Gay, noir, américain : on a toutes les chances de se tromper en définissant ainsi Hilton Als. Car, en dépit de leur exactitude, l'auteur de White Girls n'a de cesse d'interroger la pertinence de ces catégories censées fonder une identité. Mêlant récits autobiographiques, fiction, critique littéraire, musicale et artistique, les essais qui composent ce livre tracent les contours d'un imaginaire collectif dont l'idéal serait la « fille blanche ».
Truman Capote, Michael Jackson, Flannery O'Connor, André Leon Talley, Basquiat, ou encore la mère de Malcolm X, sont autant de white girls radiographiées par le regard de cet écrivain sensible et impitoyable qui se reconnaît pour seuls maîtres Proust, Joan Didion et James Baldwin.
Une exploration personnelle et incarnée du féminisme, de la sexualité et du pouvoir par celle que l'on surnomme "Emrata", mannequin star aux 28 millions de followers sur Instagram.
Emily Ratajkowski est une mannequin et actrice acclamée, une progressiste politiquement engagée, une entrepreneure à succès, un phénomène mondial grâce aux médias de tous les pays et aux réseaux sociaux, et maintenant, une écrivaine. Devenue mondialement célèbre à l'âge de vingt et un ans, elle a suscité à la fois des éloges et de la fureur, avec l'affichage provocateur de son corps comme une déclaration d'autonomisation féministe. My Body est un ensemble de textes qui relatent des expériences vécues et des souvenirs dans lesquels Emily Ratajkowski décrit la marchandisation de son corps, et de celui des femmes en général. À travers le récit de moments précis de sa vie, elle étudie la fétichisation culturelle de la beauté des femmes et des jeunes filles l'obsession doublée de mépris pour la sexualité féminine, la dynamique perverse des industries de la mode et du cinéma et la zone grise entre le consentement et la violence.
Subtil, déterminé et incisif, My Body marque les débuts d'un écrivain clairvoyant débordant de courage et d'intelligence.
Après le succès d'Assez de bleu dans le ciel, Maggie O'Farrell revient avec un nouveau tour de force littéraire. Poétique, subtile, intense, une oeuvre à part qui nous parle tout à la fois de féminisme, de maternité, de violence, de peur et d'amour, portée par une construction vertigineuse. Une romancière à l'apogée de son talent.
Il y a ce cou, qui a manqué être étranglé par un violeur en Écosse.
Il y a ces poumons, qui ont cessé leur oeuvre quelques instants dans l'eau glacée.
Il y a ce ventre, meurtri par les traumatismes de l'accouchement...
Un beau jour d'octobre 1949, la new-yorkaise Helene Hanff écrit à la librairie Marks & Co., au 84, Charing Cross Road à Londres. Passionnée, un peu fauchée, extravagante, Miss Hanff réclame au libraire Frank Doel des livres pour assouvir son insatiable soif de découvertes. Très vite, leurs échanges laissent place aux confidences et à une relation unique...
L'histoire vraie, émouvante et inoubliable de deux êtres que rapproche l'amour des lettres.
Will marche dans Clapham Road. Il doit absolument se procurer sa dose quotidienne d'héroïne avant d'aller travailler. Et il n'a que 57 pence en poche. Nous sommes à Londres, le 6 mai 1986.
Ainsi commence cet extraordinaire récit autobiographique, qui relate cinq moments clés de la vie de son auteur. Car Will, c'est Will Self, éternel enfant terrible d'une littérature britannique qu'il ne cesse de perturber depuis son premier roman, Vice-Versa, jusqu'à sa trilogie «?moderniste?», Parapluie, Requin, Phone.
Qu'est-ce qui pousse cet écrivain, l'un des plus doués de sa génération, à revisiter sa jeunesse?? La nostalgie?? Certainement pas. La honte d'avoir été un junky?? C'est peu probable. À l'instar de Joyce écrivant l'admirable Portrait de l'artiste en jeune homme, Will Self revient à la source même de son oeuvre : la crise existentielle d'où jailliront plus tard des romans pleins d'une énergie sauvage.
Brillant, comique, émouvant, ce livre est un feu d'artifice littéraire unique en son genre.
