Search results for ""Duncan White""

'White handles hefty quantities of research effortlessly, combining multiple biographies with a broader overview of the period. His energetic, anecdote-laden prose will have you hooked all the way from Orwell to le Carré' Sunday Times, Books of the Year'Cold Warriors reads like a thriller . . . ambitious, intelligent, searching history' The TimesIn this age of 24-hour news coverage, where rallying cries are made on Twitter and wars are waged in cyberspace as much as on the ground, the idea of a novel as a weapon that can wield any power feels almost preposterous. The Cold War was a time when destruction was merely the press of a button away, but when the real battle between East and West was over the minds and hearts of their people. In this arena the pen really was mightier than the sword. This is a gripping, richly-populated history of spies and journalists, protest and propaganda, idealism and betrayal. And it is the story of how literature changed the course of the Cold War just as much as how Cold War would change the course of literature. Using hitherto classified security files and new archival research White explores the ways in which authors were harnessed by both East and West to impose maximum damage on the opposition; how writers played a pivotal role (sometimes consciously, often not) in the conflict; and how literature became something that was worth fighting and dying for. With a cast that includes George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Graham Greene, Boris Pasternak, Andrei Sinyavsky, Mary McCarthy and John le Carré, and taking the reader from Spain to America to England and to Russia, this is narrative history at its most enthralling and most pertinent - pertinent because even if on the face of it there is a huge difference between 140 characters and 100,000 words, at the heart of both is the power of stories to change the fate of nations.

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A unique and beautiful book, profusely illustrated, A Certain Slant of Light was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Prize. Duncan White's moving novel reverberates with unspoken grief. A beautifully written meditation on impermanence, in which art and human life are seen as signal flares into the darkness.

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This collection of original essays is concerned with one of the most important writers of the twentieth century: Vladimir Nabokov. The book features contributions from both well-established and new scholars, and represents the latest developments in research. The essays all address the possibility of reading Nabokov’s works as operating between categories of various kinds – whether linguistic, formal, historical or national. In doing so, they explore exciting new paradigms for approaching Nabokov’s oeuvre. The volume brings together a diverse range of critical voices from around the world, to respond to some of the most urgent questions raised about Nabokov’s work. Topics covered include the relationship between his artistic and scientific work, his influences on contemporary fiction, and the development of his aesthetics over his career. Drawing variously on archive research, alternative readings of key texts, and fresh theoretical approaches, this book injects new impetus into Nabokov studies as it continues to evolve as a discipline.

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