Christopher Bigsby

In his first novel, British scholar Christopher W.E. Bigsby provides a prequel to The Scarlet Letter, introducing readers to a younger Hester Prynne. He tells of her attempts to flee an oppressive marriage to Roger Chillingworth, her love affair with Arthur Dimmesdale, and her life in the New World. In the process, Bigsby condemns the obstacles and prejudices that strong, intelligent women faced in the 17th century, providing a powerful narrative reframing of a compelling literary character.

First published in 1985, C.W.E Bigsby examines the career and work of playwright David Mamet. Bigsby shows that Mamet is a fierce social critic, indicting an America corrupted at its core by myths of frontier individualism and competitive capitalism. Mamet has created plays whose bleak social vision and ironic metaphysics are redeemed, if at all, by the power of imagination. No American playwright before him has displayed the same sensitivity to language, detecting lyricism in the brutal incoherencies of every day speech and investing with meaning a contemporary aphasia. Few have offered dramatic metaphors of such startling and disturbing originality. Bigsby’s study is the first book to provide a thorough account of David Mamet’s life and career, as well as close analyses of individual plays.

This Spring issue of Hinterland celebrates the limitless reach of life writing. Between them, our writers explore adoption, suicide, sexual assault, the AIDS crisis, conscription, grandparents, trauma, and the enduring influence of Elizabeth Bishop. Headlining this issue we celebrate a work seminal to the genre of life writing: Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood, with a collection of exclusive-to-Hinterland pieces by Christopher Bigsby, Victor Sage and Sharon Tolaini-Sage, with a foreword by Kathryn Hughes, that illuminate and respond to the legacy of Sage’s memoir, now entering its third decade of continuous publication.

First published in 1985, C.W.E Bigsby examines the career and work of playwright David Mamet. Bigsby shows that Mamet is a fierce social critic, indicting an America corrupted at its core by myths of frontier individualism and competitive capitalism. Mamet has created plays whose bleak social vision and ironic metaphysics are redeemed, if at all, by the power of imagination. No American playwright before him has displayed the same sensitivity to language, detecting lyricism in the brutal incoherencies of every day speech and investing with meaning a contemporary aphasia. Few have offered dramatic metaphors of such startling and disturbing originality. Bigsby’s study is the first book to provide a thorough account of David Mamet’s life and career, as well as close analyses of individual plays.

The fourth in a series of books exploring the careers of 28 contemporary American playwrights, this book covers the work of Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Stephen Karam and Lucas Hnath. These award-winning playwrights deploy different dramatic strategies, even as they make their audiences complicit, acknowledging their presence, in plays which range widely in styles and approach. Christopher Bigsby interweaves critical analysis of their work with biographical information, contemporary responses and the writers’ own comments on their work, drawn from interviews.At a time when the question of identity is central in America, at both a personal and national level, how far do playwrights see this as vital to their work? Bigsby reflects on this question in the context of the work of these playwrights, asking the extent to which their identity is central or incidental to their work. He argues that Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins' work often asks to what extent race is a construct, addressing what Jacobs-Jenkins calls the ‘historical slipperiness of a concept like “blackness”’ in neighbors, An Octoroon and Appropriate, while stepping away from race in Everybody. Tarell Alvin McCraney, who is conscious that being labelled as gay or black can influence the reception of his work, nonetheless embraces both in The Brothers Size, Choir Boy, Wig Out and his Oscar-winning film Moonlight. If Stephen Karam, from a Lebanese-American family, engages with gay characters, in Speech and Debate and The Humans, this book posits that he is also interested in suffering, something of which he had personal experience. Lucas Hnath approaches identity in another way, appropriating the lives of real characters, historical and contemporary (Isaac Newton, Anna Nicole Smith, Walt Disney, Hillary and Bill Clinton and even his mother in Dana H.), inhabiting and deconstructing them. In A Doll’s House, Part 2 he appropriates the figure of Nora, presenting her identity in a newly imagined form.