B>Now in paperback--the intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States, featuring a new introduction by Michelle Obama, a letter from the author to her younger self, and a book club guide with 20 discussion questions and a 5-question Q&A/b>br> br>b>#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WATCH THE EMMY-NOMINATED NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY OPRAHS BOOK CLUB PICK NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER/b> b> ONE OF ESSENCES 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS/b>br>br>In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.br> br>In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the worlds most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.
Twelve early pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion.
Mostly drawn from the earliest part of her astonishing five-decade career, the wide-ranging pieces in this collection include Didion writing about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a visit to San Simeon, and a reunion of WWII veterans in Las Vegas, and about topics ranging from Nancy Reagan to Robert Mapplethorpe to Martha Stewart.
Here are subjects Didion has long written about - the press, politics, California robber baronsac, women, the act of writing, and her own self-doubt. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive and, in new light, stunningly prescient.
'Unmissable . Like chancing upon an oasis, you want to drink it slowly... Subtle, unpredictable, surprising' Guardian Things I Don't Want to Know is the first in Deborah Levy's essential three-part 'Living Autobiography' on writing and womanhood. Taking George Orwell's famous essay, 'Why I Write', as a jumping-off point, Deborah Levy offers her own indispensable reflections of the writing life. With wit, clarity and calm brilliance, she considers how the writer must stake claim to that contested territory as a young woman and shape it to her need. Things I Don't Want to Know is a work of dazzling insight and deep psychological succour, from one of our most vital contemporary writers. 'Superb sharpness and originality of imagination. An inspiring work of writing' Marina Warner
Née en 1926, mariée en 1947, couronnée reine en 1953, Sa Majesté la reine Elizabeth II rempli ses devoirs depuis plus de soixante ans. TASCHEN rend hommage à son destin remarquable avec cette réédition de Her Majesty, une fabuleuse histoire en photos de sa vie privée et publique.
Foisonnant de tradition, d'histoire, d'élégance et de culture, l'album retrace la jeunesse de la souveraine, sa courageuse entrée dans l'âge adulte pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, son mariage, la maternité et le couronnement, jusqu'aux derniers voyages officiels et cérémonies en date; ses rencontres avec des icônes de leur temps comme les Beatles, Marilyn Monroe et JFK et ses très nombreux périples à l'étranger. Il visite aussi les spectaculaires palais royaux et cède à la liesse contagieuse des mariages et jubilés royaux, et oscille entre l'imposante élégance des portraits officiels et la tendresse et l'humour qui se dégagent de moments plus intimes, en famille.
Hommage aux meilleurs photographes de son temps tout autant qu'à leur royal sujet, Her Majesty rassemble les clichés de sommités comme Cecil Beaton, Studio Lisa, Dorothy Wilding, Karsh, Lord Snowdon, David Bailey, Patrick Lichfield, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rankin et Annie Leibovitz.
From the twice-Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home : Dazzling, essential, entirely unlike anything else -- a memoir on modern womanhood, rejecting oppressive social expectations and turning instead towards a thrilling, transformative freedom What does it mean to be free - as an artist, a woman, a mother or daughter? And what is the price of that freedom? In this dazzling memoir, Deborah Levy confronts the essential questions of modern womanhood with humour, pragmatism, and profoundly resonant wisdom. Reflecting on the period when she wrote the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Hot Milk - when her mother was dying, her daughters were leaving home, her marriage was coming to an end - she is characteristically eloquent on the social expectations and surreal realities of daily life. And expanding far beyond these bounds, she describes a uniquely frank, wise and thrilling manifesto for female experience: embracing the exhilarating terror of freedom, seeking to understand what that freedom could mean and how it might feel.
American writer Stephen Crane died in 1900 at the age of 28. In his short, intense life, this burning boy wrote a masterpiece, The Red Badge of Courage , as well as other novels, short stories, and dispatches from the front of two wars. His adventurous life took him to the Wild West, Mexico, then to Cuba during the Spanish American War - dodging bullets which killed those around him, and suffering shipwreck on his way home. Fleeing America because of a scandalous love affair, his last 18 months were spent in Britain where he became a close friends of H.G. Wells, Henry James and, especially, Joseph Conrad. Auster ''s intention is to restore Crane to the pantheon of Modernist 20th century authors such as Conrad. Through Auster''s skill as a novelist, Crane leaps off the page, and into the reader''s heart.
A devastating essay on loss and the people we love from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun .
''Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language'' On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria.
In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy''s girl, remembers her beloved father. Notes on Grief is at once a tribute to a long life of grace and wisdom, the story of a daughter''s fierce love for a parent, and a revealing examination of the layers of loss and the nature of grief.
Three bicycles. Seven ghosts. A crumbling apartment block on the hill. Fame. Tenderness. The statue of Peter Pan. Silk. Melancholy. The banana tree. A Pandemic. A love story.''br>From one of the great thinkers and writers of our time, comes the highly anticipated final instalment in Deborah Levy''s critically acclaimed ''Living Autobiography''br>''I can''t think of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman'' Observer on The Cost of Livingbr>Following the international critical acclaim of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Deborah Levy''s ''Living Autobiography'' is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it.br>''I began to wonder what myself and all unwritten and unseen women would possess in their property portfolios at the end of their lives. Literally, her physical property and possessions, and then everything else she valued, though it might not be valued by society. What might she claim, own, discard and bequeath? Or is she the real estate, owned by patriarchy? In this sense, Real Estate is a tricky business. We rent it and buy it, sell and inherit it - but we must also knock it down.'' br>''Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy''s every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise... A brilliant writer'' Daily Telegraph on The Cost of Livingbr>''Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor-sharp insights'' Financial Times on The Cost of Living>
Il est arrivé qu'un écrivain devienne femme de ménage. Pour vivre de l'intérieur une condition sociale qui n'était pas la sienne, et pouvoir témoigner, dénoncer les conditions de travail indignes, les horaires inhumains, mettre sa plume au service de celles que personne n'écoute. Ce fut le cas de Florence Aubenas, et de Barbara Ehrenreich qui signe la préface de ce livre. Mais il arrive - plus rarement - que ce soit l'inverse. Qu'une femme de ménage devienne écrivain. Au début de ce récit, Stéphanie Land est seule et mère d'une petite fille de 2 ans et, pour (sur) vivre et leur procurer un toit, elle nettoie les maisons auxquelles elle s'amuse à donner des noms romanesques : la Maison du Clown, la Maison Porno, la Maison Triste, la Maison de la Femme qui Entasse... Elle explore ainsi le ventre de l'Amérique depuis sa classe moyenne supérieure à la réalité de ceux qui la servent. À la fin de son récit, sa fille a 7 ans et s'apprête à lui sauter au cou pour la féliciter : Stéphanie va recevoir son diplôme de création littéraire de l'Université de Missoula. Montana. Suivi en cours du soir à distance. Entre les deux, Stéphanie a briqué, balayé, frotté, rangé, et vu l'envers du décor de l'Amérique triomphante. Elle a aspiré la poussière chez les autres, et aspiré à devenir quelqu'un d'autre. Elle raconte.
Ce livre constitue la biographie de référence sur Eileen Gray, l'une des premières femmes à atteindre la célébrité dans un monde du design alors largement dominé par les hommes. Le texte rédigé par Peter Adam, ami intime de Eileen Gray, fait ici l'objet d'une nouvelle traduction française et d'une mise à jour.
From one of America's iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life -- in good times and bad -- that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.
Three bicycles. Seven ghosts. A crumbling apartment block on the hill. Fame. Tenderness. The statue of Peter Pan. Silk. Melancholy. The banana tree. A Pandemic. A love story.''br>br>br>From one of the great thinkers and writers of our time, comes the highly anticipated final instalment in Deborah Levy''s critically acclaimed ''Living Autobiography''br>br>br>''I can''t think of any writer aside from Virginia Woolf who writes better about what it is to be a woman'' Observer on The Cost of Livingbr>br>br>Following the international critical acclaim of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Deborah Levy''s ''Living Autobiography'' is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it.br>br>br>''I began to wonder what myself and all unwritten and unseen women would possess in their property portfolios at the end of their lives. Literally, her physical property and possessions, and then everything else she valued, though it might not be valued by society. What might she claim, own, discard and bequeath? Or is she the real estate, owned by patriarchy? In this sense, Real Estate is a tricky business. We rent it and buy it, sell and inherit it - but we must also knock it down.'' br>br>br>''Wise, subtle and ironic, Levy''s every sentence is a masterpiece of clarity and poise... A brilliant writer'' Daily Telegraph on The Cost of Livingbr>br>br>''Extraordinary and beautiful, suffused with wit and razor-sharp insights'' Financial Times on The Cost of Living>
Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come.
