Shoil

Revenge is a dish best served cold. After a major battle between the Higher Middle and Lower Middle, there were few survivors on either side. Shoil’s hatred for Tampong ran deep to her very core, constantly fueling her anger, which increased her appetite, making her feed on men to satisfy that appetite. She was determined to track down and kill the traitor Tampong, even if killing the woman was the last thing she did. To achieve her goal, many men died horrible deaths so Shoil could stay strong to fulfill her destiny. She traveled far and wide tracking down Tampong, along with a new presence, a boy named Terry, picking up their trails here and there, with Shoil’s determination driving her on. In an ironic and potentially deadly twist, after consuming one particular man, Shoil suddenly needed a new body to continue her life and her hunt. She had to choose carefully, knowing her choice could be a shortcut to finding Tampong. The plan worked, and the inevitable meeting of the two was planned. Terry was young, but found himself in the middle of the hatred between the two women. Doubt and confusion filled his mind, until he was no longer certain of the right path to take. Should he join with Shoil, or support the woman who protected him for so many years? Terry’s path is unclear, until he meets someone who will change his life forever. Does the boy still want to save Tampong from Shoil’s wrath?

Jon is in a dark place having lost the love of his life and his long term job. The promised contractual arrangement with Chief Forensic Investigator Gamble has come to nothing and he hasn’t even heard from him since signing. Then that mysterious voice in his head returns and directs him to where a desperately frail and naked Tracey lays in the middle of a forest, close to death. This meeting sparks a reconnection with not only Tracey but Gamble as well. Soon he learns about other members of his Lower Middle Group, each with their own special skills, but their presence is felt by his enemies too (the Higher Middle) who are determined to upset the fragile balance of life. The net starts to close in around Jon. The Higher Middle is well organized, motivated, ambitious and much stronger as they plot the downfall of Jon’s Lower Middle Group. Not everyone will survive the upcoming confrontation, one that will determine which Group has world dominance. The question is whether the balance has shifted too much in one direction, a shift that will impact every human being on earth! This is Part 2 of Jon Cornwall’s trilogy. Stay tuned for the final encounter.

The Shackles.... underscores the underprivileged status. Males are preferred. Females are shunned. Only sons of the soil can buy, farm and inherit ancestral land, assets and property including children. Women are prohibited from buying ancestral land, but can become tenant or migrant farmers. In this true story, one woman goes beyond the call of her benevolent spirit, chi to organize communal farming to boost economic sustenance for her impoverished society after adopting almost twenty-five children, including orphans. Her progress and efforts are stalled because she is an "ohu." During a political crises bordering on social stratification, her barn is burned, her children are expelled from school and the Oruku village is thrown into chaos as many people are maimed, killed, displaced and made homeless. The novel covers universal parallels of economic survival, filthy politics of greed, social stratification, male chauvinism, discrimination and prejudice. It is an unforgettable story of courage.

A literary cult figure on a par with Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel has remained an enigma ever since he disappeared, along with his archive, inside Stalin's secret police headquarters in May of 1939. Made famous by Red Cavalry, a book about the Russian civil war (he was the world's first "embedded" war reporter), another book about the Jewish gangsters of his native Odessa, and yet another about his own Russian Jewish childhood, Babel has been celebrated by generations of readers, all craving fuller knowledge of his works and days. Bringing together scholars of different countries and areas of specialization, the present volume is the first examination of Babel's life and art since the fall of communism and the opening of Soviet archives. Part biography, part history, part critical examination of the writer's legacy in Russian, European, and Jewish cultural contexts, The Enigma of Isaac Babel will be of interest to the general reader and specialist alike.

Studies of Eastern European literature have largely confined themselves to a single language, culture, or nationality. In this highly original book, Glaser shows how writers working in Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish during much of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century were in intense conversation with one another. The marketplace was both the literal locale at which members of these different societies and cultures interacted with one another and a rich subject for representation in their art. It is commonplace to note the influence of Gogol on Russian literature, but Glaser shows him to have been a profound influence on Ukrainian and Yiddish literature as well. And she shows how Gogol must be understood not only within the context of his adopted city of St. Petersburg but also that of his native Ukraine. As Ukrainian and Yiddish literatures developed over this period, they were shaped by their geographical and cultural position on the margins of the Russian Empire. As distinctive as these writers may seem from one another, they are further illuminated by an appreciation of their common relationship to Russia. Glaser’s book paints a far more complicated portrait than scholars have traditionally allowed of Jewish (particularly Yiddish) literature in the context of Eastern European and Russian culture.

Jon is in a dark place having lost the love of his life and his long term job. The promised contractual arrangement with Chief Forensic Investigator Gamble has come to nothing and he hasn’t even heard from him since signing. Then that mysterious voice in his head returns and directs him to where a desperately frail and naked Tracey lays in the middle of a forest, close to death. This meeting sparks a reconnection with not only Tracey but Gamble as well. Soon he learns about other members of his Lower Middle Group, each with their own special skills, but their presence is felt by his enemies too (the Higher Middle) who are determined to upset the fragile balance of life. The net starts to close in around Jon. The Higher Middle is well organized, motivated, ambitious and much stronger as they plot the downfall of Jon’s Lower Middle Group. Not everyone will survive the upcoming confrontation, one that will determine which Group has world dominance. The question is whether the balance has shifted too much in one direction, a shift that will impact every human being on earth! This is Part 2 of Jon Cornwall’s trilogy. Stay tuned for the final encounter.

Ch. 1 (pp. 1-44), "Enlightenment, Disappearance, Reemergence", traces the history of Russian Jews after the Revolution, pointing out the Stalinist antisemitic campaign and the reemergence of popular and intellectual antisemitism in the "perestroika" years (e.g. I. Shafarevich). The following chapters, on Russian Jewish writers, deal also with the effect of the Holocaust and Stalin's anti-Jewish purge on the works of Vasilii Grossman and Aleksandr Galich (pseudonym of Aleksandr A. Ginzburg). Mentions expressions of Jewish self-hatred in other writers' works.

Mapping Africa in the English Speaking World addresses issues of representations of Africa in the English speaking world. English has become a global language which has turned the world into a global village, and as Graddol (2008) states, it “is now redefining national and individual identities worldwide; shifting political fault lines; creating new global patterns of wealth and social exclusion; and suggesting new notions of human rights and responsibilities of citizenship.” This book grapples with the relationship between Africa and the rest of the English speaking world, and touches on issues of (Euro-American) misrepresentations of the continent in literary works and films, misrepresentations which are nevertheless passed as true and infallible knowledge of Africa, marginalization of Africans, African languages and culture, African scholarship, language policy, language diglossia, African theatre in post colonial Africa, identity negotiations in post colonial Africa, and relations between gender and language, among other issues. These issues are bound to stimulate debates on Africa and its representation(s) in the English speaking world.