should be aiming for something more complex -- Anna Leszkiewicz * New Statesman *Offers new ways of understanding the complexity of sexual relations . fresh and provoking * The F-Word *Exquisite ... A breathtaking, brilliant invitation not to turn away from complexity and vulnerability -- Hannah Dawson, editor of The Penguin Book of Feminist WritingThis nonfiction tour-de-force is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring themes of consent, power, sex, and the Me Too movement. This is the kind of book that seeks not to create dichotomous binaries, but to complicate the narrative. -- Rachel Krantz * The Millions *Eloquent and lucid -- Celia Walden * Telegraph *Succinct and thought-provoking -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer *Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again offers readers a blend of cultural criticism and provocative theory. -- Tobias Carroll * Inside Hook *Intriguing, philosophical. -- Laura Miller * Slate *One of the smartest, most nuanced and thought-provoking books I've read about sex in the post-#MeToo era. -- Moya Crockett * Stylist *[Angel] is right - consent as a yes/no dichotomy cannot be everything we want it to be. We must recognise that language cannot say everything, especially for women, who have not historically been given the chance to shape it according to their own needs and desires. * The Arts Desk *[Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again is] a necessary contribution to the many conversations about sex and power we have all had since 2017, and Angel's prose, clear and lovely, nimbly navigates the complexities of her subject matter. -- Madeleine Watts * Bookforum *A vital and groundbreaking work that brings nuance to a thorny subject. -- Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett * Guardian *Angel has dissected much of what there is to know about consent, desire, arousal and vulnerability: the four cornerstones of sexuality. Resisting definitive and simplistic conclusions, Angel has been wide-reaching in her research -- Emily S Cooper * Irish Times *Angel not only asks key questions about what women want, but also how we can know what we want. -- Adele Walton * Dazed *

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Book SynopsisIsraeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth and documents how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights.As this book shows, Israeli universities serve as pillars of Israel's system of oppression against Palestinians. Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent. Towers of Ivory and Steel is a powerful expose of Israeli academia's ongoing and active complicity in Israel's settler-colonial project.Trade ReviewThis book lands like a grenade, detonating comfortable and long held myths about the liberalism and independence of Israel's university system. In their place, Wind's rigorous and jaw-dropping research reveals countless ways that the nation's most celebrated and storied education institutions are utterly entangled in the violent machinery of Palestinian dispossession, occupation, incarceration, surveillance, siege and military bombardment. From the development of deadly weapons to the crafting of state propaganda to the training of officers, there is no escaping the conclusion that these universities are part and parcel of the official infrastructure that has enabled Israel to systematically avoid the political solutions that are the only hope of enduring peace in the region. An explosive contribution from a brilliant young scholar. -- Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and DoppelgangerThere are no ivory towers! Maya Wind brings this truth to the light with a forensic accounting of Israeli universities and their complete implication in Israel's occupation and apartheid regime. Towers of Ivory and Steel lays bare Israeli campuses as Jewish settlements of replacement in occupied lands, the knowledge arm for security forces and the local military industry, and as sites of Palestinian intellectual suppression, all co-signed by the "liberal silence" of Israeli academics. Fearless, emphatic, and unflinching. No other work better demonstrates why higher education remains a vital site of struggle over the future of democracy, in Israel, in Palestine, and across the world. -- Davarian L. Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our CitiesThis book is a must read - meticulously researched, lucidly written, and convincingly argued. Wind deftly illuminates the myriad ways in which the university is a site of meaningful struggle, debunking the deep-seated myths that heretofore have served to normalize Israel's academic complex as it is part and parcel of the state's settler colonial projects of both occupation and apartheid that violently dominate and dispossess the Palestinian people. Towers of Ivory and Steel provides a roadmap for Israeli academics to end the institutional complicity and join the movement to remake higher education for liberation. -- J. Kehaulani Kauanui, author of Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State NationalismA devastating analysis of the extensive, insidious ways that the Israeli academy is central to the architecture of occupation, settler colonial violence, and repression of Palestinians. Through meticulous ethnographic and archival research, Wind not only gives lie to the claim that the Israeli academy is a bastion of academic freedom and vigorous debate. She provides a model for the decolonial work we must all do until there is freedom and liberation for all. -- Jessica Winegar, co-author with Lara Deeb of Anthropology's Politics: Disciplining the Middle EastDrawing on Hebrew sources, Maya Wind shatters the myth of liberal expression in Israeli universities, revealing instead how they prop up apartheid. -- Rebecca Ruth Gould * New Arab *Towers of Ivory and Steel is a paradigm-shifting book, with incredible insider reporting that provides riveting detail of how Israeli universities serve primarily as centers of military research, propaganda, and command. A must read. -- Sarah Schulman * Bookforum *Table of ContentsForeword by Nadia Abu El-HajIntroductionPart I:COMPLICITY1. Expertise of Subjugation2. Outpost Campus3. The Scholarly Security StatePart II:REPRESSION4. Epistemic Occupation5. Students Under Siege6. Academia Against LiberationEpilogueAfterword by Robin D. G. KelleyNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisBanks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock. And they don't just own financial assets.The roads we drive on; the pipes that supply our drinking water; the farmland that provides our food; energy systems for electricity and heat; hospitals, schools, and even the homes in which many of us live-all now swell asset managers' bulging investment portfolios.As the owners of more and more of the basic building blocks of everyday life, asset managers shape the lives of each and every one of us in profound and disturbing ways. In this eye-opening follow-up to Rentier Capitalism, Brett Christophers peels back the veil on ''asset manager society.''Asset managers, he shows, are unlike traditional owners of housing and other essential infrastructure. Buying and selling these life-supporting assets at a dizzying pace, the crux of their business model

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for The Millions Best Translated Book Awards for FictionLonglisted for the National Book Award for Translated LiteratureFour siblings. Two summer houses. One terrible secret. When a dispute over her parents' will grows bitter, Bergljot is drawn back into the orbit of the family she fled twenty years before. Her mother and father have decided to leave two island summer houses to her sisters, disinheriting the two eldest siblings from the most meaningful part of the estate. To outsiders, it is a quarrel about property and favouritism. But Bergljot, who has borne a horrible secret since childhood, understands the gesture as something very different-a final attempt to suppress the truth and a cruel insult to the grievously injured.Will and Testament is a lyrical meditation on trauma and memory, as well as a furious account of a woman's struggle to survive and be believed. Vigdis Hjorth's novel became a controversial literary sensation in Norway and has been translated into twenty languages.Trade ReviewHjorth parcels out the secrets with a precision worthy of Ibsen, so that the level of suspense is maintained up to the very last of the 343 pages. * Aftenposten *Vigdis Hjorth's new novel is furious and wise, trembling and stringent. Wills and Testaments examines who owns the past. This is the novel in weaponised form. * NRK *This was a novel that people could enjoy either as high literature or as a work of down-and-dirty revenge. The tabloids loved it as much as the broadsheets, and it became the bestselling novel of the year. * The Guardian *Its strong emotional truths take hold of you immediately - even before the family secret's consequences are made apparent: I dogeared page after page to mark off insights, movements, formulations. * Dagens Nyheter *The strength of the novel lies in Bergljot's convincing and continuing vulnerability, in her mixed feelings and her flaws . A clear-eyed and convincing story of a family's doomed attempt to reconcile and the limits of forgiveness. * Kirkus *Vigdis Hjorth is one of my favorite contemporary writers. -- Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?In a ruthless yet patiently delivered work, Hjorth does something that few writers achieve: Will and Testamentis both economical and overwhelming. -- Elsa Court * Financial Times *Devastating -- FriezeWill and Testament is a compulsively readable novel, one that turns questions of shame into weapons against silence. * Paris Review *Hjorth's thoughtful, drily funny, and often devastating novel will leave a deep and lasting impression on readers. * Publishers Weekly *Will and Testament is a reminder that it's easier to hide darkness than face it ... Hjorth argues cogently that conflicts and atrocities often stem from what a nation represses or denies. * Observer *Compelling ... Hjorth proves brilliant at revealing the stubborn, unredemptive quality of childhood suffering. -- Lara Feigel * Guardian *Even in the depths of family trauma, the scent of the forest, sea and meadow may still drift over the troubled cities and suburbs of Norwegian fiction. That forest may be a real place. It may also, as in Will and Testament, be a longed-for state of mind. -- Boyd Tonkin * Norwegian Arts *Hypnotic -- John Williams * New York Times Book Review *A powerfully humane novel about inheritance, trauma and the inheritance of trauma * Times Literary Supplement *Precise, contemplative, and deeply moving, it's a masterful unpacking of the tensions, secrets, and bonds that hold a family together. -- Hannah Williams * Los Angeles Review of Books *An extraordinary storyteller * LA Review of Books *Readers pining for a dose of brooding Norwegian writing in the style of Karl Ove Knausgaard may be drawn to this account of a woman's struggle to achieve reconciliation with a family that refuses to recognise she was the victim of abuse at the hands of her own father -- Ángel Gurría-Quintana * Financial Times *One of the year's gems in translation was Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund. A story of abuse, inheritance and the battle for the truth among a privileged Norwegian family, it grips like a vice while interrogating national as well as individual self-conception. * Guardian, Best Fiction of 2019 *Published to a storm of controversy in Vigdis Hjorth's native Norway in 2016, Will and Testament arrived in English this year. The novel is a meticulously paced account of a property dispute that bleeds poisonously back into the history of the narrator and the family members whose squabbling over a cabin comes to seem darkly absurd compared with the trauma she has suffered. -- Megan Nolan * New Statesman, Books of the year 2019 *Unsettling, beautifully constructed * Observer *Unspooling in a splenetic torrent of raw emotional intensity, [Will and Testament] speaks to wider issues of collective traumas that societies refuse to confront. * Morning Star *Add Vigdis Hjorth to the growing list of writers of significant autofiction, reality literature whose characters depend on recognizable people and actual situations. Like Karl Ove Knausgaard's monumental six volumes of the autobiographically inspired My Struggle and Elena Ferrante's indelible four-volume Neapolitan series (beginning with My Brilliant Friend), Hjorth's Will and Testament brilliantly examines the troubled life occasioned by recovered memories of a traumatic personal event. -- Robert Allen Papinchak * World Literature Today *A curious and very good short novel. -- Laura Waddell * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisThe World in a Grain of Sand offers a framework for reading literature from the global South that goes against the grain of dominant theories in cultural studies, especially, postcolonial theory. It critiques the valorization of the local in cultural theories typically accompanied by a rejection of universal categories - viewed as Eurocentric projections. But the privileging of the local usually amounts to an exercise in exoticization of the South. The book argues that the rejection of Eurocentric theories can be complemented by embracing another, richer and non-parochial form of universalism. Through readings of texts from India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Egypt, the book shows that the fine grained engagement with culture, the mapping of ordinary lives not just as objects but subjects of their history, is embedded in much of postcolonial literature in a radical universalism - one that is rooted in local realities, but is able to unearth in them the needs, conflicts and desires that stretch across cultures and time. It is a universalism recognized by Marx and steeped in the spirit of anti-colonialism, but hostile to any whiff of exoticism.Trade ReviewPraise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"A brave attempt to locate political violence in a milieu that neocons are averse to. It succeeds in raising questions that the establishment seeks to drown in its shrill rhetoric and shattering sounds of carpet-bombing." * New Indian Express *Praise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"The anthology aims to give the subject of terror a genealogy other than the one ascribed to it by the Bush doctrine, to examine its impacts in places other than the United States of the 21st century, but most importantly to allow us to engage with the phenomenon in the most complex, situated, historicized, and empathetic way possible. The attempt to canvas literature to make these arguments is quite unique." -- Aparna Sundar * Against The Current *Praise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"It privileges literary texts as forms of media where imaginative and empathetic dialogues can be forged with the histories of occluded and supposedly silent others." -- Amit R Baishya * North East Review *Praise for The Other Side of Terror An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia:"An attempt to represent a holistic view that is contrary to the new global understanding of terrorism with rich philosophical insights [and] an innovative way to counter the idea of methodological universalism in understanding social reality." -- Bhagat Oinam * South Asian Popular Culture *A bracing critique of postcolonial orthodoxy from a standpoint decisively to the left of it. Some books are enjoyable but not necessary; this one is both. -- Terry EagletonA bracing critique of postcolonial orthodoxy from a standpoint decisively to the left of it. Some books are enjoyable but not necessary; this one is both. -- Terry EagletonMore than three decades after its intellectual and institutional beginnings, postcolonial theory must still learn to read-and how not to read-postcolonial literature. So argues, convincingly, Nivedita Majumdar in this careful and militantly progressive new work of postcolonial literary criticism and interpretation. A theory launched by high poststructuralism and a then stylish postmodernism's cult of difference and allergy to universals trips over literary narratives that, on the contrary, have everything to do with the concrete universals inseparable from struggles against gender and class oppression. Whether, as Majumdar carefully demonstrates, these narratives (here mostly Anglo- and, refreshingly, non-Anglo-Indian) ultimately prove to be truthful reflections of such struggles and their underlying social realities or not, their genuinely critical reading presupposes a radical universalism at odds with many of the originating texts of postcolonial theory-a theory that Majumdar here goes a long way towards rectifying and redeeming. -- Neil LarsenIn crisp, honest, prose, Majumdar treats the academy's postcolonial royalty with remarkable candor in a series of sharp, often acerbic, close readings. We too often call dissent what are really acts of accommodation, she argues, and ignore the real-world fiction of the periphery - the work, say, of Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay, Mahasweta Devi, and A. Sivanandan - who take their stand not with a classless "difference" but with radical universalism. A compelling case that the darling texts of the Western awards industry (the novels of Ondaatje, Lahiri, and Neel Mukherjee) reflect troubling neo-Orientalist or neoliberal ideas. -- Timothy BrennanIn this vigorously discriminating and deeply engaged book, Professor Majumdar seeks to restore to Postcolonial Studies its pristine political purpose. Going beyond or behind the pervasive complicities of the Postcolonial with Cultural Studies, World Literature and the New Left, she argues for a more meaningful resistance based on the older certitudes of class struggle. She proposes an alternative Postcolonial canon in which the little-known Sharatchandra and Sivanandan are put forward as being more particular and therefore more universal than liberal global figures such as Tagore and Ondaatje. This return to the local, in her affirmation, is a more radical and universalist new turn. -- Harish Trivedi, University of Delhi