In American Dramatists in the 21st Century: Opening Doors, Christopher Bigsby examines the careers of seven award-winning playwrights: David Adjmi, Julia Cho, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Will Eno, Martyna Majok, Dominique Morisseau and Anna Ziegler. In addition to covering all their plays, including several as yet unpublished, he notes their critical reception while drawing on their own commentary on their approach to writing and the business of developing a career.The writers studied come from a diverse range of racial, religious and immigrant backgrounds. Five of the seven are women. Together, they open doors on a changing theatre and a changing America, as ever concerned with identity, both personal and national.This is the third in a series of books which, together, have explored the work of twenty-four American playwrights who have emerged in the current century.

Asked to open an exhibition of photographs by the American photographer Lee Miller, Christopher Bigsby was struck by images which stared into a particular darkness, war and the cruelties it unleashed, this from a woman who had once been a fashion model and then a lover and student of the surrealist Man Ray. The war, though, changed everything, ultimately taking her across Europe and into the concentration camps. But can some truths never be captured either in images or words? The poems in this book are in part prompted by Lee Miller’s work, but also include the personal, the fanciful, and a response to the natural world.

In American Dramatists in the 21st Century: Opening Doors, Christopher Bigsby examines the careers of seven award-winning playwrights: David Adjmi, Julia Cho, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Will Eno, Martyna Majok, Dominique Morisseau and Anna Ziegler. In addition to covering all their plays, including several as yet unpublished, he notes their critical reception while drawing on their own commentary on their approach to writing and the business of developing a career.The writers studied come from a diverse range of racial, religious and immigrant backgrounds. Five of the seven are women. Together, they open doors on a changing theatre and a changing America, as ever concerned with identity, both personal and national.This is the third in a series of books which, together, have explored the work of twenty-four American playwrights who have emerged in the current century.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched.Many of the American playwrights who dominated the 20th century are no longer with us: Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Neil Simon, August Wilson and Wendy Wasserstein. A new generation, whose careers began in this century, has emerged, and done so when the theatre itself, along with the society with which it engages, was changing. Capturing the cultural shifts of 21st-century America, Staging America explores the lives and works of 8 award-winning playwrights – including Ayad Akhtar, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Young Jean Lee and Quiara Alllegría Hudes – whose backgrounds reflect the social, religious, sexual and national diversity of American society. Each chapter is devoted to a single playwright and provides an overview of their career, a description and critical evaluation of their work, as well as a sense of their reception. Drawing on primary sources, including the playwrights’ own commentaries and notes, and contemporary reviews, Christopher Bigsby enters into a dialogue with plays which are as various as the individuals who generated them. An essential read for theatre scholars and students, Staging America is a sharp and landmark study of the contemporary American playwright.

This open access book offers an account and analysis of the plays of 8 leading American playwrights whose careers began in the 21st century.Many of the American playwrights who dominated the 20th century are no longer with us: Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Neil Simon, August Wilson and Wendy Wasserstein. A new generation, whose careers began in this century, has emerged, and done so when the theatre itself, along with the society with which it engages, was changing. Capturing the cultural shifts of 21st-century America, Staging America explores the lives and works of award-winning playwrights – including Ayad Akhtar, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Young Jean Lee and Quiara Alllegría Hudes – whose backgrounds reflect the social, religious, sexual and national diversity of American society. Each chapter is devoted to a single playwright and provides an overview of their career, a description and critical evaluation of their work, as well as a sense of their reception. Drawing on primary sources, including the playwrights’ own commentaries and notes, and contemporary reviews, Christopher Bigsby enters into a dialogue with plays which are as various as the individuals who generated them. An essential read for theatre scholars and students, Staging America is a sharp and landmark study of the contemporary American playwright.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-ND licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Knowledge Unlatched.

