Pangs Of Love And Longing

The complex relationship between psychic structures, social norms, and aesthetic representations is a challenge for every analysis of the historical manifestations of human desire. Pangs of Love and Longing: Configurations of Desire in Premodern Literature sets out to provide a deeper understanding of this relation by an assessment of linguistic and artistic configurations of desire in European literature from Antiquity to the Early Modern period. The aim is to explore historic continuities and ruptures in attitudes towards sexuality, pleasures and bodies, as these are represented in a variety of cultural forms, in order to demonstrate the plurality of premodern desire – and, ultimately, to offer fresh perspectives on our present reality. The seventeen scholars participating in the anthology bring together theories and assessments from different areas of the Humanities – German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, and Comparative Literature, History of Ideas and of Art, Theology, Philosophy and Gender Studies. They are all engaged in cross-disciplinary activities at universities in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and they all participate in the Scandinavian network “Configurations of Desire in Premodern Literature” initiated in 2010.

An apprentice sushi chef and a mysterious blue-eyed woman share a bottle of wine inside a climate-controlled otter tank. The Great Wall of China grumbles as workers forego construction to watch an imperial game of baseball. A young woman tries to imagine a future unsullied by her family’s history of untimely death. First issued in 1991, Pangs of Love introduced David Wong Louie’s bold storytelling. The son of Chinese immigrants, he centered his stories around characters who are in conflict with their place in the world, disconnected from both American society and their own families. The depth of his portrayals renders their experiences of love, envy, loneliness, loss, and duty universal—informed by their heritage yet not confined by it. These twelve short stories and one essay swerve from the absurd to longing for love, understanding, or simply a morsel of food. Pangs of Love and Other Writings makes Louie’s debut book available again, along with an additional short story and an extraordinary autobiographical essay, “Eat, Memory,” in which he reflects on life without food after throat cancer took away his ability to swallow. Pulitzer Prize–winner Viet Thanh Nguyen contributes a foreword elucidating Louie’s role in shaping contemporary Asian American literature, while an afterword by literary scholar King-Kok Cheung retraces the three phases of Louie’s career.

The year is 1861. Hervé Joncour is a French merchant of silkworms, who combs the known world for their gemlike eggs. Then circumstances compel him to travel farther, beyond the edge of the known, to a country legendary for the quality of its silk and its hostility to foreigners: Japan.There Joncour meets a woman. They do not touch; they do not even speak. And he cannot read the note she sends him until he has returned to his own country. But in the moment he does, Joncour is possessed.

I.B.Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation

The work of The Golden Sufi Center is to make available the teachings of the Sufi path. The heart's relationship to God is one of the greatest mysteries, for He is both far and near, both awesome and intimate. As he looks at this union's many paradoxes,

A collection of stories set in contemporary India. In Dharma, a soldier is forced to amputate his leg in order to save his life, Shakti is on two feuding society women, and Kama is on a detective who discovers political corruption at the highest level.

"I had everything I needed to run a household: a house, food, and a new family. From now on it would just be me and Sammy–the two of us, and no one else." A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey’s world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing letters is the only thing that feels right to Aubrey, even if no one ever reads them. With the aid of her loving grandmother and new friends, Aubrey learns that she is not alone, and gradually, she finds the words to express feelings that once seemed impossible to describe. The healing powers of friendship, love, and memory help Aubrey take her first steps toward the future. Readers will care for Aubrey from page one and will watch her grow until the very end, when she has to make one of the biggest decisions of her life. Love, Aubrey is devastating, brave, honest, funny, and hopeful, and it introduces a remarkable new writer, Suzanne LaFleur. No matter how old you are, this book is not to be missed.