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Book SynopsisA GROUNDBREAKING EXPLORATION OF GENDER AND DESIRE FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING ESSAYIST AND CRITIC

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Book SynopsisSex and art, we're told, are sacred, two spheres that ought to be kept separate from the ravages of the marketplace. Yet both prop up two incredibly lucrative industries, built on the commodification of creativity and desire, authenticity and intimacy. Our reaction to this should not be moral or political outrage, nor legal regulation or denial, but rather-as Sophia Giovannitti argues here-acceptance, through which we can find a more autonomous way to live.In this searching and provocative work, drawing on cultural and political theory, the contemporary art world, and the author's own experience as a sex worker and artist trying to make a living, Giovannitti argues that if we delve into our anxieties around art and sex, we can instead find new ways to live and spaces, however small, of freedom. When there is nothing left to protect, she argues, everything is possible.Trade ReviewHighly original and unnervingly smart, Working Girl strips bare the worlds of art work and sex work, revealing unlikely parallels. In Giovannitti's informed and elegant analysis, sex and art come soaked in capitalist relations, their potential for holiness no barrier to the all-encompassing reach of commodification. Working Girl is fascinating in its specificity - the product of Giovannitti's lived experience in a particular niche of both industries - and through this comes a treatise that is both hopeful and new. -- Frankie Miren, author of The ServiceI love this book. It's fresh, exacting, and spaciously precisely unfettered. A book with a clear purpose fulfilled. Read it. -- Sarah Michelson, artistAn art object that also verbs in the most pleasurable way possible. Filled with clarity and a generous spirit, Sophia Giovannitti's Working Girl is a singular sensation you immediately feel the power of while reading. And later, as you begin to release all your outdated beliefs, you then realize Working Girl completely turned out in the best way possible: you too can be the art object that verbs -- Tourmaline, artistBetween the sex worker and art worker is a tension that defines the contemporary commodification of bodies, genders, time and desires. Working Girl documents Giovannitti's critical and creative interventions into this fraught and fascinating zone. She invites us to be more than voyeurs, and to think with her what is at stake in the art of sex and the sex of art -- McKenzie Wark, author of Capital is DeadIn Working Girl Sophia Giovannitti considers the material and metaphorical overlap between the sexual and artistic marketplaces -- Josephine Houman * Public Seminar *Giovannitti writes with candor and complexity about a life at the center of two of her greatest cultural preoccupations: sex and capitalism. -- Maggie Lange * Bustle, Most Anticipated Books Of Spring & Summer 2023 *Giovannitti mines both her personal experiences as an artist and a sex worker as well as larger political ones to traces the ways the worlds of art and sex work have in common. In doing so, she finds a way to commit to art, sex, and work on her own terms - finding freedom within the larger forces at work. -- Most Anticipated Books of May 2023 * Nylon *Giovannitti dances between memoir, art criticism, and political theory to unknot a provocative tension: how our supposedly 'sacred' fields of erotic and aesthetic experience are born out of systems of commodification. -- Jamie Hood * Vulture *[An] incisive debut memoir...Giovannitti's explorations of controversial topics are sharp and stirring, and her provocative observations will prompt debate. This deserves to be grappled with. * Publishers Weekly *In five chapters that move easily between cultural criticism, art theory, and sharply observed personal experience, Giovannitti raises fresh inquiries around fantasies of autonomy and authenticity in worlds heavily mediated by capital. * LIBER *Threading together memoir and criticism, her volume charts a journey through contemporary art addressing prostitution and pornography, the blind spots of movements like MeToo, the politicized actions of sex workers, and finding a way to live beyond labor. -- Wendy Vogel * e-flux *Working Girl suggests the appeal or even revolutionary potential of relating in such an upfront, contractual manner.a cleansing element to addressing things in such blatant terms, equity in considering one's time worth good money. -- Kate Wolf * Momus *Brilliant ... [Giovannitti's] gripping subject matter offers an accessible yet imaginative route into those intersections of sex work and the art market, from the perspective of a person with has lived experience of both. -- Rachel Ashenden * The List *Art and sex have always been intertwined, but Giovannitti thinks we're getting it all wrong. Drawing on theorists and experience, both as an artist and sex worker, she avoids easy reactions like outrage, instead rethinking how everyone can benefit from a sexy inquiry into the nature of art -- Adriana E. Ramírez, The best new books for summer 2023 * The Boston Globe *Incorporating eclectic references, from the French theory collective Tiqqun to the transgender artist Tourmaline, Working Girl is a pointillistic contemplation of labor and the varied ways we choose to contextualize and deny it. It's also a declaration of Giovannitti's confidence 'to discern for myself what is meaningful and what is bullshit' in a capitalistic landscape that shapes the most intimate parts of our lives. -- Rose Courteau * Cultured *A personal, provocative and, above all, sharply intelligent exploration of the contemporary world, and how to survive and even thrive within it. -- Eloise Hendy * Dazed *As Giovannitti expounds on the negotiations and violations that she sees in both industries, as well as glimmering moments of community, beauty, and anarchy, she draws on her own experience and carefully crafted critical lens, rather than accepting prevailing frameworks and prefabricated imaginaries. -- Cassie Packard * Brooklyn Rail *Giovannitti brings a fresh criticality ... when considering how expectations of intimacy and creativity intersect with workers' rights and autonomy within late-stage capitalist anxiety. -- Esmé Hogeveen * Frieze *Sophia's deft, precise, and intriguing in describing the everyday details of her world-and also floating thousands of feet above and seeing the whole structure move. It's one of the best things I've read recently about labor, commodification of intimacy, manufacture of fantasy, precious time on earth, the list goes on. * Purse Book *Magnetic and erudite...[Giovannitti's] intelligence is a kind of beautiful obliteration; her disdain for work and capitalism shimmers, while also proffering the profound devotion she has for art. -- Ayden LeRoux * The Los Angeles Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisBurn It Down! is a testament to what is possible when women are driven to the edge. Collecting over seventy-five manifestos from around the world, Burn It Down! is a rallying cry and a call to action. Among this quarrel- some sisterhood, you’ll find ACT UP’s Queer Nation Manifesto, Emma Goldman’s 1896 Anarchy and the Sex Question, Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto and The Combahee River Collective Statement