A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their daughter fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then she was placed on life support. Days later, the Dunnes were sitting down to dinner when John suffered a massive and fatal coronary.
This powerful book is Didion''s ''attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness''. The result is a personal yet universal portrait of marriage and life, in good times and bad, from one of the defining voices of American literature.
''Beautiful and devastating ... Didion has always been a precise, humane and meticulously truthful writer, but on the subject of death she becomes essential'' Zadie Smith
''A must-read classic'' Mary Karr ''Trethewey writes elegantly, trenchantly, intimately as well about the fraught history of the south and what it means live at the intersection of America''s struggle between blackness and whiteness. And what, in our troubled republic, is a subject more evergreen?'' Mitchell S. Jackson Natasha Trethewey was born in Mississippi in the 60s to a black mother and a white father. When she was six, Natasha''s parents divorced, and she and her mother moved to Atlanta. There, her mother met the man who would become her second husband, and Natasha''s stepfather.
While she was still a child, Natasha decided that she would not tell her mother about what her stepfather did when she was not there: the quiet bullying and control, the games of cat and mouse. Her mother kept her own secrets, secrets that grew harder to hide as Natasha came of age.
When Natasha was nineteen and away at college, her stepfather shot her mother dead on the driveway outside their home.
With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, Memorial Drive is a compelling and searching look at a shared human experience of sudden loss and absence, and a piercing glimpse at the enduring ripple effects of white racism and domestic abuse. Luminous, urgent, and visceral, it cements Trethewey''s position as one of the most important voices in America today.>
The powerful, urgent manifesto on never giving up from Booker prize-winning trailblazer, Bernardine Evaristobr>br>Bernardine Evaristo''s 2019 Booker win - the first by a Black woman - was a revolutionary moment both for British culture and for her. After three decades as a trailblazing writer, teacher and activist, she moved from the margins to centre stage, taking her place in the spotlight at last. Her journey was a long one, but she made it, and she made history. br>br>MANIFESTO is Bernardine Evaristo''s intimate and inspirational, no-holds-barred account of how she did it, refusing to let any barriers stand in her way. She charts her creative rebellion against the mainstream and her life-long commitment to the imaginative exploration of ''untold'' stories. And drawing deeply on her own experiences, she offers a vital contribution to current conversations around social issues such as race, class, feminism, sexuality and aging. br>br>This is a unique book about staying true to yourself and to your vision. It''s about how to be unstoppable - in your craft, your work, your life. It is Bernardine Evaristo''s manifesto for never giving up.br>br>''Bernardine Evaristo is one of those writers who should be read by everyone, everywhere.'' Elif Shafakbr>br>''Bernardine Evaristo is one of Britain''s best writers, an iconic and unique voice, filled with warmth, subtlety and humanity. Exceptional'' Nikesh Shuklabr>br>''Bernardine Evaristo is the most daring, imaginative and innovative of writers'' Inua Ellams>
WINNER OF THE THURBER PRIZE The compelling, inspiring, (often comic) coming-of-age story of Trevor Noah, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed. One of the comedy world's brightest new voices, Trevor Noah is a light-footed but sharp-minded observer of the absurdities of politics, race and identity, sharing jokes and insights drawn from the wealth of experience acquired in his relatively young life. As host of the US hit show The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, he provides viewers around the globe with their nightly dose of biting satire, but here Noah turns his focus inward, giving readers a deeply personal, heartfelt and humorous look at the world that shaped him. Noah was born a crime, son of a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the first years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, take him away. A collection of eighteen personal stories, Born a Crime tells the story of a mischievous young boy growing into a restless young man as he struggles to find his place in a world where he was never supposed to exist. Born a Crime is equally the story of that young man's fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother - a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that ultimately threatens her own life. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Noah illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and an unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a personal portrait of an unlikely childhood in a dangerous time, as moving and unforgettable as the very best memoirs and as funny as Noah's own hilarious stand-up. Born a Crime is a must read.
Tells the story of a life's work to find happiness. This book includes stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a tyrant in place of a mother, who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the duster drawer, waiting for Armageddon; and, about the Universe as a Cosmic Dustbin.
