IN 1941 a young Italian Jewish woman flees her country following the promulgation of Italy's so -called racial laws. She arrives in the neutral city of Lisbon and spends three days awaiting the certificate that will allow her to emigrate to the United States. During her stay she meets Juan Ruben, an anti-Fascist intellectual who coordinates a network of expatriates working to assist refugees. Although emotionally and intellectually displaced, the young woman comes to recognize her exile as a rite of passage, as an opportunity to acquire a new awareness of herself. Her experience of displacement becomes most intense during an outing to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in Europe, whose cliffs symbolize "the last sign of earth, the end of Europe", yet also face outward toward the Atlantic and America. With a clear and spare style, Angela Bianchini explores the theme of exile from a variety of perspectives as she offers a glimpse into Italian culture at a major historical juncture. Bianchini lives in Rome, where she was born and raised. She is the author of six novels and a frequent contributor to major Italian newspapers. Angela M. Jeannet is Charles A. Dana Professor of Romance Languages (emerita) at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is the author of Under the Radiant Sun and the Crescent Moon: Italo Calvino's Storytelling and other works. David Castronuovo is an assistant professor of Italian at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.

In this completely revised second edition, the authors explore what can be learned from a rigorous comparison of the patterns of urban concentrations of residents and employment in Western Europe and the United States. Using a wide range of methodological techniques, including economic theory, econometrics, regional science, and institutional historical analysis, the essays analyze the factors underlying urban economic development, with particular emphasis on the role and effectiveness of public policy.

In Undue Influence , acclaimed novelist Anita Brookner proves once again that even in the most closely circumscribed of lives, hearts can venture into unknown-and potentially explosive-territory. Claire Pitt is nothing if not a practical young woman, living a life in contemporary London that is to all appearances placid, orderly and consciously lacking in surprise. And yet Claire's tangled interior life gives the lie to that illusion. She is prone to vivid speculation about the lives of others, and to fantasies about her own fate that lead her into a courtship so strange that even she wonders at its power to compel her. Martin Gibson and his chronically ill wife Cynthia come to depend on Claire to an extent that is nothing short of baffling, and yet Claire becomes ever bolder in her pursuit of their acquaintance-and, ultimately, of Martin's elusive affections. The result, a potent tale of urban loneliness and the chance intersections that assuage it, constitutes one of Brookner's finest and most psychologically acute achievements.

In this original alphabet book with an international flavor, the acclaimed author/artist takes her characters and her audience on a whirlwind tour of the world's wonders. From Adam arriving in Amsterdam to Zachary zigzagging in Zaandam, magnificent illustrations entice young readers to linger on every page.

Lena wants the sheep she counts at bedtime to meet another of her nighttime friends, but they think the moon is a monster and are afraid.

When Mama Rabbit is not feeling well, her little rabbits each find their own way to make her feel better.

Demonstrating that history is always political, Shapira (Zionism, Tel Aviv U., Israel) and Penslar (history, U. of Toronto, Canada) present nine works of historiography, examining the production of Zionist history in Israel and attacks upon its formulations of the past that came from both left and right perspective within the circle of Israeli historians. An effort has been made to include contributors from all three of these perspectives. The contributions are all based on papers first presented at conferences sharing the same name as the text, held in January and February of 2001 in Tel Aviv and New York. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The last of the true believers is Sunny Mansfield, as golden a girl as WASP Connecticut can rear: her first novel just out and a fellowship waiting at Cornell. Then, she meets brilliant poet David Harvey who teaches her painful but ultimately rewarding lessons in the meaning of love.

"What amazes about this book is not only the wonderful writing and passionate honesty, but the fact that it is so much fun to read." -Erica Jong "Fans of Birstein's work will not be disappointed by this memoir, which expands on much of the colorful narrative found in her superb biography of her father. The Rabbi on Forty-seventh Street, and delves deeper into her Hell's Kitchen Childhood, college life the heady world of New York intellectuals her turbulent marriage to (Alfred) Kazin." - Publishers Weekly "Birstein is a graceful writer, and she's also very funny." - Jewish Week

Text: English, French (translation)

"In Foreign Cities deals with an American woman who, after fifteen years of marriage to an Austrian businessman, begins an affair with a young American singer, leaves her husband and two children, and returns to her homeland in search of her lost identity as a poet and the personal artistic fulfillment that she feels has been denied to her in the foreign environment. Lillian's journey leads her through a series of internal and external confrontations with a past ideal that is not compatible with the present reality, on her way to a final resolution of the conflicts with herself and with family members who haunt her memories: a well-adjusted sister who is her social opposite; a grandmother who envisioned for her the literary success she has not realized; a father who rejected her; the husband and children whom she has left behind. The ending brings the tragic insight that she has been victimized by a false perception of her life and talent. Her problem is not the world around her but lies within herself." --Book Jacket.