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Book SynopsisWelcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her past, her practice and her hatred, things start stirring themselves up around her. In a corner of Oslo a coven of witches begin cooking up some curses. A time-travelling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a death metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. And awful things happen in aspic.Jenny Hval's latest novel is a radical fusion of feminist theory and experimental horror, and a unique treatise on magic, writing and art.Trade Review"Hval's curiosity is more than simple pleasure in perversity: It's meant to defile the idea of women's bodies as pristine and plush . and reshape it into something more dreadfully real. Maybe more revolutionary than that transfiguration is her disemboweling of desire itself, unraveling it to its fearsome, primal state, and exploring the strangeness of how sexuality can alienate one from oneself; how feelings of mistrust come about when desire is new, queer and unreliable." * NPR *"Strange and lyrical . Hval's writing is surreal and rich with the grotesque banalities of human existence." * Publishers Weekly *"The themes of alienation, queerness, and the unsettling nature of desire align Hval with modern mainstays like Chris Kraus, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Maggie Nelson."-Pitchfork * Pitchfork *"Hval's surreal debut riffs on the same layered intricacies as her music, transcending simple categorisation to create a dreamy landscape both separate and a part of what we recognise as reality." * Stinging Fly *"With the release of the newly translated Paradise Rot, we can experience her artistic evolution beyond the shape of a timeline, as a series of challenging examinations melting and bending in on themselves . Listening to-or now reading-her work feels like getting jettisoned into an underwater reality that fantastically mirrors our own. It would be entirely terrifying, if exploring it weren't so much fun." * The Nation *A sensual, putrid reimagining of the original sin that explores the dynamics between two young women . [a] striking debut novel . To read Paradise Rot is to inhabit one of Hval's eerie, theory-conscious soundscapes. As in a dream, the closeness of this world to our own and its simultaneous uncanny otherness, awash with potent symbolism, leaves us looking at everything anew. It took nine years to be translated into English; I only hope we needn't wait so long for the two other books, already published in Norwegian, from this talented polymath. * Financial Times *"All I can say is with no electricity I read Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval in the dark tonight by flashlight, in one go. It will not let go of you. A surreal *and* realist gem of sensation and detail and character. Beautiful and boldly written" * Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation *Astute * Kirkus Reviews *[Girls Against God] is part fever dream, part manifesto, and part nostalgic reminiscing, with a hefty dose of feminist and queer theory for good measure. ... Chaotic yet ordered, Hval dives deeply into the process of self-discovery. [Her] language is visceral and haunting, corporal and carnal. -- Carolyn Ciesla * Booklist *This genre-bending novel from a self-described gloomy child queen blends feminism and the occult with a touch of time travel. -- Joshunda Sanders * Boston Globe *[An] incendiary genre-bending novel. ... Throughout, Hval employs a dirge-like repetition of themes (feminist rage prominent among them), which enlivens her witchy visions and sets the stage for a reincarnated Edvard Munch, on the run from the vengeful subject of his painting Puberty. Hval's fascinating exploration is not for the faint of heart, but those who like it dark will find this right up their alley. * Publishers Weekly *The atmosphere of Girls against God is on its surface bleak and unforgiving and yet beneath that impression there is a second story about the strength and solidarity of despised women. -- David Renton * Morning Star *[In] Girls Against God, Hval plunges up to her elbows in the thick, black, chthonic goo of rebellion and angst, through the quintessentially Scandinavian medium of black metal. The black-metal scene has historically been extremely sexist, but Hval reclaims it for the hateful, nihilistic teenage girls of the world with a decades-spanning tale of cinematic terrorism, political witchcraft, and satanic noise. * The A.V. Club (5 new books to read in October) *What begins with dressing as a goth and cursing at school morphs into witches' covens and fantastic demonic, cannibalistic banquets. Along the way Hval segues into the role of language (Norwegian, but also English) as a tool of both suppression and liberation, and the role of digital technology in the same. -- ArtReview * Mark Rappolt *Hval is one of the few musicians to branch out into the world of literary fiction. For Hval, it is a sideline that makes total sense, working as an extension of her atmospheric sound and descriptive, inquisitive lyrics. -- Leonie Cooper * Guardian *It is Hval's unflinching attitude to mixing genres that has brought both her essays and her bewitching, otherworldly music to critical acclaim...Hval is best in her moments of dark humour and in her writing on femininity. -- Baya Simons * Financial Times *Ambitious...[Girls Against God] has much of interest to say about the loneliness and pleasure of adolescent blasphemy, with totems of patriarchal Norwegian authority such as Knut Hamsun, Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch, and the Lutheran church singled out in the narrator's crosshairs. -- George MacBeth * Asymptote Journal *Anti-bourgeois and feminist, soaked in conviction and rage. -- Cal Revely-Calder * Telegraph *Strange and seductive and challenging and, at times, very funny ... a reminder that musician-turned-author Hval, is one of the most intriguing, provocative artists around at the moment. -- Teddy Jamieson * Herald *Girls Against God covers every angsty young woman's favourite subjects. Witchcraft, heavy metal, viscera, and hatred. It's a book in the grand tradition of Kathy Acker and women surrealists everywhere, dancing through space and time into different dimensions. -- India Lewis * The Arts Desk *An excellent, bewitching read. Jenny Hval's musical ability makes her a natural novelist - her writing often feeling like a blend of lyrics and essays. Girls Against God is a terrifying, striking fusion of the occult and female repression. -- Laura Mehers * Indiependent *In Girls Against God, Hval challenges the form and conventions of the novel once again: a vivid, seething voice narrates a series of apocalyptic events cut together with food fights, black metal shows, black magic, and surreal, witchy rituals. -- Alexandra Kleeman * Lit Hub *Hval, who is known for using body imagery to express political ideas about art, depicts cultish rituals to subvert what she sees as "the restrictive framework of our daily lives." * New Yorker *Girls Against God is compelling, surprising, and frequently inspiring. ... laced throughout with powerful urban imagery and striking turns of phrase. -- Andrea Tallarita * PopMatters *Truly transgressive -- Terri-Jane Dow * Severine *[Girls Against God] is a must-read for anyone looking for a mystifying, genre-bending read. -- Hannah May-Powers * The Tulane Hullabaloo *Riveting ... Like the French philosopher Luce Irigaray, [Hval] explores ideas of what a feminist or radical language would sound like. -- Sukhdev Sandhu * Guardian *Hval is steeped in the traditions of autofiction and the theoretical novel. ... The plot aspires toward an "escape route from structure and rhetoric," and makes room for thrilling observations on art, magic, and rebirth. -- Jenn Pelly * Pitchfork (Favourite Music Books of 2020) *If Girls Against God were an artwork, it would be a Munch - raw, dark and seething. -- Chloë Ashby * Times Literary Supplement *Readers drawn to more experimental literature will feel strangely at home in Jenny Hval's novel. For all of Girls Against God's baffling imagery and cryptic dialogue, the narrator registers as an individual longing for an existence outside the binary of light and dark, good and evil; a voice oppressed by a lifetime of being told it must be saved because it is lost, one that sees in the archetype of the witch not a heretic or a deviant but something more elemental: someone who is free. -- Zack Ravas * Zyzzyva *[Hval] pries into black metal's past to present an alternative, radical, and genuinely liberating trajectory for black metal to exist as a dissident art form. -- William Peel * Overland *Hval's writing embraces finding new ways to express thought patterns, experiences, and stories-and encourages people to let go of logic rather than look for the familiar markers of institutionally accepted creative writing. -- Nathania Gilson * Hazlitt *To say that Jenny Hval has an impressive creative range is an understatement ... Girls Against God is ambitious, with a plot that blends time travel, black metal, witchcraft, and film theory. -- Tobias Carroll * Tor *

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Book SynopsisExplore freedom, power, and the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century with two extraordinary thinkersTwo world-renowned figures of contemporary politics come together to debate alternatives for the future: José “Pepe” Mujica, former President of Uruguay and an ex-guerrilla who acquired an international following for his message of sustainability and common sense, and Noam Chomsky, who revolutionized linguistics and has become a beacon for radical thinking around the world. From the meeting of these peerless figures emerge reflections on the major global issues of our time: climate change, corruption, populism, the crisis of capitalism, and the logic of the market economy, among many others. Speaking especially to younger generations who inherited an unstable world, Chomsky and Mujica emphasize the values required to survive the challenges of the twenty-first century and to build a new world: democracy, freedom, humility, and friendship. Brought together by Mexican activist Saúl Alvídrez, Chomsky and Mujica offer a wise and passionate guide to salvaging the future.

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Book Synopsis"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex."Outrageous and violent, SCUM Manifesto was widely lambasted when it first appeared in 1968. Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published the book just before she became a notorious household name and was confined to a mental institution. But for all its vitriol, it is impossible to dismiss as the mere rantings of a lesbian lunatic. In fact, the work has proved prescient, not only as a radical feminist analysis light years ahead of its time-predicting artificial insemination, ATMs, a feminist uprising against underrepresentation in the arts-but also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman.In this edition, philosopher Avital Ronell's introduction reconsiders the evocative exuberance of this infamous text.Trade ReviewThe SCUM Manifesto is a document of profound vulnerability, written in a voice of profound empowerment. It's a brutal call to arms, written by a woman in a world of hurt. This tension between powerlessness and power makes it an enduring piece of writing. Never have the personal and the political been so mercilessly zipped together, like little steel teeth. -- Claire Dederer * Nation *Solanas is as relevant today as she was in the 1960s, because nothing much has changed for women. -- Julie Bindel * Spectator *You either happen to think this is a work of unadulterated genius, or you dismiss it as the ravings of a loony psycho-bitch, not understanding that this is exactly what makes it so compelling and so charged with insight. -- Suzanne Moore * New Statesman *Valerie Solanas wrote a very angry and very precise portrait of what she considered the male to be: something between a human and an ape; an unresponsive blob only concerned with physical sensation and without the capacity for empathy or self-knowledge or intimacy, and at the same time full of hatred and jealously and shame and guilt. Her description is beautiful and on some level, I think, entirely accurate. -- Nick CaveIts nihilism is a form of utopia for Solanas, a pre-punk aesthete who fearlessly tossed out ideas that people are just now beginning to raise . As a mixture of social philosophy and fine shtick, her work has the rare virtue of seeming at the same time totally insane and totally right. * Los Angeles Times *As Solanas reminds us, revolutionary ideas don't emerge quietly from the elite stratum of a society; they often bloom from its scum. * Dissent *Articulate, angry and funny. * Guardian *Gleefully incoherent, crackling with energy. * Bookslut *

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Book SynopsisJudith Butler's new book shows how an ethic of nonviolence must be connected to a broader political struggle for social equality. Further, it argues that nonviolence is often misunderstood as a passive practice that emanates from a calm region of the soul, or as an individualist ethical relation to existing forms of power. But, in fact, nonviolence is an ethical position found in the midst of the political field. An aggressive form of nonviolence accepts that hostility is part of our psychic constitution, but values ambivalence as a way of checking the conversion of aggression into violence. One contemporary challenge to a politics of nonviolence points out that there is a difference of opinion on what counts as violence and nonviolence. The distinction between them can be mobilised in the service of ratifying the state's monopoly on violence.Considering nonviolence as an ethical problem within a political philosophy requires a critique of individualism as well as an understanding of the psychosocial dimensions of violence. Butler draws upon Foucault, Fanon, Freud, and Benjamin to consider how the interdiction against violence fails to include lives regarded as ungrievable. By considering how 'racial phantasms' inform justifications of state and administrative violence, Butler tracks how violence is often attributed to those who are most severely exposed to its lethal effects. The struggle for nonviolence is found in movements for social transformation that reframe the grievability of lives in light of social equality and whose ethical claims follow from an insight into the interdependency of life as the basis of social and political equality.Trade ReviewPraise for Frames of War:A trenchant and brilliant book. -- Mike Rowe * Utne Reader *Praise for Frames of War:It's clear that its author is still interested in stirring up trouble-academic, political and otherwise. * Bookforum *Praise for Frames of War:Judith Butler is quite simply one of the most probing, challenging, and influential thinkers of our time. -- J. M. BernsteinPraise for Frames of War:Judith Butler is the most creative and courageous social theorist writing today. Frames of War is an intellectual masterpiece that weds a new understanding of being, immersed in history, to a novel Left politics that focuses on State violence, war and resistance. -- Cornel WestPraise for Frames of War:An impressive and challenging book from one of the leading intellectuals of our time. * Diva *Praise for Precarious Life:A book that shines with the splendor of engaged thought. * Brooklyn Rail *Praise for Precarious Life:Here is a unique voice of courage and conceptual ambition that addresses public life from the perspective of psychic reality, encouraging us to acknowledge the solidarity and the suffering through which we emerge as subjects of freedom. -- Homi K. BhabhaButler's philosophical inquiry argues that it is in fact a shrewd and even aggressive collective political tactic. * New York Times *Perhaps the most influential and widely travelled feminist in the Western academy...[Butler] carefully, with assertive toughness, combats the hatred, fear and rage of those who respond violently to her continuous commitment to confronting normative patterns of coercion with calls for concerted actions of resistance. -- Lynne Segal * Times Higher Education *Judith Butler lucidly enumerates the obstacles nonviolence faces in a time when it is sorely needed. Drawing on works from Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Walter Benjamin, and Sigmund Freud, she makes a fresh new case for what a destructive obstacle our pervasive individualism is to nonviolent action - and the change possible with it. -- John Freeman * The Boston Globe *Featured in The New Yorker * The New Yorker *A text with a vision for another kind of world, one that refuses to take refuge in the comfort of moral platitudes. * Australian Book Review *Presents a hopeful philosophical position for evolving architecture competent in responding to society's issues, all the while being intertwined within it. * Architectural Review *Invaluable -- Henrietta Cullinan * Peace News *Butler's argument both builds on and contributes to a wider feminist literature concerned with developing ways of social and political living that stem from a relational understanding of the self. -- Alister Wedderburn * Radical Philosophy *

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Book SynopsisEarly in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black diaspora: in North America and Europe, in the Caribbean and on the African continent. He was not only a witness of a Pan-African and socialist internationalism; in his efforts to build mass organizations, catalyze rebellious ferment, and theorize an anti-colonial path to self-emancipation, he can be counted among its prime authors. Decolonial Marxism records such a life by collecting previously unbound essays written during the world-turning days of Black revolution. In drawing together pages where he elaborates on the nexus of race and class, offers his reflections on radical pedagogy, outlines programs for newly independent nation-states, considers the challenges of anti-colonial historiography, and produces balance sheets for a dozen wars for national liberation, this volume captures something of the range and power of Rodney's output. But it also demonstrates the unbending consistency that unites his life and work: the ongoing reinvention of living conception of Marxism, and a respect for the still untapped potential of mass self-rule.Trade ReviewIf Walter Rodney's assassins were under the impression that they could arrest the flow of his ideas by destroying his body, they could have not been more wrong ... In the context of the new resistance to global capitalism, his captivating analysis resonates more than ever before. -- Angela Davis, author of Women, Race and ClassRodney's perspective is alive, dazzling with the potential of revolution. -- Vijay Prashad, author of The Poorer Nations and Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social ResearchHighly original ... It is very rare to find a thinker in the contemporary world who is equally committed to both theory and action and perhaps Rodney is one those few who does it seamlessly and that is what marks him as unique. -- Viswesh Rammohan * Marx & Philosophy *Walter Rodney galvanised liberation by awakening radical Pan-African consciousness ... [Decolonial Marxism's] messages are consequential for our day and age. -- Donari Yahzid * Race & Class *Table of ContentsEditorial Note IntroductionPart 1: Marxist Theory and Mass Action1. A Brief Tribute to Amilcar Cabral2. Masses in Action3. Marxism and African Liberation4. Marxism as a Third World Ideology 5. Labour as a Conceptual Framework for Pan-African Studies 6. The Angolan QuestionPart 2: Development and Underdevelopment7. The Historical Roots of African Underdevelopment8. Problems of Third World Development 9. Slavery and UnderdevelopmentPart 3: Their Pedagogy and Ours10. The British Colonialist School of African Historiography and the Question of African Independence11. Education in Colonial Africa 12. Education in Africa and Contemporary TanzaniaPart 4: Building Socialism13. Tanzanian Ujamaa and Scientific Socialism14. Class Contradictions in Tanzania 15. Transition 16. Decolonization

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In February of 1917 Russia was a backward, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world's first workers' state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place?In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilisation that still resonates loudly today. China Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history.

