The Ventriloquists

“[A] remarkable saga.... Engrossing.” —Booklist, starred review In this triumphant debut inspired by true events, a ragtag gang of journalists and resistance fighters risk everything for an elaborate scheme to undermine the Reich. The Nazis stole their voices. But they would not be silenced. Brussels, 1943. Twelve-year-old street orphan Helene survives by living as a boy and selling copies of the country’s most popular newspaper, Le Soir, now turned into Nazi propaganda. Helene’s world changes when she befriends a rogue journalist, Marc Aubrion, who draws her into a secret network that publishes dissident underground newspapers. The Nazis track down Aubrion’s team and give them an impossible choice: turn the resistance newspapers into a Nazi propaganda bomb that will sway public opinion against the Allies, or be killed. Faced with no decision at all, Aubrion has a brilliant idea. While pretending to do the Nazis’ bidding, they will instead publish a fake edition of Le Soir that pokes fun at Hitler and Stalin—daring to laugh in the face of their oppressors. The ventriloquists have agreed to die for a joke, and they have only eighteen days to tell it. Featuring an unforgettable cast of characters and stunning historical detail, E.R. Ramzipoor’s dazzling debut novel illuminates the extraordinary acts of courage by ordinary people forgotten by time. It is a moving and powerful ode to the importance of the written word and to the unlikely heroes who went to extreme lengths to orchestrate the most stunning feat of journalism in modern history.

The whole purpose of magic is the fulfilment and intensification of desire, claims the ventriloquist-narrator as he tells his stories of love and catastrophe.

One of the world's most famous magicomedians and ventriloquists discusses every aspect of his art, revealing a wealth of insider's tricks. Schindler shows how to cultivate a variety of voices and offers helpful suggestions for putting an act together, developing comedy material and scripts, and handling bookings and publicity. 38 figures and photos.

Reading Colonial Korea through Fiction is a compilation of thirteen original essays which was first serialized in a quarterly issued by the National Institute of Korean Language, Saekukŏsaenghwal (Living our National Language Anew) in a column entitled, “Our Fiction, Our Language” between 2004 to 2007. Although the original intent of the Institute was to elucidate on important features particular to “national fiction” and the superiority of “national language,” instead Kim Chul’s astute essays offers a completely different reading of how national literature and language was constructed. Through a series of culturally nuanced readings, Kim links the formation and origins of Korean language and fiction to modernity and traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period while demonstrating in a very lucid way how colonialism constitutes modernity and how all modernity is perforce colonial, given the imperial crucibles from which modernist claims emerged. For Kim, denying this reality can only lead to violent distortions as he eschews appeals to a preexisting framework, preferring instead to ground his theoretical insights in subtle, innovative readings of texts themselves.

Easy-to-follow guide offers expert advice from an internationally renowned performer. Helpful tips on "near" ventriloquism, the doll dummy, hand puppets, shadowgraphs and cardboard dummies, staging and entertainment, "distant" ventriloquism, more. 48 illustrations.

The art of "bellyspeaking" isn't for dummies The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Ventriloquism teaches everyone to speak from their bellies, create and substitute sounds, use all the registers of their voice, and create diversions to attract the listener's ear—whether they invest in a fancy puppet or create their own figure out of a sweat sock. • Includes tips for making, manipulating, and talking with their dummy and for it—both at the same time • Advice for getting an act together and taking it on the road-getting gigs, getting paid, and how to improve performances • How to write dialogue and jokes and rehearsal techniques

How to talk to your hand without looking stupid.

With themes reminiscent of Shirley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, and Bruno Shulz, but with a strikingly unique vision, Jon Padgett's The Secret of Ventriloquism heralds the arrival of a significant new literary talent. Padgett's work explores the mystery of human suffering, the agony of personal existence, and the ghastly means by which someone might achieve salvation from both. A bullied child who seeks vengeance within a bed's hollow box spring; a lucid dreamer haunted by an impossible house; a dummy that reveals its own anatomy in 20 simple steps; a stuttering librarian who holds the key to a mill town's unspeakable secrets; a commuter whose worldview is shattered by two words printed on a cardboard sign; an aspiring ventriloquist who spends a little too much time looking at himself in a mirror. And the presence that speaks through them all.