Search results for ""Author Bernth Lindfors""

This volume lists the work produced on anglophone black African literature between 1997 and 1999. This bibliographic work is a continuation of the highly acclaimed earlier volumes compiled by Bernth Lindfors. Containing about 10,000 entries, some of which are annotated to identify the authors discussed, it covers books, periodical articles, papers in edited collections and selective coverage of other relevant sources.

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This book describes the "glory years" of Ira Aldridge's first Continental tour, during which he won more awards and honors, often conferred by royalty, than any other actor of his day. Ira Aldridge: Performing Shakespeare in Europe, 1852-1855, the third volume of Bernth Lindfors's award-winning biography, traces the American-born black classical actor's itinerary on his first Continental tour. Starting inBrussels and following Aldridge up the Rhine to Basel, on to Berlin and Vienna, and cities in Prussia and Hungary, Lindfors recounts the major performances and analyzes audience responses to them. Because European audiences wanted to see this "African" actor in Shakespearean roles rather than in the melodramas and farces that were popular in Britain, Aldridge concentrated almost exclusively on performing as Othello, Shylock, Macbeth, and Richard III. He performed the roles in English even when acting with local companies who spoke in German, Hungarian, or another European language. Aldridge's impressive manner of interpreting these characters won him many honors, awards, and medals, some bestowed by heads of state or by national academies. Drawing on myriad reviews, playbills, and letters, many of them penned by Aldridge himself, Lindfors examines in detail Aldridge's interpretations of these timeless characters and shows why these were Aldridge's glory years. Bernth Lindfors, professor emeritus of English and African Literatures, University of Texas at Austin, is the author of Ira Aldridge: The Early Years, 1807-1833 and Ira Aldridge: The Vagabond Years, 1833-1852, both published by the University of Rochester Press in 2011.

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This volume lists all the important work produced on anglophone black African literature between 1992 and 1996. This bibliographic work is a continuation of the earlier volumes compiled by Bernth Lindfors. Containing about 9000 entries, some of which areannotated to identify the authors discussed, it covers books, periodical articles, papers in edited collections and selective coverage of other relevant sources. Also included are a substantial number of African newspaper and magazine articles.

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Poet and anti-apartheid activist Dennis Brutus recorded a series of tapes in the 1970s which have been edited and annotated by Bernth Lindfors to give valuable insights into Brutus's life and works. Dennis Brutus (1924-2009) is known internationally as a South African poet, anti-apartheid activist and campaigner for human rights and the release of political prisoners. His literary works include Sirens Knuckles Boots (1963), Letters to Martha, and Other Poems from a South African Prison (1968), A Simple Lust (1973), and Stubborn Hope (1978). When Dennis Brutus was a Visiting Professor at The University of Texas at Austin in 1974-75, he recorded on tape a series of reflections on his life and career. In addition, he frequently responded to questions about his poetry and political activities put to him by students and faculty in formal and informal interviews that were also captured on tape. Transcripts of a selection of these tapes, as well as reprints of two interviews recorded earlier, are reproduced here in order to put on record fragments of the autobiography of a remarkable man who lived in extraordinary times and managed to leave his mark on the land and literature of South Africa. Brutus was an effective anti-apartheid campaigner who succeeded in getting South Africa excluded from the Olympics. His opposition to racial discrimination in sports led to his arrest, banning, and imprisonment on Robben Island. Upon release, he left South Africa and lived most of the rest of his life in exile, where he continued his political work and simultaneously earned an international reputation as a poet who often sang of his love for his country. The tapes are edited by Bernth Lindfors who has added an Introduction and a transcript of a 1970 interview as well as other transcripts of lectures and discussions. Bernth Lindfors is Professor Emeritus of English and African Literatures, The University of Texas at Austin, and founding editor of Research in AfricanLiteratures. He has written and edited numerous books on African literature, including Folklore in Nigerian Literature (1973), Popular Literatures in Africa (1991), Africans on Stage (1999), Early Soyinka (2008), and Early Achebe (2009).

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This final volume of Bernth Lindfors's definitive biography records the remarkable achievements and experiences of Ira Aldridge in the last years of his life, when he performed at theaters throughout Europe. Ira Aldridge The Last Years, 1855-1867, the fourth volume of Bernth Lindfors's definitive biography, places on record Aldridge's remarkable achievements and experiences in the final phase of his life, when he performed at theaters throughout Europe. His first Continental tour in 1852-1855 had been a spectacular success, and though he returned to Britain periodically afterwards, he spent much of the remainder of his career entertaining audiences in central and eastern Europe, mainly in Ukraine and Russia. His Shakespearean performances in St. Petersburg in 1858 and Moscow in 1862 were among his greatest triumphs and led to numerous appearances elsewhere in provincial cities and towns. During his forty-three years on stage in Europe, Ira Aldridge traveled more widely and won more honors, decorations, and awards than any other actor of his day. He is remembered not only as a talented thespian but also as a very visible representative of his race, someone who changed European perceptions of black people through the sheer brilliance of his artistry on stage. And by doing so, he helped to humanize the image of Africans andtheir descendants in Europe at an important transitional moment in history, when the movement to abolish slavery was gathering force and winning international acceptance. Bernth Lindfors is Professor Emeritus of English and African literatures at the University of Texas at Austin.

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