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Book SynopsisCapitalism has transformed the world and increased our productivity, but at the cost of enormous human suffering. Our shared values equality and fairness, democracy and freedom, community and solidarity can both provide the basis for a critique of capitalism, and help to guide us towards a socialist and democratic society. In this elegant book, Erik Olin Wright has distilled decades of work into a concise and tightly argued manifesto analyzing the varieties of anti-capitalism, assessing different strategic approaches, and laying the foundations for a society dedicated to human flourishing. How to Be an Anticapitalist is an urgent and powerful argument for socialism, and a unparalleled guide to help us get there. Another world is possible.Trade Review"Deserves to be widely read. In 150-odd pages, Wright makes the case for what's wrong with capitalism, what would be better, and how to achieve it. This is the rare book that can speak to both the faithful and the unconverted. You could buy it for your skeptical uncle or your militant cousin: there is something here for the reader who needs persuading that another world is possible, and the reader who wants ideas for bringing that world into being." --Ben Tarnoff, Guardian "His ideas captured the imagination of audiences, intellectuals and activists across the globe ... Wright reinvented the meaning of socialism." --New York Times "Erik Olin Wright was a visionary writer gifted with the imagination to foresee what life after capitalism might look like, but he was much more than that. He embodied an entire way to think about capitalism and the world: clear, precise, and free of bullshit. This book, his last, should be an indispensable reference point for those who want to change the world for the better." --Bhaskar Sunkara, founder and publisher of Jacobin magazine "Erik will be remembered as the most important theorist of class in the second half of the twentieth century, and the greatest Marxist sociologist of his time." --Vivek Chibber, author of Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital "Possessed of an unlimited capacity to render his ideas precise and simple, without diluting them, Erik gave activists a vision of a collective project to which each could contribute. Given the resurgent interest in 'socialism' among a new generation of thinkers and activists, Erik had an ever-increasing following." --Michael Burawoy, from the afterword "[An] eloquent and accessible volume." --Tom Mayer, Colorado Daily

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Book SynopsisMural is the testimony of one of the most important and powerful poets of our age.Mahmoud Darwish was the unofficial laureate of Palestine. One of the greatest poets of the last half-century, his work evokes the loss of his homeland and is suffused with the pain of dispossession and exile. Here, his close friends John Berger and Rema Hammami present a beautiful new translation of two of Darwish’s later works: his long masterpiece Mural, a contemplation of his life and work written following life-threatening surgery, and his last poem, The Dice Player, which Darwish read in Ramallah a month before his death.Illustrated with original drawings by John Berger.

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Book SynopsisWhy should an artist's way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Any artwork reflects the artist's intentions, but also its times: therefore all art is political

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Book SynopsisA slyly subversive bildungsroman that presents a brutal portrait of misplaced love, by the author of lauded Nothing Can Hurt YouAfter dropping out of college, a young woman wanders through New York both invisible and vulnerable, studying the city's strong magic and longing for a man she knows will never love her back. She thinks she finds salvation when Charlotte Herzfeld, the young wife of a successful businessman, hires her as a live-in nanny to accompany the family on their trip to Berlin. As the Herzfelds begin to crack under the weight of their secrets, she finds herself in a more precarious position than ever before.

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Book SynopsisWhen the tech platforms promised a future of 'connection,' they were lying. They said their 'walled gardens' would keep us safe, but those were prison walls.The platforms locked us into their systems and made us easy pickings, ripe for extraction. Twitter, Facebook and other Big Tech platforms are hard to leave by design. They hold hostage the people we love, the communities that matter to us, the audiences and customers we rely on. The impossibility of staying connected to these people after you delete your account has nothing to do with technological limitations: it's a business strategy in service to commodifying your personal life and relationships.We can - we must - dismantle the tech platforms. In The Internet Con, Cory Doctorow explains how to seize the means of computation, by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users to leave platforms, remix thei

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Book SynopsisEvery week it seems there is a fresh scandal involving abhorrent, racist, misogynist behaviour by police officers. Yet these are the very people women are supposed to approach for help when faced with violence. And many feminists, hoping to use the criminal justice system to protect women, fight for stronger laws and longer sentences for those who harm them.Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? traces the history of British feminism’s alliances and struggles with the law and its enforcers. Drawing on the legacy of Black British feminism, Leah Cowan reminds us of the vibrant and creative alternatives envisioned by those who have long known the truth: the police aren’t feminist, and the law does not keep women safe.

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Book Synopsis'I heard our grandmother asking what we were doing.'"Say something!" she demanded, threatening to tear out our tongues. Little did she know that one of us was holding her tongue in her hand.'Deep in Brazil's neglected Bahia hinterland, two sisters find an ancient knife beneath their grandmother's bed and, momentarily mystified by its power, decide to taste its metal. The shuddering violence that follows marks their lives and binds them together forever. Heralded as a new masterpiece and the most important Brazilian novel of this century, this fascinating and gripping story about the lives of subsistence farmers in the Brazil's poorest region, three generations after the abolition of slavery in that country is at once fantastic and realist, covering themes of family, spirituality, slavery and its aftermath and political struggle.Trade Review[Brazil's] deep-rooted racial and economic injustices are laid bare in one of the most celebrated Brazilian debut novels of recent times. -- Financial Times Best Books of the Year 2023A leading voice among the Black authors who have jolted Brazil's literary establishment in recent years with imaginative and searing works that have found commercial success and critical acclaim * New York Times *One of the great novels of the year... -- João Céu e Silva * Diário de Notícias *A tour de force of injustice, tragedy, affection and human dignity reminiscent of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables or John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Vieira Júnior's book garnered top literary prizes in Portugal and Brazil. Its author has drawn comparisons to Jorge Amado, the giant of Brazilian letters who introduced the magic and plight of Afro-Brazilians to the world. * Americas Quarterly *Beautiful, powerful and moving, he presents us with great literature with a simplicity that torments * Pessoa Magazine *Vieira Junior conveys the girls' childhood confusion and wonder in hypnotic prose, and he brings the close-knit Água Negra to life. This heralds the arrival of a welcome voice. * Publishers Weekly *Among the laudable feats Vieira Junior accomplishes in this novel is the way it gradually moves from a highly specific story to one with implications for a region's entire working class. A stirring, lived-in novel of struggles both personal and societal. -- starred review * Kirkus Reviews *Crooked Plow is a powerful novel set among a Black Brazilian farming community living on the edge of existence, whose people are resilient against historical forces and the individuals who oppress them.Each of the novel's three parts has a different narrator, including Bibiana, Belonísia, and an encantada. These respective narrators lead to rich interiority; the characterizations are deep, and the novel is layered in its rendering of events. The sometimes nonchronological narration goes back in time to reveal people's secrets, building suspense as it moves toward its unsettling, fitting conclusion. * Foreword Reviews *This powerful debut novel charts the plight of Brazil's poorest farmers scrabbling for subsistence on the land their enslaved ancestors worked. Initially centered on two sisters whose lives are changed forever by a catastrophic accident, the book explores themes of generational poverty and political strife through the lens of family bonds and the eyes of a once-revered Afro-Brazilian divinity. A bestseller in Brazil and lauded with literary accolades, the engrossing story gives visibility to many who have traditionally been marginalized. -- Becky Meloan * The Washington Post *Vivid ... a saga that tells not just the story of two siblings, but the enduring dysfunction of a nation. -- Oliver Basciano * ArtReview *A compelling chronicle ... Junior provides an immensely readable account of how men and women of no property have to deal with domestic, economic and state violence and of how story and language restore the dignity such people are so often denied -- Michael Cronin * Irish Times *Magic, social realism, and deep character studies grounded in a complex community are the hallmarks of this brilliant novel from a rising voice in Brazil. -- Molly Odintz * CrimeReads *A potential heir to the great Clarice Lispector, Vieira Junior, a Bahian native, sets his first story to appear in English among poor Afro-Brazilian tenant farmers...a contemporary Brazilian masterpiece. * The Center for Fiction *Five years after it was first published, 'the most important Brazilian novel of the century so far' finally makes its English-language debut. Believe the hype. -- Patrick Rapa * The Philadelphia Inquirer *Itamar Vieira Junior offers a salt-of-the-earth paean...a compelling vision of history's downtrodden and neglected. -- Anderson Tepper * The New York Times Book Review *Crooked Plow, with artistic clarity and beauty, presents racism and the spectre of slavery as the source of strife in the lives of contemporary Quilombolas ... A provocation to those who believe that simple perseverance will save the day. -- Angel Lambo * Frieze *[Crooked Plow] is rooted ... in the voices and languages of the sertão, in the names of the animals and plants, in the oral storytelling traditions of ancient communities, in the richness of the spirit world ... An impressive first novel by an important literary voice. -- Angel Gurría-Quintana * Financial Times *Crooked Plow brings to vivid light the harsh realities of tenant farmers exploited by land owners who enrich themselves on the backs of the workers and yet still take much of what little the farmers save for themselves. The novel resonates with the "sounds of animals, of rustling leaves, of flowing water. the sound[s] of the world" - an illuminating journey in a dark time. -- K. M. Sandrick * The Historical Novel Society *Vieira brings both sisters to electric life, but Belonísia's narration is especially immediate and moving. It would be a privilege to share a tongue with her. -- Lily Meyer * NPR *Crooked Plow is a powerful and piercing book that follows the lives of two sisters, their family, and a disembodied spirit in the hinterlands of Bahia, Brazil. The sisters, who use the same voice after an accident takes the ability to speak away from one of them, grow and follow their own life paths confronting poverty, racial injustice, and the threat of being removed from the land they are profoundly attached to. -- David Martinez * Full Stop *Subtle and profound ... Crooked Plow balances a portrait of inner lives with a thoughtful treatment of grand sociohistorical forces -- Franklin Nelson * Times Literary Supplement *Crooked Plow is a tour-de-force that deeply humanizes those who bear the unspeakable burdens of colonialism in the Americas, making their gestures appear through writing that pays close attention to hidden languages of care. -- Ana Laura Malmaceda * Words Without Borders *Vieira Junior emphasizes that legacy and history are not always a curse. Rather, their persistence is a form of resistance to the dehumanization wrought upon the family by slavery's shadow...The book's success in Brazil exemplifies a trend in the country's literary landscape toward novels told from the perspective of the historically oppressed. In the past five years, Vieira Junior has been an integral member of a group of Brazilian writers who, in depicting racism and slavery through the viewpoint of racial minorities and enslaved peoples, remind us of Brazil's painful colonial history while returning agency to those who suffered under its one-sided narration. -- Jimin Kang * The Nation *Translated into more than ten languages, Crooked Plow has received wide acclaim, both for its poignant story of social struggles and for the empathetic depiction of the quilombolas' lives and traditions. Also remarkable is its vivid imagery and the colorful vocabulary typical of Brazil's Northeast. These are aptly maintained in Johnny Lorenz's excellent translation, which employs various Portuguese words and expressions present in the original, thus avoiding unwieldy footnotes or glossaries while offering English-language readers a taste for the distinct language of the Brazilian sertão. -- Cristina Pinto-Bailey * World Literature Today *Lorenz's English translation deserves credit for conveying the understated lyricism and concentrated power of Vieira Junior's storytelling ... Crooked Plow is highly readable fiction, a flowing and clear novel that wears its experimentalism lightly while exploring a long history of exploitation and resistance. -- Cate Farr * Oxonian Review *Crooked Plow is a novel that shows us, through magic and murder, how the tongue can also be a fire in the greatest sense-one that can alter lives, spark movements and claim freedoms -- Laura Garmeson * Asymptote Journal *

