Signs & Wonders:Essays on Literature and Culture by Marina Warner

Signs & Wonders:Essays on Literature and Culture by Marina Warner

Since the early 1970s, when Marina Warner reported from Vietnam and America, in startling essays like 'The Crushed Butterflies of War', she has been one of the most challenging, subtle and profound commentators on the culture of past and present, unravelling our webs of images, ideas and beliefs. This remarkable, resonant collection draws together essays written over twenty-five years, offering a wide-ranging retrospective of her changing ideas on literature and culture - on fiction, drama, religion, language and fairy tale. The different sections range from explorations of our taste for the miraculous, whether it be the Virgin Mary and angels, or voodoo and showers of toads, to our need for heroes and villains, from Joan of Arc to Myra Hindley. Finding unexpected links between the images of literature, art and politics she turns her attention to Caliban and the Caribbean, and to fairies, myths and magic. She listens attentively, in unexpected ways, to some of the strong voices of our time, from Lewis Carroll to Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood; she unravels our fascination with language and obscenity, and questions the way we think about our bodies and minds. Penetrating, perceptive and enlightening, Signs & Wonders is not only a book of essays, but a collection of original marvels.

Twenty-five-years' worth of miscellaneous prose pieces of various length by the acclaimed critic, essayist and novelist, author of the Booker short-listed The Lost Father and the seminal study Monuments and MaidensThis is a long retrospective and only surprising in that it is the first. The subject matter will be familiar to readers from the author's long list of previously published titles: literary criticism in cultural context with a particular focus on myths old and modern, and how they permeate the societies they spring from. The author has a well established readership and her book will no doubt be respectfully and widely reviewed in the broadsheets. She is probably also due for another round of author interviews and profile treatment in the feature pages. Not one for any serious bookseller to miss out on.

Marina Warner has an international reputation as a critic, historian and a novelist. Her recent non-fiction works include The Beast to the Blonde, No Go the Bogeyman and Fantastic Metamorphoses, while her fiction includes the novels The Lost Father (shortlisted for the Booker Prize), Indigo and The Leto Bundle, and most recently a short-story collection Murderers I Have Known.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780701173326
ISBN 10	0701173327
Title	Signs & Wonders:Essays on Literature and Culture
Author	Marina Warner
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2003-08-07
Number of pages	528
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable