A lyrical, extremely rich narrative of loss, memory, and trauma.
A Syrian dissident author, now a refugee in Canada, interweaves details of his incarcerations and torture in Syria with a once-idyllic life in a small village.
Raised by farmers in the rural town of Kfarieh, Saeed was first imprisoned in 1980, for more than a decade, for protesting the Syrian dictatorship of Hafez al-Assad. He spent most of those years in the notoriously brutal Tadmur military prison in Damascus, where he was routinely tortured. After his release, he was detained two more times. By the early 1990s, he had begun writing regularly and made a name for himself in literary circles. One critic told him, “You’ll be to Syria what Maupassant was to France.” Sadly, the repeated incarcerations interrupted his promising career. In a moving, novelistic narrative, Saeed beautifully, gently chronicles the appealing details of his early life in his village: first childhood crush, a painful reconciliation between science and piety, and the adulation of his cosmopolitan uncle, who encouraged him “to ask questions with absolutely no inhibitions.” During this time, Saeed keenly followed global events on the radio. He revered Egyptian president Abdel Nasser and did not understand the subsequent military coup by Assad. During 10th grade, the author established a Marxist discussion group. In 1977, he transferred to a private school in Damascus, where he was enlightened much like the biblical Saul when he saw the Messiah on the road to the city. In the next few years, his political activity drove him underground until his arrest. In this multilayered text, the author ably captures the arbitrary brutality of the guards as well as the tender human interactions with his fellow prisoners that made his incarceration tolerable. “The world that turns in my heart is like a warm house, open to all, an amazingly beautiful world that keeps turning, and turns its back on passports and borders and bloodshed and famine and all the suffering that people endure.”
A lyrical, extremely rich narrative of loss, memory, and trauma.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-77041-621-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: ECW Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
A skillful and succinct examination of Shakespeare’s relationship with Henry Wriothesley.
Medina delves into the life of William Shakespeare to investigate his love affair with the Earl of Southampton.
The author, a political and policy advisor and former deputy chief of staff for Michelle Obama, introduces his concise biography of Shakespeare by citing the subject that interests him most, which other biographers, per Medina, have either neglected or outright denied: the Bard’s relationship with a young aristocrat, which is prominently referenced in his sonnets and several other works. “Why ignore Shakespeare’s greatest love?” Medina asks. At the time he met Shakespeare, Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, was only 17, but he already held impressive degrees and social status. The author analyzes Shakespeare’s sonnets, finding evidence of their passion against a social backdrop in which homosexuality was illegal but strong same-sex bonds were nevertheless encouraged. Medina traces their story through revealing moments in Shakespeare’s works, notably “The Rape of Lucrece” and The Merchant of Venice, while also giving careful consideration to Shakespeare’s rising financial and social status thanks to the Earl’s patronage and despite attitudes about the hedonism of the theatre scene. Political aspects also come under scrutiny with the end of the Elizabethan era and the arrival of King James (leading the author to reveal some of the more salacious court gossip he has uncovered). In his conclusion, Medina levels a thoughtful critique of literary editors and critics who, in the author’s view, have tried to erase Shakespeare’s romantic love for Wriothesley. Throughout, Medina is quick to dismiss traditional, heteronormative interpretations of Shakespeare’s work. His succinct, blanket statements about characters being “undeniably gay” or previous cultural assertions being simply “false” can come off as defensive rather than logical conclusions flowing from his research, but the sheer amount of material Medina has amassed and efficiently summarized may win readers over to his point of view in the end. Despite being a slim volume, his biography is overflowing with well-observed anecdotes and deft descriptions that paint a full portrait of the ways in which theater, homosexuality, and Shakespeare himself fit into the society of the time.
A skillful and succinct examination of Shakespeare’s relationship with Henry Wriothesley.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781633311060
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Disruption Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An engrossing, rigorously documented study of a 20th-century literary trailblazer.
A penetrating exploration of the life and work of the acclaimed novelist, memoirist, and pioneering figure in gay culture.
While Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) may be best known for Goodbye to Berlin, which drew on his experiences in Weimar-era Berlin and inspired the musical Cabaret, this new biography by Bucknell, director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, astutely highlights the considerable merits of his other novels and candid autobiographical works. The author renders a sweeping portrait of Isherwood's remarkable life journey, during which he forged indelible connections with many of the era's preeminent literary and artistic figures. Early on, Isherwood moved within an influential circle of writers that included W.H. Auden, E.M. Forster, and Steven Spender. In 1939, he moved to Hollywood and pursued screenwriting, while also initiating a spiritual conversion to Vedanta under the guidance of Indian monk Swami Prabhavananda. Over the ensuing years, his vast circle expanded, bringing in Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and David Hockney, among others. Bucknell dedicates perhaps too many pages to Isherwood's early years, privileged upbringing, Cambridge education, and elements of his complex family dynamics (including his father's death in World War II and his suffocating relationship with his mother), but this detailed exploration lays the foundation for her explorations of her subject’s later writing and the complexities that shaped his intimate relationships, particularly his romances with various men at different stages of his life, most enduringly with artist Don Bachardy. Throughout, Bucknell urgently draws attention to Isherwood’s courageous life as an openly gay man and his vital role in advancing gay liberation through his writing: "He saw from his career's outset that he must make homosexuality attractive to mainstream audiences if he was to change their view of it, and he worked to do this in all his writing in different ways.”
An engrossing, rigorously documented study of a 20th-century literary trailblazer.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780374119362
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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