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Book SynopsisA new collection of stories from the cult author of Terminal Boredom.Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of the land. In this new collection, her skewed imagination distorts and enhances some of the classic concepts of science fiction and fantasy.A philandering husband receives a bestial punishment from a wife with her own secrets to keep; a music lover finds herself in a timeline both familiar and as wrong as can be; a misfit band of space pirates discover a mysterious baby among the stars; Emma, the Bovary-like character from one of Suzuki's stories in Terminal Boredom, lands herself in a bizarre romantic pickle.Wryly anarchic and deeply imaginative, Suzuki was a writer like no other. These eleven stories offer readers the opportunity to delve deeper in this singular writer's work.Trade ReviewFascinatingly skewy -- Cal Revely-Calder, best books of 2023 * Daily Telegraph *This collection showcases [Suzuki's] unique sensibility, which combined a punk aesthetic with a taste for the absurd. Her work-populated by misfits, loners, and femmes fatales alongside extraterrestrial boyfriends, intergalactic animal traffickers, and murderous teen-agers with E.S.P.-wryly blurs the boundary between earthly delinquency and otherworldly phenomena. * The New Yorker *The work and messages of Ursula K. Le Guin, the author's longer-lived contemporary, come to mind. Both Suzuki and Le Guin knew that gender roles are a matter of costume or control, affect or affliction. The terms we use to define humanity are often inhuman -- Catherine Lacey * New York Times *Brilliant and often bleak . all shot through with a camp ethos, dark humour and kitchen-sink realism . in their brio and jagged urgency, these stories have, if anything, only gained in their alarming immediacy. * Times Literary Supplement *Not only still relevant but remarkably fresh ... All these stories are brilliant * Guardian *With this impressive collection, translators Bett, David Boyd, Helen O'Horan, and Daniel Joseph bring 11 strange, transfixing, and compassionate short stories from Suzuki to English-speaking audiences. SFF fans are sure to be pleased with these slangy, accessible new translations of a master. * Publishers Weekly *Her punky irreverence remains radiant' * Frieze *These strangely prescient stories are perfect for fans of Haruki Murakami, George Saunders, and Philip K. Dick * Publishers Weekly *Extraordinary. To use one of her own coolly illuminating formulations, Suzuki is steward of a new anxiety -- China Miéville[A] riveting book of short stories by cult favorite Japanese sci-fi author Izumi Suzuki. -- Sophia June, Most Anticipated Books of 2023 * Nylon *A little speculative, a little punk, a little chaotic-all singular in their voice and vision. In this new collection, there will be cheating husbands, score settling, alternate timelines, bored teens, and space pirates...What a thrill it is to see that more of her stories are coming down the pipes. -- Most Anticipated Books of 2023 * Lit Hub *Even decades after her death, Suzuki's sci-fi fantasy worlds feel fresh. The 11 stories in this deeply unsettling and imaginative collection are sure to enthrall, disturb and entertain...A brilliant follow up. -- 15 Upcoming Releases We Can't Wait to Read in 2023 * Tokyo Weekender, *Sure to be wonderfully off-kilter and imaginative. -- Iain Maloney * Japan Times *This volume is at the top of my TBR list. -- Karla J. Strand * Ms. Magazine *This collection reaches out from the past not as a warning so much as the musings of a writer grasping for hope in a dark world. Music is woven through the book, as if Suzuki had created an accompanying playlist and is urging readers to listen along...These 11 stories surprise with wry humor and stun with the loneliness of living. * Kirkus Reviews *[Suzuki] has produced stories that delight in weaving the uncanny into everyday experiences. The stories are edgy and comic, taking a sharp, sardonic scalpel to male privilege in Japanese society ... a singular voice in Japanese literature -- Michael Cronin * Irish Times *Through stories of murderous aliens, rock-and-roll has-beens and failed witches, Suzuki knows very well that life on Earth sucks, but that doesn't stop her from constantly imagining and reimagining radical alterities. -- Marv Recinto * ArtReview Asia *Suzuki creates worlds subtly unstuck from specific times and locations ... The anxiety at the heart of her writing resonates far beyond its temporal walls. Suzuki's science fiction of the 1980s has an eerie accordance with the world as we know it today. -- Genie Harrison * Tokyo Weekender *Suzuki's work is richly steeped in science fiction, fantasy, and '70s counterculture...throughout [she] empathizes with those who feel alien, other, or ostracized-especially women and girls battling patriarchy and misogyny. -- Laura Zornosa * TIME *The continuing translation of Suzuki's work is extremely exciting, as it helps to provide a more thorough picture of a dynamic and experimental artist whose work parallels some of the most important work of the 1970s new wave, cyberpunk, and beyond. -- Nell Keep * Booklist, Starred Review *Sardonic, dystopian commentaries on the struggle to stay sane in a world that often fails to offer encouragement to do so. -- Sean Sheehan * The Prisma *This new collection brings the same gritty, surreal vibes we love. * Book Culture *These stories are deeply, persistently, wonderfully odd, full of humor, irony, heartache, and aliens. -- Patrick Rapa * The Philadelphia Inquirer *Sharp and achingly present, these eleven short stories ... present emotional and often unsettling glimpses into worlds both familiar and fantastical ... Suzuki's voice is boldly abrasive. -- Bella Creel * Asymptote Journal *Reader, beware: Suzuki's stories are soft, but they are not light. -- Nick Mamatas * The Fabulist *Blurring together magic, fantasy, and sci-fi, [Suzuki's] stories bend reality to explore themes of marriage, friendship, love, sexuality, and femininity. * The Millions *Wild and restless ... I can't think of anyone I'd rather read this spring than this countercultural icon of the Japanese literary underground. -- Angel Lambo * Frieze *A forerunner of cyberpunk ... With dark humour and cool affect, [Suzuki] presented the isolation of Japanese domestic life. -- Stephanie LaCava * Telegraph *An enjoyably acidic and darkly funny set of stories in which the novelty is not always so much in the ideas as in the consistently engaging execution. Suzuki's distinctly misanthropic voice enlivens these narratives of women whose mundane lives are altered - sometimes humorously, sometimes catastrophically - by science-fictional or supernatural occurrences. -- Dexter Palmer * The Washington Post *Translated into English decades after her death, the sci-fi stories of Izumi Suzuki gently twist modern Japan into tales of unspeakable loneliness. -- Amanda DeMarco * Spike Art Magazine *Impressively uncanny stuff. -- Tobias Carroll * Words Without Borders *[Hit Parade of Tears] challenges the concepts of fantasy and science fiction, twisting these genres into new and strange things. These tales are bleak, funny, feminist, angry, and often deeply allegorical and political. * Books & Bao *Hit Parade of Tears perfectly demonstrates Suzuki's sharp social satire, her singular voice, and her unique aesthetics ... mesmerising feminist explorations of gender, alienation and treacherous states of reality that could not have been written by anyone else -- Jonathan Thornton * Fantasy Hive *Suzuki's acidic voice permeates these 11 hazy, imaginative stories following women whose lives are altered by time travel, aliens, magic and more. * The New York Times Book Review *A collection of stories that sway between science fiction, fantasy and the intrigue of modern relationships. Expect a wild ride through affairs, space pirates and discoveries of new dimensions. -- Ellen Scott * Stylist *It's rare for a short story collection to captivate and glue your eyes to the page like a thriller. But Hit Parade of Tears ... does just that, lining up one twisted mindbender after another ... her plots beguile as they come apart and pull together like pieces of a deliberately imperfect puzzle. -- Eric Margolis * Japan Times *This newly translated collection of Izumi Suzuki's short stories, first published more than forty years ago, is jaunty, odd, violent, femme-centric, funny-but what strikes me most is its freshness." -- Young Kim * LIBER *[Hit Parade of Tears] has the could-it-be-prescience that renders good science fiction both captivating and uncanny. At the same time, it often feels so rooted in the '60s and '70s that it could have emerged from a time capsule..its prose is strong and clear, a message from the past that has, thanks to her stellar team of translators, arrived here asking to be heard. -- Lily Meyer * NPR *Two years ago, Izumi Suzuki's work was published in English for the first time in the collection Terminal Boredom. This second collection gives English language readers even more of her inventive and atmospheric stories that explore life on the outskirts using science fiction and fantasy elements. -- Patricia Thang * Book Riot *Suzuki's narratives might contain B-movie silliness. They also have the hypnotic power of a bender. Just look at the time - you've suddenly finished them all. -- Jen Vafidis * The New York Times Book Review *A unique voice in science fiction ... Suzuki's stories represent female rage at a society which refused to include her ... darkly witty -- Terri-Jane Dow * Mslexia *Packed with casual, occasional sadism ... Each story is air-locked away from the noisy links between organism and ecosystem, consumer supply chain and perpetual war ... Dreams of estrangement play out across a total lack of world. -- Alex Quicho * The White Review *[Suzuki's] characters' clever means of dealing with society give life to each story even half a century after their original publication. It is not so much the specifics of the worlds Suzuki creates as the way her characters find relief within them that makes Hit Parade of Tears translate well for a contemporary audience. -- Jenny Wu * The Harvard Review *[Hit Parade of Tears] speaks to our anxieties and fears about a world, a future, slowly slipping from our grasp -- Ian Mond * Locus Magazine *This posthumous collection of stories is absurd, with little to do with the laws of physics: Suzuki takes common sci-fi and fantasy tropes - themselves a skewer on reality - and twists them further so that what you're left with is time- and space-bending plotlines and very strange characters. * Harper's Bazaar *Both humorous and devastating ... [Suzuki's] signature sci-fi style is as moving as it is unpredictable and a must-read by anyone interested in the emotional politics of our potential future(s). -- Jennifer Brough * Lucy Writers Platform *Suzuki is a master at mixing high sci-fi concepts with melodrama. -- Ben Dreith * Maudlin House *Ominous and funny ... Suzuki's "sci-fi surreal" explores reality in the same way that surrealism did and still does in its contemporary manifestations, and critiques society as all good sci-fi does. -- Vik Shirley * Firmament Magazine *Izumi takes her insincerity to depths unimaginable, from where it floats up as alien, tampered, and wholly disorienting. -- Shahriar Shaams * The Daily Star (Bangladesh) *

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Book SynopsisWhat if we could do better than the family?We need to talk about the family. For those who are lucky, families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: from abandonment and neglect, to abuse and violence. Nobody is more likely to harm you than your family.Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting. It could be otherwise: in this urgent, incisive polemic, leading feminist critic Sophie Lewis makes the case for family abolition.Abolish the Family traces the history of family abolitionist demands, beginning with nineteenth century utopian socialist and sex radical Charles Fourier, the Communist Manifesto and early-twentieth century Russian family abolitionist Alexandra Kollontai. Turning her attention to the 1960s, Lewis reminds us of the anti-family politics of radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone and the gay liberationists, a tradition she traces to the queer marxists bringing family abolition to the twenty-first century. This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities, and insists: only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after.Trade ReviewSharp, engaging, and bursting with intellectual energy, Abolish the Family is a triumph. Whether you come to this book as a critic of The Family or as its most ardent supporter, you're sure to find something within its pages to move, challenge, or provoke you. It's a joy to read, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. -- Helen HesterI am consistently dazzled by Sophie Lewis's work, which is both intellectually capacious and heart-expanding. Abolish the Family is a liberatory demand and a world-making project proposed here with revolutionary love and inimitable style. Without fail, Lewis clarifies, disrupts and inspires. -- Natasha Lennard, author of Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist LifeThe idea of family abolition tends to provoke skeptical reactions: Can't families be a source of solidarity? Without families, who would we count on when things get tough? Shouldn't we protect vulnerable families, ostracized families, separated families? Sophie Lewis faces up to the hard questions without flinching, while ultimately steering us towards different ones: How else could we live, and who else could we be? Abolish the Family is a rigorously utopian, radically compassionate, unapologetically revolutionary manifesto, by equal parts thrilling and sobering. We all deserve better than the family, Lewis argues, and it's up to all of us to build new forms of solidarity and care that reach beyond biology or even kin, even if we don't know quite what they'll look like. Abolish the Family will make you want to find out. -- Alyssa BattistoniSophie Lewis once again shines forth as one of the boldest thinkers of our current moment with this highly anticipated sequel to her groundbreaking Full Surrogacy Now. How might we understand caring, sharing, and loving outside the concept of kinship? In this energizing little book - part history and critical analysis, part manifesto - Lewis helps us understand family abolition as world-making rather than as a subtraction of infrastructure, and she does so with remarkable clarity, precision, and wit. -- Sianne Ngai, author of Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist FormWhat would it be like to imagine a communism not just of wealth but also of care, love and belonging? Where the full range of human needs are met without depending on the fragile bubble of the nuclear family? That institution we are all supposed to believe will be there for us - even though so many books and films detail all the ways in which it fails. This is the difficult yet important terrain where Sophie Lewis ventures. Abolish the Family is a short, sharp shock to our assumptions about the good life and how to achieve it. -- McKenzie WarkIn her writing, Lewis shows us the kind of feminist care that is within our reach and the intellectual work we must do to actualise it. Generous, charged and always underpinned by a comradely orientation to its reader, Abolish the Family traverses historical and contemporary arguments for unmaking the bourgeois family and methodically interrogates the idea that it is an unshakeable, ubiquitous institution that must be protected at all costs. Lewis draws on a number of radical political genealogies to say "no" - the nuclear family is a deficient provider of care and resource, a conceptual footstool for the racist nation-state and its many border regimes, a hotbed of gendered exploitation and violence...there are other possibilities! Let's embrace them together! -- Lola OlufemiSophie Lewis and her expansive vision of feminism are desperately needed right now. She makes the work of undoing what 'womanhood' has come to mean look possible and irresistible. -- Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the WhoreSophie Lewis is at the top of a new generation of scholars and activists thinking the transformation of gestational labor within contemporary pharmacopornographic capitalism. Neither simply natural nor banally cultural, gestation appears as the unthought core of gender and sexual politics, and the key of a forthcoming womb revolution: trans-Marx meets mammal's politics! -- Paul B. Preciado, author of Testo JunkieA bracing invitation to think beyond an institution that immiserates so many but that, for just as many, remains a fixed point of social possibility. Sophie Lewis is, as always, sharp, bold, compassionate and fearless. -- Amia Srinivasan, author of The Right to SexSophie Lewis is at the forefront of a vital queer, trans, feminist communist movement to create an expansive field of revolutionary theory and strategy for today. Abolish the Family is an important contribution to Lewis's already discourse-shaping body of work, analyzing and seeking ways to move beyond the contradictory and complex function of families under conditions of extreme capital accumulation and capitalist crisis. A call for liberation from the privatization of domestic labor and the cruel scarcities of care under capitalism, Abolish the Family exhorts us toward something so much better than what we've got. -- Jordy Rosenbery, author of Confessions of the FoxA lively, sharp and relatively short primer on family abolition ... Lewis does not pretend to have all the answers, but makes a solid case for joining her in finding them. -- Amy Hall * New Internationalist *Sophie Lewis is our most eloquent, furious and funny critic of how the family is a terrible way to satisfy all of our desires for love, care, nourishment. -- Erin Maglaque * New Statesman *Thrilling. -- Emily Kenway * Refinery29 *A timely provocation. -- Tom Whyman * ArtReview *The manifesto I needed. -- Zakia Uddin * White Review, Best Books 2022 *Anchored in a strikingly hopeful feminist Marxism, Lewis leads the reader through a systematic, didactic introduction to the politics and possibilities of cutting ourselves loose from the constraints and impositions of the traditional patriarchal, capitalist family. -- Hanne Blank * LIBER *Lewis builds a harsh yet well-grounded portrait of familial dysfunction. This provocation stings * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisKen Livingstone is a product of the political changes that have already taken place in the Labour Party. As Leader of the Greater London Council he has provided a voice and a vision for tens of thousands of party activists and Labour supporters, in the process implementing a set of measures that indicate the possibilities of a real alternative to Thatcherism. His determined opposition on the Falklands War, subsidised public transport, Ireland, the 1984 miners strike, sexual liberation and racism has made him a far more effective spokesperson for Labour than the shadow luminaries who occupy the front benches in the House of Commons.In these fascinating conversations with Tariq Ali, the Marxist writer and activist debarred from the Labour Party by Kinnock/Hattersley, the two men discuss the future of Labour and socialist politics in Britain. What emerges is a picture of Livingstone as a formidable socialist politician and an adroit tactician, who displays a refreshing ability to

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Book SynopsisOn November 2, 1917, the British government, represented by Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, declared that they were in favor of 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.' This short note would be one of the most controversial documents of its time. A hundred years after its signing, Bernard Regan recasts the history of the Balfour Declaration as one of the major events in the story of the Middle East. Offering new insights into the imperial rivalries between Britain, Germany and the Ottomans, Regan exposes British policy in the region as part of a larger geopolitical game. Yet, even then, the course of events was not straightforward and Regan charts the debates within the British government and the Zionist movement itself on the future of Palestine. The book also provides a revealing account of life in Palestinian society at the time, paying particular attention to the responses of Palestinian civil society to the imperial machinations that threatened their way of life. Not just a history of states and policies, Regan manages to brilliantly present both a history of people under colonialism and an account of the colonizers themselves.Trade ReviewIn this major account of the Balfour Declaration, Bernard Regan's timely book sheds light on the most powerful symbol of the official British-Zionist alliance over the last century. It deserves to be widely read by those yearning for truth and reconciliation in the Middle East. -- Professor Nur Masalha, SOAS, University of LondonThis is a meticulously researched account of the background and aftermath of a transaction that launched in 1917 a malignant conflict that has poisoned the Near East and the wider international arena ever since. Bernard Regan places the Balfour Declaration in its proper context ... It is compelling essential reading to anyone who wishes to understand the roots of one of our world's most dangerous potential explosion spots. -- Moshé Machover, author of Israelis and PalestiniansMost have heard of the Balfour Declaration, without fully appreciating its history and consequences. With this meticulous and insightful study, we have a fascinating and timely guide to British colonial policy in Palestine, and its devastating impacts for the Palestinian people to this day -- Karma Nabulsi, Oxford UniversityAnother good addition to the library exploring the origins of our current Middle East problems. * Palestine Chronicle *

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Book SynopsisWith the rise of coal power, the producers who oversaw its development acquired the ability to shut down energy systems, a threat they used to build the first mass democracies. Oil offered the West an alternative, and with it came a new form of politics. Oil created a denatured political life the central object of which-the economy-appeared capable of infinite growth. What followed was a Western democracy dependent on an undemocratic Middle East. We now live with the consequences: an impoverished political practice, incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy - namely, the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order.For the updated edition of this classic title, Timothy Mitchell has written a new preface, reassessing its arguments in the light of recent political events.Trade ReviewA challenging, sophisticated, and important book that undermines expectations in the best kind of intellectual provocation. * Foreign Policy *It's a book that tackles a really big subject, in a sweeping but readable fashion, and after reading it, it's hard to imagine thinking about political power the same way again ... This book utterly blew me away. -- Matt Stoller * Naked Capitalism *Timothy Mitchell's Carbon Democracy examines the simultaneous rise of fossil-fuelled capitalism and mass democracy and asks very intelligent questions about the fate of democracy when oil production declines. -- Benjamin Kunkel * New Statesman *A brilliant, revisionist argument that places oil companies at the heart of 20th century history - and of the political and environmental crises we now face...If we're ever to curb such behaviour, and to regain some comprehension of our planet's preciousness, we need first to understand how it came about. Not a book for the season of indulgence, this one. But one that demands to be widely shared. -- Susanna Rustin * Guardian *Carbon Democracy is a sweeping overview of the relationship between fossil fuels and political institutions from the industrial revolution to the Arab Spring, which adds layers of depth and complexity to the accounts of how resource wealth and economic development are linked. * Financial Times *This study of the basis of modern democracy over the past century connects oil-producing states of the Middle East with industrial democracies of the West. Mitchell argues that carbon democracy in the West has been based on the assumption that unlimited oil will produce endless economic growth, and he concludes that this model cannot survive the exhaustion of these fuels and associated climate change. Tim Mitchell has written a remarkable book that deserves a wide audience. -- Mahmood Mamdani, author of Good Muslim, Bad MuslimA remarkable account of the politics of oil and nation building in the Middle East. * The Herald *An insightful historical account of how changes in energy production have expanded and restricted possibilities for democratic governance. Mitchell's provocative approach is a critical intervention into the study of the politics of energy. Recommended. * Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries *

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Book SynopsisNicola Long is a few years out of a fine arts degree, listless and unenthusiastically employed in London. She begins to spend her hours at a small underfunded archive dedicated to women’s art. There she discovers one side of a correspondence beginning in 1976 and spanning a dozen years, written from one woman - a ceramics graduate, uncannily like Nicola - to a friend living a contrasting and conventionally moored life. As Nicola reads on, an acute sense of affinity turns into obsession.She abandons one job after another to make time for the archive. The litany of coincidences in the letters becomes uncanny, and Nicola’s feeling of ownership begets a growing dread: should she be afraid of where these letters are leading?

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Book SynopsisHERMAPHRODITE LOGIC is a bold examination of intersex liberation. Juliana Gleeson reveals how a movement challenged systemic medical abuses to reshape our understanding of sex. Blending philosophical insights and personal testimonies, Gleeson argues that intersex people have been harmed not just for therapeutic reasons but to ease professional and parental anxieties.

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Book SynopsisMiss Major Griffin-Gracy is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who has survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis and a world that white supremacy has built. She has shared tips with other sex workers in the nascent drag ball scene of the late 1960s, and helped found one of America's first needle exchange clinics from the back of her van. Miss Major Speaks is both document of her brilliant life-told with intimacy, warmth and an undeniable levity-and a roadmap for the challenges black, brown, queer and trans youth will face on the path to liberation today. Her incredible story of a life lived and a world survived becomes a conduit for larger questions about the riddle of collective liberation. For a younger generation, she warns about the traps of 'representation,' the politics of 'self-care,' and the frequent dead-ends of non-profit organizing; for all of us, she is a strike against those who would erase these histories of struggle. Miss Major offers something that cannot be found elsewhere: an affirmation that our vision for freedom can and must be more expansive than those on offer by mainstream institutions.Trade ReviewTo sit at Miss Major Griffin-Gracy's feet is a gift. I've experienced it firsthand, with her fixed, embracing gaze, her mischievous, generous laugh, and her sharp tongue lashing unfiltered truth without the ache to impress or perform. -- Janet Mock * Out Magazine *The extraordinary insights in this book, always punctuated by Miss Major's razor-sharp wit, allow us to understand how liberation movements for trans, queer and other routinely marginalized people can hold the most emancipatory potential for all. -- Angela Davis, author of Freedom Is a Constant StruggleMiss Major has shaped the world in countless ways from Stonewall to today by being her unruly, fabulous self, leading communities, making time, and caring for and keeping her girls going. Lucky us to live in a moment where she is radiantly shining her light unto us all through this book! -- Tourmaline, artist, writer, and filmmakerThough she has faced many struggles in her eight decades on Earth, Major's resilience, optimism, and often bawdy humor shine through...a powerful and enlightening read. -- Pax Ahimsa Gethen * Trans Writes *[Miss Major's] most vital and resonant message is around self-hood: a continual creation and a journey to be enjoyed. -- Dinyar Godrej * New Internationalist *When a figure such as Major speaks, you cannot help but eat each and every single word up. -- Tara Okeke * The Skinny *Miss Major is an icon of Black trans womanhood. -- McKenzie Wark * LIBER *Miss Major has been a crucial source of hope and support to many trans people ... In some ways, this book is a new version of the community building and emotional support that is Miss Major's life's work. -- Vic Parsons * Huck *Major has played the role of lifeline and saviour to countless trans daughters ... [Miss Major Speaks] tracks her frontline learnings from community work, sex work, and her experiences of incarceration both in prison and in mental health facilities. -- Amelia Abraham * Dazed *Miss Major speaks with such profound wisdom, highlighting the realities for Black trans women and how much the mainstream LGTBQ+ movement has left the most vulnerable behind.If there is a book to read and someone to listen and learn from, it's Miss Major. -- Elliot Page * Oprah Daily *Miss Major Speaks is part biography, part interview and is full of Miss Major spitting truths and laying it down like it is....Change-making seems possible and even easy after reading Miss Major's words. -- Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware * Xtra Magazine *Major's personality shines through unfiltered ... Her perspective has never been more pertinent. -- Felix Moore * openDemocracy *

