Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewShelley Trower's Sound Writing is a fascinating book. Arguing that the oral and the written are not binary opposites, she traces the relationship between the two in a series of provocative, sometimes confounding chapters that are part historiography, part bibliography, part literary criticism. There's a playful quality in the work as Trower, with obvious delight, takes the reader down intellectual by-ways revealing all sorts of surprising connections between talk and text. * Linda Shopes, Oral and public historian *
Oral history's dream of letting people speak for themselves is given a fascinating new treatment in Shelley Trower's new book. Savouring rather than worrying about the interplay between writing and oral history, she illuminates an often-overlooked history of successful, poetic, and politically attuned transcribers-from Henry Mayhew to Zora Neale Hurston to Svetlana Alexievich. A final chapter on what 'sound writing' means in the age of #MeToo and online trauma advises us on our responsibilities where writing and sound have become interchangeable. This book is an excellent addition to the oral history repertoire. * Margaretta Jolly, University of Sussex *
