The Echoing Silence

In this short poetic novel Alexander Kanengoni relates the traumatic history of those who fought to create the modern Zimbabwe.

When Thomas Merton entered a Trappist monastery in December 1941, he turned his back on secular life—including a very promising literary career. He sent his journals, a novel-in-progess, and copies of all his poems to his mentor, Columbia professor Mark Van Doren, for safe keeping, fully expecting to write little, if anything, ever again. It was a relatively short-lived resolution, for Merton almost immediately found himself being assigned writing tasks by his Abbot—one of which was the autobiographical essay that blossomed into his international best-seller The Seven Storey Mountain. That book made him famous overnight, and for a time he struggled with the notion that the vocation of the monk and the vocation of the writer were incompatible. Monasticism called for complete surrender to the absolute, whereas writing demanded a tactical withdrawal from experience in order to record it. He eventually came to accept his dual vocation as two sides of the same spiritual coin and used it as a source of creative tension the rest of his life. Merton’s thoughts on writing have never been compiled into a single volume until now. Robert Inchausti has mined the vast Merton literature to discover what he had to say on a whole spectrum of literary topics, including writing as a spiritual calling, the role of the Christian writer in a secular society, the joys and mysteries of poetry, and evaluations of his own literary work. Also included are fascinating glimpses of his take on a range of other writers, including Henry David Thoreau, Flannery O’Connor, Dylan Thomas, Albert Camus, James Joyce, and even Henry Miller, along with many others.

Things aren’t always what they seem . . . From the outside, Victoria Campbell has everything. She is an accomplished, wealthy young professional living in the big city who has reached her career goals and is on track to break the glass ceiling. But under all this seeming success lies a haunted past that has kept her from opening herself up to most people and especially from the men she meets. Will the ghosts of the past continue to haunt her, or can she exorcise them in exchange for real happiness? The answer to this question becomes clearer, as such answers often do, on a trip home to visit family and friends. Things are different in Texas, and Victoria’s long-overdue homecoming with her new boyfriend in tow shines a light on the reality of their relationship and resurrects painful memories of dangers that can be lurking in plain sight. First-time author Rhonda Jolley has created a fast-paced, character-driven novel that will keep you thinking long after you’ve finished the final page.

The magnetic and thrilling sequel to Jessica Lynn Medina's Echo Through the Stars Choose them. When the time comes, you choose your people. It always has to be them. After driving out the corrupt human Federation and halting the devastating war with Earth, Avery now struggles to find solid footing in Echo's newly formed government. When her powers are stripped by the very extremists who helped her master them, conflict reignites between the planets, putting everything she's fought for, and everyone she cares for, at risk. Avery returns to the planet she once called home to look for help among the Reange refugees who dwell beneath Earth's surface. She finds a powerful man who agrees to help her - with certain conditions. Ignoring the protests of Finn and her crew, Avery accepts. If she ever hopes to return to Echo and save its future, she must play his games in his realm, no matter the cost. But Avery may not discover the price until it's too late. When faced with a heart-wrenching choice, where will loyalties lie?

The North has always had, and still has, an irresistible attraction. This fascination is made up of a mixture of perspectives, among these, the various explorations of the Arctic itself and the Inuk cultural heritage found in the elders' and contemporary stories. This book discusses the different generations of explorers and writers and illustrates how the sounds of a landscape are inseparable from the stories of its inhabitants. Published in English.

Harold Pinter's Politics examines the expression of Pinter's political beliefs across every aspect and era of his artistic career. The fierce political stances of this important dramatist have been embodied in plays, screenplays, and his career as a theatrical director. Traditionally associated with absurdism, minimalism, and the dramatization of uncertainty, Pinter's name is now a byword for anti-authoritarian and anti-American politics. This transition has been in evidence from the earliest phases of his writing; all of Pinter's work emerges from his political views. His uniqueness as a political artist is that he is pessimistic about changing his audience or making it see its complicity in the horrors of the modern world. These horrors are dramatized through images of torture and oppression culminating in moments of silence that index the full extent of the destruction unleashed by the forces of power against dissidence.