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Book SynopsisJohn Berger, one of the world's most celebrated storytellers and writers on art, tells a personal history of art from the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves to 21st century conceptual artists. Berger presents entirely new ways of thinking about artists both canonized and obscure, from Rembrandt to Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock to Picasso. Throughout, Berger maintains the essential connection between politics, art and the wider study of culture. The result is an illuminating walk through many centuries of visual culture, from one of the contemporary world's most incisive critical voices.Trade ReviewJohn Berger's "Portraits" is among the greatest books on art I've ever read. -- Zadie Smith * New York Times *A volume whose breadth and depth bring it close to a definitive self-portrait of one of Britain's most original thinkers -- Financial TimesPerhaps the greatest living writer on art . reminds us just how insufficient most art commentary is these days . an indispensible guide to understanding art from cave painting to today's experimenters. -- Spectator [Books of the Year]In this extraordinary new book, John Berger embarks on a process of re-discovery and re-figuring of history through the visual narratives given to us by portraiture. Berger's ability for storytelling is both incisive and intriguing. He is one of the greatest writers of our time. -- Hans Ulrich Obrist, author of 'Ways of Curating'Berger's art criticism transcends its genre to become a very rare thing-literature * The Nation *Berger is a writer one demands to know more about ... an intriguing and powerful mind and talent. * New York Times *Much of his best critical prose appears in [this] chunky volume * Economist *

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Book SynopsisThis expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis. Beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as 'prize' or 'curse', Crude Capitalism uncovers the surprising ways that oil is woven into the fabric of our modern world: the rise of an American-centered global order; the breakdown of Empire and anti-colonial rebellion; contemporary finance and US dollar hegemony; debt and militarism; and the emergence of new forms of synthetic consumption. Much more than an energy source or transport fuel, oil has a foundational place in all aspects of contemporary life - no challenge to the fossil fuel industry can be effective without taking this fact seriously.Crude Capitalism maps the varied geographies of oil, including the rise of OPEC, the importance of revolutionary and Post-Soviet Russia, the crucial role of African upstream reserves, and the new petrochemical circuits that link the Middle East, China, and East Asia. The book provides an original and fine-grained empirical analysis of corporate ownership and control, including refining and petrochemicals.By exposing these structures of power and placing oil in capitalism, the book makes an essential contribution to debates around oil-dependency and the struggle for climate justice.

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Book SynopsisEllinor, a 35-year-old media consultant, has not been feeling herself; she's not been feeling much at all lately. Far beyond jaded, she picks through an old diary and fails to recognise the woman in its pages, seemingly as far away from the world around her as she's ever been. But when her coworker vanishes overnight, an unusual new task is dropped on her desk. Off she goes to meet the Norwegian Postal Workers Union, setting the ball rolling on a strange and transformative six months.This is an existential scream of a novel about loneliness (and the postal service!), written in Vigdis Hjorth's trademark spare, rhythmic and cutting style.Trade ReviewThe ordinary becomes vibrant and life-affirming in Long Live the Post Horn!, an engrossing novel about how evenhopeless battles are worth fighting. -- Eileen Gonzalez * Foreword Reviews *Quirky, unsettling. * Kirkus Reviews *Hjorth's substantive and witty novel of personal growth delivers on multiple levels. * Publishers Weekly *An emotional, philosophical read...this book is wonderful, and I would urge you to seek it out. -- Elspells BooksImmersive, original...I really would urge you to read it, to be surprised, and to maybe let it change the way you see certain things. * Elspells *A superb story about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown * The Modern Novel *Wrenching tenderness from the mouth of irony, Hjorth proves how major effects don't always come from the heavy-foot pedals. -- Lit Hub ("Most Anticipated Books of 2020") * John Freeman *Long Live the Post Horn! is a brilliant study of the mundane, full of unexpected detours and driving prose. ... Hjorth's novel ingeniously orbits the intimate stories that are possible only when a character has put words on paper and sent them through the post. -- John Freeman * New York Times Book Review *A wry and thoughtful take on contemporary life and love ... Full of gorgeous Scandi gloom and bleak truths about human relationships * Daily Mail *[In] Long Live the Post Horn!, the saga of the EU postal directive is an inspired context for a story about personal despair and political awakening. -- Brian Dillon * 4Columns *An acidic portrait of one woman's fight to save the postal service. -- Megan Evershed * The New Republic *An engaging, well-honed novel ... Hjorth's writing is both spare and, in an understated way, humorous. -- R.P. Finch * PopMatters *Hjorth holds a magnifying glass to her characters and they fry like ants under the merciless sunlight of her writing. No one of them escapes unscathed, there are no heroes or villains; what we get is a picture of life in a social democracy that is fraying at the edges. -- Charlotte Barslund * Literary Hub *Hjorth expertly interrogates feelings of inadequacy in concise paragraphs of wry prose * New Statesman *Droll and rather delightful * Monocle *A novel about the chicanery of governmental politics has no right to be this absorbing * Morning Star *A big strange wonderful paper hug of a book ... I cannot recommend it highly enough -- The Literary AddictHjorth asks us to imagine a world where those with narrative power protect the stories of the people over the interests of commerce. ... The timing was right for this book in Norway in 2012, and the timing is right for us now. A novel like Long Live the Post Horn! does not come around often enough. -- Makenna Goodman * Los Angeles Review of Books *funny, wry, insightful, and finally sincere. -- Fiona McFarlaneThe brilliance of Vigdis Hjorth is her ability to match a distinctive lack of sentimentality with a seductive and questing idealism -- Emily Stewart * Saturday Paper *Hjorth's novel is a jolting tour de force impossible to put down, gleaming with philosophical insight and tenderness in the most unexpected places. -- Denise Rose Hansen * 3:AM Magazine *Slim but fulfilling ... Hjorth's brisk, spare prose invigorates Long Live the Post Horn!, making it a captivating read. -- Robert Allen Papinchak * World Literature Today *Luminous ... Lucidly translated by Charlotte Barslund, this slight novel - a chapterless stream of consciousness interrupted by dialogue - can be read in a single sitting. -- Chloë Ashby * Times Literary Supplement *Gripping, inspiring, and politically revolutionary -- Alexandra Kleeman * Vanity Fair *Long Live the Post Horn! is an ordinary person's epic tale of how it feels to emerge from the thralldom of apathy: how one feeble movement unleashes the torrential energy of life renewed. -- Ingrid D. Rowland * New York Review of Books *Made me want to storm the barricades of Royal Mail -- Rebecca Liu * White Review *A strange and funny and psychologically incisive novel about how community can revitalise, how grassroots activism and empathy are the salves in a world made lonely and malignant by individualism -- Susannah Dickey * Big Issue *Long Live the Post Horn! is a reaffirming novel that reminds one of how sliding into depression is so seamless it barely registers as motion of any kind. -- Utkarsh Mani Tripathi * Vogue India *

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Book SynopsisWith marriage in decline, divorce on the rise and the demise of the nuclear family, it is clear that the structures of kinship in the modern West are in a state of flux.In The Metamorphoses of Kinship, the world-renowned anthropologist Maurice Godelier contextualises these developments, surveying the accumulated experience of humanity with regard to such phenomena as the organisation of lines of descent, sexuality and sexual prohibitions. In parallel, Godelier studies the evolution of Western conjugal and familial traditions from their roots in the nineteenth century to the present. The conclusion he draws is that it is never the case that a man and a woman are sufficient on their own to raise a child, and nowhere are relations of kinship or the family the keystone of society.Trade ReviewThis is a blockbuster of a book. Nothing like it has been written since Levi-Strauss's Structures e?le?mentaires de la parente? (1949) or Meyer Fortes's Kinship and the Social Order (1969). Yet in the sweep of its evidence and argument, Godelier's summa is more ambitious and far-reaching than either of these. It is at once a major intervention in the discipline of anthropology, and a work of the widest human interest ... The book is both a monument of scholarship and a gripping set of reflections on universal experience. It is certain to be read and discussed for years to come. -- Jack Goody * New Left Review *Godelier has reasserted the value of our rich tradition of discussions of kinship matters. He has also shown how the category has metamorphosed as it has drawn in new issues of pressing current importance in modern life and made his case that, far from being genuinely in decline, the study of kinship is central to our understanding of what it means to be human. -- Robert H. Barnes * Comparative Studies in Society and History *A truly monumental work -- Wendy James, University of Oxford * Times Higher Education Supplement *

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Book SynopsisBorn in Jerusalem, Ghada Karmi and her family were forced out of their home in 1948. They shared the fate of the thousands of Palestinians who, in the Nakba, were dispossessed and driven from land lived on for generations. In this moving memoir, Karmi charts their journey from Jerusalem to Golders Green, in north London, and their struggle to put down roots in alien soil. A quest for identity haunts her search for security far from home. Speaking for the vast number of people displaced worldwide, her story is a powerful exploration of the psychological pain of exile.

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Book SynopsisIn modern Britain, the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain's Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs.In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from "salt of the earth" to "scum of the earth." Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient figleaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality. Based on a wealth of original research, Chavs is a damning indictment of the media and political establishment and an illuminating, disturbing portrait of inequality and class hatred in modern Britain. This updated edition includes a new chapter exploring the causes and consequences of the UK riots in the summer of 2011.Trade Review“A passionate and well-documented denunciation of the upper-class contempt for the proles that has recently become so visible in the British class system.”—Eric Hobsbawm, Guardian“A work of passion, sympathy and moral grace.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times“A bold attempt to rewind political orthodoxies; to reintroduce class as a political variable ... It moves in and out of postwar British history with great agility, weaving together complex questions of class, culture and identity with a lightness of touch. Jones torches the political class to great effect.”—Jon Cruddas, Book of the Week, Independent“It is a timely book. The white working class seems to be the one group in society that it is still acceptable to sneer at, ridicule, even incite hatred against ... Forensically ... Jones seeks to explain how, thanks to politics, the working class has shifted from being regarded as ‘the salt of the earth to the scum of the earth.’”—Carol Midgley, Book of the Week, Times“Superb and angry.”—Polly Toynbee, Guardian“Seen in the light of the riots and the worldwide Occupy protests, his lucid analysis of a divided society appears uncannily prescient.”—Matthew Higgs, Artforum“As with all the best polemics, a luminous anger backlights his prose.”—Economist“Chavs is persuasively argued, and packed full of good reporting and useful information ... [Jones] makes an important contribution to a revivified debate about class.”—Lynsey Hanley, Guardian“A lively, well-reasoned and informative counterblast to the notion that Britain is now more or less a classless society.”—Sean O'Hagan, Observer“A trenchant exposure of our new class hatred and what lies behind it.”—John Carey, author of The Intellectuals and the Masses“The stereotyping and hatred of the working class in Britain, documented so clearly by Owen Jones in this important book, should cause all to flinch. Reflecting our high levels of inequality, the stigmatization of the working class is a serious barrier to social justice and progressive change.”—Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, authors of The Spirit Level“Eloquent and impassioned.”—Andrew Neather, Evening Standard“Jones’s analysis of the condition of the working class is very astute ... A book like this is very much needed for the American scene, where the illusion is similarly perpetuated by the Democrats that the middle-class is all that matters, that everyone can aspire to join the middle-class or is already part of it .”—Anis Shivani, Huffington Post“Everybody knows what a chav is, it seems, but no one is a chav. But then it’s a word unlike any other in current usage ... A new book, Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, by first-time author Owen Jones ... has thrown the word into the spotlight all over again.”—Carole Cadwalladr, Observer“A blinding read.”—Suzanne Moore, Guardian“[A] thought-provoking examination of a relatively new yet widespread derogatory characterization of the working class in Britain ... edifying and disquieting in equal measure.”—Publishers Weekly“A fiery reminder of how the system has failed the poor.”—Peter Hoskin, Daily Beast“Mr. Jones’s book is a cleareyed examination of the British class system, and it poses this brutal question: ‘How has hatred of working-class people become so socially acceptable?’ His timely answers combine wit, left-wing politics and outrage.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times

