Kirjahaku

American literature over the last four hundred years has developed distinctive qualities and traditions, partly engendered by the land itself. The rich variety of literature flourished as the land was colonised and cultivated. In this new edition Marshall Walker has updated his wide-ranging study of American literature by giving greater attention to poets from Hart Crane and e.e.Cummings to John Ashbery and A.R.Ammons and to novelists from William Burroughs and Kurt Vonnegut to John Irving. More space is given to drama, from the later works of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller to the plays of Sam Shepard and David Mamet. The special concerns of Black, Jewish and Women writers are explored as this book demonstrates that American literary history can no longer be considered largely in terms of regional dominances.

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Marshall Walker's lively and readable account of the highs and lows of Scottish literature from this important date to the present addresses the important themes of democracy, power and nationhood. Disposing of stereotypical ideas about Scotland and the Scots, this fresh approach to Scottish literature provides a critical interpretation of its distinctive style and presents the reader with an informative introduction to Scottish culture. Coverage includes the Scottish enlightenment and the world of Boswell and David Hulme to the 'Scottish Renaissance', associated with Hugh MacDiarmaid. Developments in the contemporary literary scene include John McGrath's theatre Company and the fiction and poetry of Alaistar Gray and Ian Crichton Smith. Particular attention is given to the work of Scottish women writers such as Lady Grizel Baillie and Liz Lochhead, who have been much neglected in previous literature.

When a schoolboy in Glasgow, Marshall Walker became addicted to the music of Sibelius. In 1996 he made a pilgrimage to Finland, visiting places of special significance to the composer, his birthplace in Hameenlinna, the villa 'Ainola' where he lived for over 50 years, the forests and lakes near Koli in the Karelia. Back home in New Zealand Walker began to write Sibelius a thank-you letter for a lifetime's companionship. Walker tells Sibelius how his music helped him overcome childhood ordeals in Scotland. He discovers Sibelian connections in his family, tracing the steps of his grandfather from a Sunday stroll in a Glasgow park to the Elliot Junction railway disaster of 1906 and commemorating his uncle's service on the Salonika front in WWI. The scene shifts to student days at Glasgow University, problems with God, the kindness of the Scottish conductor, Ian Whyte, and the music of Arnold Bax, Sibelius's 'son in music'. In apartheid South Africa Sibelius becomes Walker's medicine man. There's a glimpse of the composer feted in the USA and a connection between his music and the American writer, Robert Penn Warren. A child falls in love with Sibelius's Third Symphony.From New Zealand Walker sets out on the compulsive pilgrimage which prompts him to try to show how an artist can be a continuous, sustaining presence in a life. There's talk of Sibelius's music throughout the letter - a grateful junky's talk, not a critic's. 'You have taught me about Sibelius.' Osmo Vanska 'A true writer. Excellent. I must repeat, excellent.' Lygia Fagundes Telles 'Compellingly human stories in a masterly fusion of music and life'. Hugh Macdonald Marshall Walker was born and educated in Scotland where he is currently Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. He lectured in English at Glasgow University from 1965 to 1980 after a spell at Rhodes University in South Africa. From 1981 until 2006 he was Professor of English at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand with time out for visiting appearances in the USA, Poland, Germany, Italy and Brazil. His publications include The Literature of the United States of America and Scottish Literature since 1707.An occasional broadcaster on literary and musical topics for Radio New Zealand and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he introduced broadcasts of the 2005 Sydney Sibelius Festival in which Sibelius's symphonies were performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. He lives in Hamilton, New Zealand, with his Brazilian wife, the writer, Claudia Pacce.