Search results for ""VIRAGO""

'Sin might be the spearhead of a new fictional genre' ANTHONY QUINN, INDEPENDENT 'The reader looks on with mingled shock and fascination ' NEW YORK TIMES'Shocking . . . unrelenting in its intensity . . . you won't be able to put it down' COSMOPOLITAN 'Though she wounded me beyond pain, I too inflicted deep hurt. Not born to murder her, still I sought to break her . . . Her name was Elizabeth Ashbridge. And I even envied her that.' A provocative novel of jealousy and betrayal between two rival sisters Ruth calls herself a malevolent creature, ruled since childhood by hatred and envy for her adopted sister, Elizabeth. She grew up in Elizabeth's shadow, always falling short of her goodness and generosity, constantly resenting her very presence in the family. As they grow old, Ruth sets out to destroy her without guilt or hesitation. Ruth will strike Elizabeth where she's most vulnerable-she will steal her husband and send her collapsing into ruin.Written in Hart's concise, striking prose, Sin is a powerful and compulsively readable exploration of hate-and the destruction and tragedy it begets. It's about a woman possessed by an obsessive envy, a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. From the author of the bestselling Damage, now takes its proper place as a Virago Modern Classic.

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In 1919, Nancy Astor became the first woman to take a seat in parliament.She was not what had been expected. Far from a virago who had suffered for the cause of female suffrage, she was already near the centre of the ruling society that had for so long resisted the political upheavals of the early twentieth century, having married into the family of one of the richest men in the world. She was not even British. She would prove to be a trailblazer and beacon for the generations of women who would follow her into Parliament.This new biography charts Nancy Astor's incredible story, from penury in the American South, to a lifestyle of the most immense riches, from the luxury of Edwardian England, through the 'Jazz Age', and on towards the Second World War: a world of great country estates, lavish town houses and the most sumptuous entertainments, peopled by the most famous and powerful names of the age. But hers was not only the life of power, glamour and easy charm: it was also defined by principles and bravery, by war and sacrifice, by love and bitter disputes. With glorious, page-turning brio, Adrian Fort has brought to life this restless, controversial American dynamo, an unforgettable woman who left a deep and lasting imprint on the political life of our nation.

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BY ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL INDIAN WRITERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'The deftness with which Attia Hosain handles the interplay of manners, class, culture and different forms of female power is gorgeously done . . .' KAMILA SHAMSIE'An extraordinary novel, with an extraordinary heroine' MONICA ALI'A masterful examination of class, culture, family and women's lives set against the backdrop of Partition' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE 'My life changed. It had been restricted by invisible barriers almost as effectively as the physically restricted lives of my aunts in the zenana. A window had opened here, a door there, a curtain had been drawn aside; but outside lay a world narrowed by one's field of vision.'Laila, orphaned daughter of a distinguished Muslim family, is brought up in her grandfather's traditional household by her aunts, who keep purdah. At fifteen she moves to the home of her 'liberal' but autocratic uncle in Lucknow. As the struggle for Independence sharpens, Laila is surrounded by relatives and university friends caught up in politics, but she is unable to commit herself to any cause: her own fight for independence is a struggle against tradition. With its stunning evocation of India, its political insight and unsentimental understanding of the human heart, Sunlight on a Broken Column is a classic of Muslim life.Attia Hosain published only two books, but her writing has influenced generations of writers. Discover Phoenix Fled, Hosain's acclaimed short-story collection, also published in Virago Modern Classics.

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Janet Frame (1924-2004) was one of New Zealand's foremost modern writers, best-known for her prizewinning novels and for the three-volume autobiography later adapted by Jane Campion into her film "An Angel at My Table". Janet Frame called poetry 'the highest form of literature because you can have no dead wood in a poem'. Its attraction is abundantly evident in her novels where her already 'poetic' prose - intensely lyrical, heavily metaphorical - is at times completely pared down to poetry. She published only one collection in her lifetime, "The Pocket Mirror" in 1967, but she never stopped writing poetry, allowing the manuscripts to accumulate in an old fibreglass bowl she'd originally used as a bath for her geese. Her second, posthumous collection "The Goose Bath" (2006) was compiled from this treasure trove, but not published outside New Zealand."Storms Will Tell" is a comprehensive selection of her beautiful and thought-provoking poems drawn from both those books. Her poems illustrate the shape of Janet Frame's life: her childhood and later years in mental hospitals blighted by mis-diagnosis of schizophrenia; her travels around the world, including her time in England; her life as a writer and return to New Zealand; and, growing older and facing illness and death. There are love poems, meditations on mortality, flashes of humour and startling imagery. And always she celebrates the power of the human imagination. Also in 2008: Virago publish "Towards Another Summer", a previously unpublished, short novel by Janet Frame (written in London in 1963), and a new edition of "An Angel at My Table".

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Outlines the key feminist debates on British women's fiction since the 'second wave' and grounds them in examples of women's writingThis book introduces you clearly and succinctly to the ways in which feminist ideas have transformed the form and content of British women's fiction and non-fiction writing. The Introduction sets out the critical background and the main feminist critical approaches to literature. This is followed by 5 chapters which outline feminist engagements with the canon, gender, the body, sexual difference and ethnicity to demonstrate the ways in which feminist ideas have affected the 'content' of women's literature. The next 5 chapters examine types of fiction writing: romance, crime, science fiction, life-writing and historical fiction, to show the effect of feminist ideas on the 'form' of women's literature.The text also provides a wide range of illuminating case studies which include: Virago Modern Classics, The Women Prize for Fiction, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'Herland', Angela Carter's 'The Passion of New Eve', Margaret Attwood's 'The Edible Woman', Lucy Ellmann's 'Sweet Desserts', Barbie dolls, French feminism and sexuality, trans identities, feminist publishing and ethnicity, black and minority ethnic women's writing, Zadie Smith's novels, Toni Morrison's 'Beloved', Eimear McBride's 'A Girl is a Half Formed Thing', Val McDermid and lesbian crime writing, Ruth Rendell and the invention of the 'whydunit', Margaret Atwood's 'Maddaddam' sci fi trilogy, Jeanette Winterson's 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit' and 'The Passion', Pat Barker's 'Regeneration' trilogy and Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up The Bodies'. Each chapter ends with a list of primary texts and recommended further reading.Key FeaturesProvides a clear overview of changing feminist debates and terms in the 20th and 21st centuriesShows the changing form of women's fiction and non-fiction during this periodAssesses the ways in which literary, political and mainstream cultures, as well as the book industry, have impacted on the work and ideas of female writersIncludes a wide range of case studies as well as recommended further reading and a list of primary texts with each chapter

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