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Book SynopsisNeoliberalism isn't working. Austerity is forcing millions into poverty and many more into precarious work, while the left remains trapped in stagnant political practices that offer no respite.Inventing the Future is a bold new manifesto for life after capitalism. Against the confused understanding of our high-tech world by both the right and the left, this book claims that the emancipatory and future-oriented possibilities of our society can be reclaimed. Instead of running from a complex future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand a postcapitalist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work and developing technologies that expand our freedoms.This new edition includes a new chapter where they respond to their various critics.Trade ReviewA powerful book: it not only shows us how the postcapitalist world of rapidly improving technology could make us free, but it also shows us how we can organise to get there. This is a must-read. * Paul Mason, author of Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future *Inventing the Future is exactly what we need right now. With immense patience and care, it sets out a clear and compelling vision of a postcapitalist society. Equally importantly, it lays out a plausible programme which can take us from 24/7 capitalist immiseration to a world free of work. -- Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?Neoliberalism and austerity seem to reign supreme - the idea of a society not run for profit seems impossible. Or does it? The fascinating Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams argues for a radical transformation of society. -- Owen Jones * New Statesman *Inventing the Future is unapologetically a manifesto, and a much-overdue clarion call to a seriously disorganized metropolitan left to get its shit together, to start thinking - and arguing - seriously about what is to be done.It is hard to deny the persuasiveness with which the book puts forward the positive contents of a new and vigorous populism; in demanding full automation and universal basic income from the world system, they also demand the return of utopian thinking and serious organization from the left. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Srnicek and Williams demonstrate how a sustainable economic future is less a question of means than of imagination. The postcapitalist world they envision is utterly attainable, if we can remember that we have been inventing the economy all along. -- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock: When Everything Happens NowNick Srnicek and Alex Williams' project dares to propose a different way of thinking and acting. Given the fizzling of the Occupy moment, a radical rethinking of the anarchic approach is badly needed but just not happening. This book could do a lot of work in getting that rethink going. -- Doug Henwood, author of Wall StreetA conceptual launch pad for a new socialist imagination. -- Mike Davis, author of Planet of SlumsThe most important book of 2015. -- Aaron Bastani, co-founder of Novara MediaThey argue that, in the future, the workplace won't exist in anything like the form we have now, and in any case it will have very few permanent workers. Assuming this position, they ask: What would be the social vision appropriate to a jobless future? * n+1 *Inventing the Future may be the shrewdest, sanest pipe dream of a book published since the recession. -- Nathan Heller * New Yorker *

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Book SynopsisLévi-Strauss held that "the real, the symbolic and the imaginary" are three separate orders. Maurice Godelier demonstrates the contrary: the real is not separate from the symbolic and the imaginary. Godelier's book goes to the strategic heart of the social sciences, for to examine the nature and role of the imaginary and the symbolic is also to attempt to account for the basic components of all societies and ultimately of human existence. And these aspects in turn shape our social and personal identity.Trade ReviewAfter 'Marx,' 'Durkheim' and 'Weber,' after the first fifty years of ethnographic and historical exploration, after Lévi-Strauss and the next fifty years of ethnographic and historical research, what might the 'Frazer' of our times write? Maurice Godelier's gripping essay gives us an idea. Verging on a Jeremiad, drawing from predecessors near and far for a synthesis "in the grand style," The Imagined, the Imaginary and the Symbolic probes our current state of learning. In so doing it sets the conditions for posing new questions for the next generations struggling not only to know the others and the pasts but to create societies for the future. The grand synthesizer, Godelier has given us another gift for the times. -- Frederick H. Damon, Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia

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Book Synopsis**Longlisted for The International Booker Prize 2023**'To mother is to murder, or close enough', thinks Johanna, as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian. She's recently widowed and back in Oslo after a long absence as she prepares for a retrospective of her art. The subject of her work is motherhood and some of her more controversial paintings have brought about a dramatic rift between parent and child. This new proximity, after decades of acrimonious absence, set both women on edge, and before too long Johanna finds her mother stalking her thoughts, and Johanna starts stalking her mother's house.Trade ReviewHjorth delivers a gripping tale of obsession about an artist and her frayed relationship with her family. [She] keenly walks the line between Johanna's concern and mania; as Johanna's hang-ups occasionally spin out of control, they remain true to the character. This accomplished novel is hard to shake. * Publishers Weekly, starred review *In Is Mother Dead, Hjorth returns to themes of family and estrangement. Johanna, a middle-aged artist, returns to Oslo for a retrospective of her work. She attempts to reconnect with her mother, but she doesn't pick up the phone. Johanna continues to call and text her, fixating on reaching her despite surfacing memories of an unhappy childhood. She continues to stalk her mother - hiding out in her mother's building, following her, and going through her trash - resulting in a memorable story of surveillance and psychological torment. -- Emily Firetog * Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2022 *A darkly insightful examination of mother-daughter relationships that captivates with the suspense of a thriller. The novel's strength lies in its deft use of psychological analysis as it looks at this relationship through one lens after another. * Kirkus Reviews *Is Mother Dead is a Norwegian domestic thriller about the lengths to which people will go to dig up truths that others want to stay buried. * Foreword Reviews, Starred Review *Hjorth has written a fascinating tale about the Norwegian postal system and composed a best-selling work of autofiction...In her latest work to appear in English, an ex-pat artist returns to Norway to oversee a retrospective of her work and attempts to contact, and then stalks, her estranged mother * The Millions, Most Anticipated Books of 2022 *Vigdis Hjorth is a major hero of mine. When my friend Sheila Heti told me to read A House in Norway, my life was changed. I've since recommended her work to so many people, who love it just as passionately. Hjorth has tapped into the novel in a way I have not seen or experienced since Woolf, Kafka, and Bernhard. -- Makenna Goodman, author of The ShameA master of familial estrangement and obsession, Hjorth tells the story of Johanna, an artist living abroad who returns to Oslo for a retrospective of her work. After initial attempts to get in touch with her estranged mother fail, she begins stalking her, hiding out in her building and rummaging through her trash. Hjorth's piercing writing captures the torment and mania that roils under the surface of most all of us. -- Lynn Steger Strong * Los Angeles Times *Beautiful in its ability to match effect with intention and in its descriptive powers. -- Declan O'Driscoll * Irish Times *Is Mother Dead overflows with contrasts in both its structure and its language. Some sections are stark and only a line or two long; other sentences are long and winding, helping to demonstrate the narrator's conflicted perspectives on art, family, and her own fraught relationship with her relatives. [An] immersive trip into the protagonist's mind - and the difficult decisions she has to reckon with. * Words Without Borders *Hjorth captures the minds inner dialogue...with almost nauseating precision. -- Emily Bootle * New Statesman *The realities of growing up with a mother who consumed you, who poured her insecurities into her young daughter, is an experience I have never before seen so ruthlessly examined. -- Billie Walker * Polyester Zine *Writing with a rush of anxious interiority beautifully reproduced by Barslund's translation, Hjorth spins out Joanna's hopes, fears, and half-suppressed memories in obsessive and propulsive run-on sentences, full of self-reflexive questions and crushing doubt...Is Mother Dead both pulls readers into Joanna's adventure and calls on them to become more alive to their own task, their arms stretching upward for the next rung. * Asymptote Journal *[A] harrowing and propulsive novel about the strained tether between daughters and mothers...lucidly translated by Charlotte Barslund. Hjorth deftly conveys the psychological warfare of familial conflict in circuitous, searching sentences. Fragments replicate the stab of betrayal, run-ons rummage for truth amid lies. -- Naomi Huffman * The New York Times Book Review *A thorough and anxious exploration of motherhood and childhood. -- Patrick Graney * Literary Review *Hjorth has masterfully written a family drama where no reunion takes place and a thriller where no blood is shed. -- Grace Kennedy * Ploughshares *[Is Mother Dead] feels liberating. In the struggle to break free...from our abusers and our own pain, there can be, in a hand as deft as Hjorth's, an energy both creative and destructive. -- Jessa Crispin * The Telegraph *A troubling and stunningly accomplished excavation into the past. -- Catherine Taylor * Financial Times *Hjorth traverses Johanna's emotional exile, the ruthless censorship within her family's stories, and the language of art, in which the narrator takes solace. * Astra Magazine *Bizarre yet totally mesmerising. -- Ellen Peirson-Hagger * i Newspaper *Both mother and daughter are paralysed - despite their attempts to slip the bonds of their relationship, neither can escape...This kind of 'merciless intimacy' is Hjorth's natural terrain. -- Eloise Hendy * Frieze *Is Mother Dead confirms Hjorth's place as an unparalleled chronicler of the fault lines in intimate relationships. -- Leslie Camhi * 4 Columns *Covering raw and prescient themes, Is Mother Dead is a rich but unsettling read. -- Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie * Lucy Writers Platform *Brilliantly claustrophobic, this novel is a testament to the fact that, when the present becomes the past, we are only left with our own version of what happened. -- Holly Connolly * AnOther *The Norwegian novelist Hjorth is something of a specialist in mordant, exacting depictions of familial estrangement; her latest novel, translated by Charlotte Barslund, recounts the increasingly obsessive efforts by a middle-aged painter to reunite with her mother, whom she has not spoken to for decades. * The New York Times *Boldly refusing to settle for a narrative of forgiveness, Is Mother Dead is an increasingly shocking, unsettling novel. -- Lucy Scholes * Prospect *Rich and insular. -- Samir Chadha * White Review, Best Books 2022 *An absorbing study of inner turmoil ... gripping. -- Susie Mesure * Guardian *Hjorth is an intoxicating writer who manages to somehow infuse her fictional wanderings with a strong underpinning of personal truths. We feel her presence always lurking beneath Johanna. And we understand how much still remains unsaid. -- Elaine Margolin * World Literature Today *A profound, uncomfortable and ultimately beautiful exploration of the first human relationship. -- Emily Barton * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisFredric Jameson introduces here the major themes of French theory: existentialism, structuralism, poststructuralism, semiotics, feminism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. In a series of accessible lectures, Jameson places this effervescent period of thought in the context of its most significant political conjunctures, including the Liberation of Paris, the Algerian War, the uprisings of May ’68, and the creation of the EU.The philosophical debates of the period come to life through anecdotes and extended readings of work by the likes of Sartre, Beauvoir, Fanon, Barthes, Foucault, Althusser, Derrida, Deleuze, groups like Tel Quel and Cahiers du Cinéma, and contemporary thinkers such as Rancière and Badiou. Eclectic, insightful, and inspired, Jameson’s seminars provide an essential account of an intellectual moment comparable in significance to the Golden Age of Athens, historically fascinating and of persistent relevance.

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Book SynopsisHito Steyerl is one of the most celebrated artists of our time. Her work, both as an artist and a writer, has consistently challenged the political boundaries between art and technol­ogy. In this new collection of groundbreaking essays, she explores how AI, the use of large language models and the algorithmic creation of imagery transform our understanding of the world. She argues that such practices cannot be divorced from the economic and political conditions of the times.Medium Hot is a collection of scintillating meditations on the limits of art and technol­ogy: the essential handbook for the present conjuncture. The pieces here probe the man­ufacture and distribution of images in the age of AI and climate change. She asks whether art can be made not only by machines but for machines. She argues against the production of images that heat up the planet, disfranchise workers and fuel the arms trade, and questions whether such creations can even be called art.In an era of such rapid change, Steyerl does vital work investigating whether machine learning will infiltrate every aspect of our lives and what that means for the future.

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