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Barbara Kingsolver's World: Nature, Art, and the Twenty-First Century

(Paperback)

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Publishing Details

Full Title:

Barbara Kingsolver's World: Nature, Art, and the Twenty-First Century

Contributors:
ISBN:

9781623564469

Publisher:

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Imprint:

Bloomsbury Academic USA

Publication Date:

3rd July 2014

Country:

United States

Classifications

Readership:

Professional and Scholarly

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Other Subjects:

Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000

Dewey:

813.54

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Paperback

Number of Pages:

232

Dimensions:

Width 140mm, Height 216mm

Weight:

308g

Description

Since Barbara Kingsolver published The Bean Trees in 1988, her work has been of great interest to readersfirst, American readers; then British and South African readers; and finally to readers the world over. With incredible speed, Kingsolver became one of the best-known United States writers, a person who collected honors and awards as if she were a much more mature literary producer. From the beginning Kingsolver touched an elbow of keen interest in her readers: hers was the voice of world awareness, a conscientious voice that demanded attention for the narratives of the disadvantaged, the politically troubled, the humanly silenced. By paying special attention to her non-fiction (essays and books), this new study by renowned literary critic Linda Wagner-Martin highlights the way Kingsolver has become a kind of public intellectual, particularly in the 21st century. It provides fresh readings of each of her novels, stories, and poems.

Reviews

[In this] thorough book-by-book analysis ... readers receive ample guidance concerning the plots, characters, and themes of each of Kingsolver's novels and stories. * Contemporary Women's Writing *
In this landmark study, Linda Wagner-Martin traces Barbara Kingsolvers evolution into an author whose work fully synthesizes fiction and ecology. Reading Kingsolvers essays and interviews alongside her novels, Wagner-Martin delves into what it means to be an ecological writer. Scholars will find Barbara Kingsolvers World to be foundational, and general readers will appreciate its insights into the writings of a fascinating living author. * Jennifer Haytock, Professor and Chair of the English Department, The College at Brockport, SUNY, USA *
In a landmark new study, Professor Wagner-Martin fuses discussion of Barbara Kingsolvers use of different lines of scientifically-based knowledge with readings of her fourteen books. While other critics persist in pigeonholing Kingsolvers work, Wagner-Martin expertly manoeuvres Kingsolvers dexterity of genres to provide a comprehensive study of the full range of her oeuvre. A model of scholarly agility and critical sensitivity, Barbara Kingsolver's World: Nature, Art, and the Twenty-First Century is essential reading. * Laura Rattray, Reader in American Literature, University of Glasgow, UK *
One of the most insightful--and prolific--of American literary scholars, Linda Wagner-Martin here offers an excellent ecocritical reading of Barbara Kingsolver's work, written in Wagner-Martin's lucid, accessible prose. Focusing on what she calls "the reciprocity between the human and the natural," Wagner-Martin discusses natural elements even in those Kingsolver works--such as The Lacuna--that are usually viewed as political novels. She is especially good on Kingsolver's new and "strangely foreboding" Flight Behavior. * Fred Hobson, Professor of English and Lineberger Distinguished Professor Humanities, The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA *
Provides detailed analysis of each of Kingsolvers novels as well as discussion of her non-fiction writing and poetry ... Tracing thematic elements that appear across texts, including working-class womens labour, motherhood and parenting, interracial working-class communities and tensions, and community responses to social injustice as well as environmental devastation, Wagner-Martin ultimately provides a comprehensive and compelling account of the import of Kingsolvers work. Because she situates her readings at the conclusions of chapters within recent critical debates, her monograph also provides nice coverage of up-to-date commentary on Kingsolvers connection to womens literary history and the political novel of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. * This Years Work in English Studies *

Author Bio

Linda Wagner-Martin is Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. Her many books include Sylvia Plath: A Biography (1987) and Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life (2nd edition, 2003).

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