The restless ruler of an obscure Central European state plots a coup against himself and escapes to Venice in search of ‘real’ experience. There he falls in with a team of con-men and ends up, to his own surprise, impersonating himself. His journey through successive levels of illusion and reality teaches him much about the world, about his own nature and the paradoxes of the human condition.

In this study - the fruit of a lifelong critical and imaginative engagement with W H. Auden's works - Anthony Hecht identifies and traces consistent habits of thought and belief within the poet's extensive and varied writings and through his celebrated conversions and repudiations, literary and otherwise. Hecht acknowledges that Auden's poems "both invite the intrusive scrutiny of the cryptographer and deny him access." Yet the readings he offers of poems from every phase of Auden's career, along with dramatic works and critical essays, manage to explicate and illuminate Auden's rich (and often cryptic) allusiveness without murdering to dissect. Among the themes that connect Auden's works are his deep interest in the workings of language; his notion of the ultimate frivolity of art; his interest in the nature of heroism; his understanding of the relation of public to private life; the development of his religious thought; and what Auden called the "hidden law" that governs human existence - a strict and retaliatory force, something like poetic justice, that gives form to our best literature and shapes our personal fates. Hecht identifies these preoccupations in Auden's work - and shows how they cut across the many genres in which he wrote - without losing sight of each poem's individual history and context. As one of Auden's most distinguished poetic heirs, Anthony Hecht is uniquely qualified to illuminate both the reading and the writing of these essential works of twentieth-century literature.

Encouraged by his uncle to start taking theatre photographs, Snowdon''s style was suited to the new generation of British theatre which emerged in the 1950s, and he soon became popular. This book presents a selection of his work.'

An enthralling drama about the man who killed Hendrik Verwoerd, President of South Africa and the architect of South African apartheid. Written by the acclaimed actor and author of Year of the King. I.D. tells the true story of how Demetrios Tsafendas came to assassinate Verwoerd. Of mixed parentage, but classified as "White", Tsafendas is unable to marry the woman he loves because she is classified as "Coloured". Sickened by this injustice and goaded by his monstrous alter ego, Tsafendas stabs Verwoerd on the floor of the House in full view of his wife, his bodyguard and a chamber full of MPs. Antony Sher's play I.D. was first performed at the Almeida Theatre, London, in September 2003 with Sher in the role of Tsafendas. The play was inspired by the book A Mouthful of Glass by Henk van Woerden.

Antony Sher's account of the struggle of bringing Primo Levi's Auschwitz memoir to the National Theatre stage.

"In 1982, rising actor and recent Royal Shakespeare Company arrival Antony Sher played the Fool to Michael Gambon's King in the RSC's production of King Lear. Shortly after, he came back to Stratford to play Richard III - a breakthrough performance that would transform his career, winning him the Laurence Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Best Actor. Sher's record of the making of this historic theatrical event, Year of the King, has become a classic of theatre writing, a unique insight into the creation of a landmark Shakespearean performance. More than thirty years later, Antony Sher returned to Lear, this time in the title role, for the 2016 RSC production directed by Gregory Doran. Sher's performance was acclaimed by the Telegraph as 'a crowning achievement in a major career', and the show transferred from Stratford to London's Barbican. Once again, he kept a diary, capturing every step of his personal and creative journey to opening night. This book, Year of the Mad King: The Lear Diaries, is Sher's account of researching, rehearsing and performing one of Shakespeare's greatest roles. His honest, illuminating and witty commentary provides an intimate, first-hand look at the development of his Lear and the production as a whole. Also included are a selection of his paintings and sketches, many reproduced in full colour. Like his Year of the King and Year of the Fat Knight: The Falstaff Diaries before it, Year of the Mad King offers a fascinating perspective on the process of one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his generation."--Provided by publisher.