I grew up in white South Africa, a racist, philistine, authoritarian, and puritanical society. The first four books I have chosen appeared in the 1950s, and I read them in my teens. Catch-22 was published in the ‘60s, but all five heroes–or anti-heroes–of these novels were of the same generation, about ten years my senior, so they were perfectly placed to be role models. They were rebels and mavericks, and except for Yossarian, they were all would-be writers. I recognised a kinship with them and took them as my guides into adulthood. And so I left for Paris and became a writer and an anthropologist. No regrets.
I wrote...
The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions
Launched in the 1840s to showcase “other” ways of life, museums of anthropology and prehistory are in crisis. Campaigners demand the return of treasures seized in imperial campaigns or acquired in colonial settings. There are calls to “decolonise” scholarship and to value “indigenous knowledge.” Who has the right to select items for exhibition and to explain the history and significance of an artefact?
Should museums of other people be made over as shrines of identity or repurposed as art galleries? Or might we imagine a cosmopolitan museum that is not a propaganda tool, that values scholarship, transcends local, ethnic, or national identities, tracks exchanges across political frontiers, brings out connections, makes comparisons, and does not lapse into empty generalities about the human condition?
This is a compulsive first-person account of the plight of Holden Caulfield, an awkward adolescent, just expelled from his private boarding school, who is shyly trying to find sex and love while pursuing a personal crusade against adult hypocrisy. (His favourite put-down is “phony”).
I read it first as a teenager in South Africa and felt an immediate kinship with Holden, a Tom Sawyer for our times, who was standing up for himself against the idiocies of the grown-ups.
Kicked out of his lodging, losing his way in life and work, Jake Donaghue, a struggling young writer, appeals to old friends for practical and moral support. A brilliant philosopher tells him: "All theorizing is flight. We must be ruled by the situation itself.” (This was my introduction to Existentialism!) On a visit to his beloved Paris, Jake begins to find his way, starts a new book, and finds a new lover.
A grown-up Holden Caulfield, Jake set me an example of someone who breaks free of habit and constraint and finds his own way. So I went to Paris and tried to do it my way.
Iris Murdoch's debut-a comic novel about work and love, wealth and fame
Jake Donaghue, garrulous artist, meets Hugo Bellfounder, silent philosopher.
Jake, hack writer and sponger, now penniless flat-hunter, seeks out an old girlfriend, Anna Quentin, and her glamorous actress sister, Sadie. He resumes acquaintance with the formidable Hugo, whose 'philosophy' he once presumptuously dared to interpret. These meetings involve Jake and his eccentric servant-companion, Finn, in a series of adventures that include the kidnapping of a film-star dog and a political riot on a film set of ancient Rome. Jake, fascinated, longs to learn Hugo's secret. Perhaps Hugo's secret…
Sebastian Dangerfield, a scruffy Yank studying at Trinity College Dublin under the GI Bill, loses his wife, finds a lover, and talks to himself–“In my heart where no one else can hear me.”
The book was banned for decades after publication in the 1950s, not so much for indecency (though there is that) as for sheer insolence. The Irish writer Sean O’Reilly asks: “Is there, even after all this time, something risky, illicit perhaps, about Sebastian Dangerfield whispering in your ear while your heart is bursting with laughter?"
Another 1950s anti-hero in the same gang as Holden Caulfield and Jake Donaghue. Another bad example for my guidance.
*Accompanied by unseen photographs from the Donleavy archive *Includes a poignant memoir of Gainor Crist, the man who inspired Sebastian Dangerfield, by his daughter, Mariana *The Lilliput Press will publish Donleavy's 27th book, the novel 'A Letter Marked Personal' in the spring of 2019.
Showcasing for the first time 220 of renowned author J.P. Donleavy's most intimate letters, this scrupulously edited collection throws an extraordinary light on the composition, publication and afterlife of The Ginger Man --- the genesis of a masterpiece that went on to sell 60 million copies around the world. Spanning the late 1940s to the early…
This classic Beat Generation novel narrates a road trip by two young Americans, Sal Paradise (obviously Kerouac himself) and his friend Dean Moriarty. They ride from coast to coast without a plan, looking for adventure, calling on like-minded friends, and hoping to find some meaning in their lives.
Kerouac and his pals had a lot in common with the other heroes—and anti-heroes—of my youth, and like them, he was a joyful, fearless writer.
The legendary novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation, now in a striking new Pengiun Classics Deluxe Edition
Inspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naivete and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed…
This book is set during World War II. Captain John Yossarian, bombardier, has a hard time maintaining his sanity, let alone keeping alive. His crazed commander demands that the crew fly ever more dangerous missions. Yossarian realises a terrible truth: “The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.” When men request leave because they are going crazy, the camp doctor explains the catch-22. "Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."
Yossarian’s predicament was more extreme, his adults more dangerous, but like my other big brothers, he insisted on doing things his way.
Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.
Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. His real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the…
I have been writing all my life, but was never able to find my voice until I had my daughters. It was for them I wrote “Wrightsville Beach”. I wanted to show them what a good relationship should look like and how their decisions make a difference in where they will go. I want my readers to relive that feeling of falling in love and to be sent in unexpected directions, as life so often does to us. I want you to enjoy it so much, you don’t want to put the book down until it’s finished and once you do, to sit and reflect on it, savoring the feeling it has left behind.
Two years ago, devastated by the sudden death of his older brother, Hank Atwater went on a drinking rampage that ended in his being arrested. Since then, he has been working to rebuild his reputation in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, with little luck. But everything changes after a chance meeting with Jess Wade, a UNCW student studying to be a marine biologist. Hank and Jess feel connected to each other in a way neither has ever felt before.
But when Hank’s past leads to a frightful incident, it ends their relationship. Jess leaves to work on the beach with sea turtles, thinking about what really happened that summer with Hank, while Hank sets out to find his own path in hopes of one day winning her back.
Two years ago, Hank Atwater made a terrible mistake. Devastated by the sudden death of his older brother, Rob, he went on a drinking rampage that ended in his being arrested for aggravated assault. Sober since then, he has been working to rebuild his reputation in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, with little luck.
Working a dead-end delivery job, Hank uses surfing and running to deal with being ostracized as he waits for his probation to end. But everything changes after a chance meeting with Jess Wade, a UNCW student studying to be a marine biologist. Hank and Jess…
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