Linden Peach

This revised new edition reviews Carter's novels in the light of recent critical developments and offers entirely new perspectives on her work. There is now extended discussion of Carter's most widely-studied novels, including The Passion of New Eve and Nights at the Circus, and discussion of the long essay The Sadeian Woman.

Virginia Woolf has emerged from recent scholarship as a less inward-looking and other-worldly writer than she was depicted for more than half a century. However, this is the first book to address the cryptographic nature of her writings about politics and history. Approaching each of her novels in turn through theoretical frameworks provided by Michel Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin and contemporary social theorists, Linden Peach argues that Woolf is a more sophisticated political thinker than has been commonly recognised, interested in historiography, engaged by the coded nature of social 'reality' and interrogating the cryptic meanings within public discourse.

This is the first book-length study of the poetry and journal writings of Gillian Clarke in their entirety; it is the first extensive examination of her work published in this century, and the first full account of how her work has developed in the course of her career as a writer and teacher. In addressing timely and highly relevant themes in Clarke’s work, which have been relatively overlooked until now, the book highlights and re-examines her importance for today’s readers. Discussing the energy, subtlety and originality of her works, the author commends Clarke as an innovative, politically-alert and scientifically and cosmologically-aware Welsh writer of global significance.

An introduction to the work of one of Wales's leading writers, highlighting his importance to contemporary critical and cultural agendas such as issues of identity, nation, environment and religious conflict.

This revised new edition reviews Carter's novels in the light of recent critical developments and offers entirely new perspectives on her work. There is now extended discussion of Carter's most widely-studied novels, including The Passion of New Eve and Nights at the Circus, and discussion of the long essay The Sadeian Woman.

This pioneering study introduces readers to key themes from animal studies, as a frame within which it examines the representation of animals and animality in the work of a range of authors. In this new approach to animal studies, the concept of a relational universe that has emerged in recent natural and physical science is argued as being central. With fresh readings of Welsh literary and non-literary publications, including the Welsh press and Welsh-language manuals, the book explores relationships among animals and between humans and animals, to approach subjects such as intelligence, sensibility and knowledge from an animal perspective. The possibility of redrawing and reclaiming a history of rural and industrial Wales is suggested according to an animal history and agenda. This innovative contribution to Welsh and animal studies illuminates fascinating and controversial subjects, including animal domestication, captivity, communication, biopsychology, human exceptionalism, zoos and farming.

This novel of speculative historical fiction tells the tale of the last victim of one of Britain's most infamous serial killers, Jack the Ripper. Mary Kelly's story unfolds through a third person narrative and an alternating contemporary narrative of a young woman vet in rural Wales who discovers she is a descendant of Mary Jane Kelly.

This book introduces the contribution of modern Welsh literature to our understanding of peace and pacifism – an important and much overlooked subject in Welsh studies. Taking a literary-historical approach to the subject, it reveals how modern Welsh writing opens up history in ways in which historical discourse alone sometimes fails to do. It argues that the concepts of peace, peacefulness and pacifism have played a broader and more complex role in Welsh life than has been recognised, primarily through an influential Welsh-language pacifist intelligentsia. The author reminds us that Welsh pacifism is distinguished from English pacifism by the Welsh language itself, its links with Welsh nationalism and by the fact that it faced challenges and pressures never encountered by English pacifism. Authors discussed in this study include Tony Curtis, George M. Ll. Davies, Pennar Davies, John Eilian, Emyr Humphreys, Glyn Jones, D. Gwenallt Jones, T. Gwynn Jones, T. E. Nicholas, Iorwerth C. Peate, Angharad Price, Ned Thomas, Lily Tobas and Waldo Williams.

This book introduces the contribution of modern Welsh literature to our understanding of peace and pacifism – an important and much overlooked subject in Welsh studies. Taking a literary-historical approach to the subject, it reveals how modern Welsh writing opens up history in ways in which historical discourse alone sometimes fails to do. It argues that the concepts of peace, peacefulness and pacifism have played a broader and more complex role in Welsh life than has been recognised, primarily through an influential Welsh-language pacifist intelligentsia. The author reminds us that Welsh pacifism is distinguished from English pacifism by the Welsh language itself, its links with Welsh nationalism and by the fact that it faced challenges and pressures never encountered by English pacifism. Authors discussed in this study include Tony Curtis, George M. Ll. Davies, Pennar Davies, John Eilian, Emyr Humphreys, Glyn Jones, D. Gwenallt Jones, T. Gwynn Jones, T. E. Nicholas, Iorwerth C. Peate, Angharad Price, Ned Thomas, Lily Tobas and Waldo Williams.

Presents a comparative study of fiction by late twentieth and twenty-first century women writers from Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This work is of interest to students interested in women's studies, gender studies, and cultural studies as well as Welsh, Irish and Celtic studies.

This essential guide offers innovative critical readings of key contemporary novels from Ireland and Northern Ireland. Linden Peach discusses texts that are representative of the richness of Irish writing during the 1980s and 1990s, and reads works by established authors alongside those by the new generation of writers. The novels examined include works by John Banville, Jennifer Johnston, Roddy Doyle, Emma Donoghue, Seamus Deane, William Trevor, Dermot Bolger, Joseph O'Connor, Patrick McCabe, Mary Morrissy, Glenn Patterson and Robert McLiam Wilson.The Contemporary Irish Novel addresses themes such as ghosts and haunting, mimicry, obedience and subversion, the relocation and reinscription of identity, the mother figure, parent-child relations, madness, masculinity, self-harm, sexuality, domestic violence, fetishism and postmodernity. Drawing on a range of critical approaches including postcolonial, gender and psychoanalytic theory, Peach explores and celebrates the diversity of Irish fiction and suggests that the boundary between literature and theory is as permeable as that between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This New Casebook provides an overview of the criticism of work by Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature, and an introduction to the key works and issues in African-American literary scholarship. It is supported by the first annotated bibliography of the different critical approaches which have been taken to Morrison's fiction. The essays provide insights into the structure, themes, language and contexts of her novels which will prove invaluable for both new readers and those already familiar with her work.

This New Casebook provides an overview of the criticism of work by Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel prize for literature, and an introduction to the key works and issues in African-American literary scholarship. It is supported by the first annotated bibliography of the different critical approaches which have been taken to Morrison's fiction. The essays provide insights into the structure, themes, language and contexts of her novels which will prove invaluable for both new readers and those already familiar with her work.

English as a Creative Art is different from previous works on either creative writing or contemporary literary criticism. It is the first book to bring the two together, demonstrating how concepts drawn from literary theory can be used to enable students to develop critical insights into their own writing. Conversely, it also aims to help students understand contemporary critical concepts and become more incisive thinkers through creative work.