When, in Moby Dick, Ahab disappeared, tied to his nemesis, only one man survived to tell the tale, Ishmael. The story, it appeared, had ended. But stories never really end. What happened thereafter to Ishmael, condemned, for a while, to repeat his account as if there were a lesson to be learned, by him or those to whom he repeated a tale which had a mystery at its heart? Was the white whale more than a simple fact of nature and what drove a man to pursue it as though there were a sudden insight to be unveiled? Here is a sequel to that story as Ishmael seeks to purge his memories, trying his hand at pioneering before caught up in a bloody Civil War, once more facing death, before returning to the sea and the whaling on which he believed he had turned his back. And what of Ahab and a certain white whale? There are rumours that both still sail the deep ocean, locked in that same embrace which brought about the death of all on the Pequod. After all, sometimes rumours may have the shadow of truth about them, repetition being a fundamental law of existence.Christopher Bigsby is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts. His first novel, Hester, won the McKitterick Award while Beautiful Dreamer was an American Library Association Notable Book. His biography of Arthur Miller was shortlisted for the Sheridan Morley and James Tait Black Memorial Prize in Britain and the George Freedley Award in the United States It was also a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title while a winner of the European Association for American Studies Prize.Of Hester: 'Magnificent ... Unnaturally beautiful' (The Village Voice) 'Enchantingly beautiful' (The Washington Post}Of Beautiful Dreamer: ''a powerful Faulknerian vision'' (Joyce Carol Oates) 'Stylistically brilliant and pitilessly gripping' (Louis de Berni res)

The early years of the twenty-first century saw several losses for the American theatre but also marked the emergence of a new generation of exciting playwrights. In this book, Christopher Bigsby explores the work of nine of these developing talents, and the importance of issues including race, gender and politics for their writing. Increasingly, these new figures are gaining their reputations not on Broadway but in small theatres and small towns or even abroad, bringing fresh and diverse perspectives to contemporary American drama. With a focus on female writers and on issues of personal and public identity in contemporary society, this volume investigates the styles and techniques these playwrights favour, the themes they raise, and their role in a changing America and a changing world.

The early years of the twenty-first century saw several losses for the American theatre but also marked the emergence of a new generation of exciting playwrights. In this book, Christopher Bigsby explores the work of nine of these developing talents, and the importance of issues including race, gender and politics for their writing. Increasingly, these new figures are gaining their reputations not on Broadway but in small theatres and small towns or even abroad, bringing fresh and diverse perspectives to contemporary American drama. With a focus on female writers and on issues of personal and public identity in contemporary society, this volume investigates the styles and techniques these playwrights favour, the themes they raise, and their role in a changing America and a changing world.

A New Introduction to American Studies provides a coherent portrait of American history, literature, politics, culture and society, and also deals with some of the central themes and preoccupations of American life. It will provoke students into thinking about what it actually means to study a culture. Ideals such as the commitment to liberty, equality and material progress are fully examined and new light is shed on the sometimes contradictory ways in which these ideals have informed the nation's history and culture. For introductory undergraduate courses in American Studies, American History and American Literature.

Something has happened in the world of television drama. For the last decade and a half America has assumed a dominant position. Novelists, screenwriters and journalists, who would once have had no interest in writing for television, indeed who often despised it, suddenly realised that it was where America could have a dialogue with itself. The new television drama was where writers could engage with the social and political realities of the time, interrogating the myths and values of a society moving into a new century. Familiar genres have been reinvented, from crime fiction to science fiction. This is a book as much about a changing America as about the television series which have addressed it, from The Sopranos and The Wire to The West Wing, Mad Men and Treme, in what has emerged as the second golden age of American television drama.

Something has happened in the world of television drama. For the last decade and a half America has assumed a dominant position. Novelists, screenwriters and journalists, who would once have had no interest in writing for television, indeed who often despised it, suddenly realised that it was where America could have a dialogue with itself. The new television drama was where writers could engage with the social and political realities of the time, interrogating the myths and values of a society moving into a new century. Familiar genres have been reinvented, from crime fiction to science fiction. This is a book as much about a changing America as about the television series which have addressed it, from The Sopranos and The Wire to The West Wing, Mad Men and Treme, in what has emerged as the second golden age of American television drama.

WRITERS IN CONVERSATION compiles Christopher Bigsby's interviews with the world's greatest writers from a decade of the Arthur Miller Centre's International Literary Festival at the University of East Anglia. These often candid, in-depth, witty and illuminating exchanges shine a light on the craft and profession of the working writer today.