Latest news with #essays
Irish Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
This Interim Time by Oona Frawley: Moving essays by the daughter of Irish actors in New York
This Interim Time Author : Oona Frawley ISBN-13 : 978-1843519225 Publisher : Lilliput Guideline Price : €16.95 'I did not understand that the approaching loss would affect me, or how; I did not know that as the years passed I would begin to see him from different perspectives and rue that he did not live long enough to know that.' Academic and novelist Oona Frawley's collection of essays deal with grief and memory and how our perspectives on both shift as we gain both age and experience. Rooted in the writer's own experience as a daughter of an Irish immigrant actor couple in New York , these essays offer the intriguing viewpoint of a person neither truly here nor there. The sense of otherness makes the writer's work of piecing together information about her parents' lives all the more gripping. Those with an interest in Ireland's rich theatre history will relish the details of her parents' lives as actors in New York. In spite of her father's alcoholism, and the resulting difficulties in their family life, there is an air of glamour here. If anything, I would have relished a little more detail about certain aspects of the story – we discover the writer's father's shame over the loss of a job at an insurance company, but not how he and the writer's mother made the transition to becoming actors in New York. But perhaps this would have skewed the focus of these essays, which map the loss of the writer's father to cancer, then her mother to dementia, then finally the untimely loss of a close friend. READ MORE Though the book deals with the anger and frustration of grief, there are moments of aching tenderness, such as when the defeated writer cries at her mother's bedside in her final days: 'One day I broke off, put my head down on the edge of her bed and sobbed, unable to speak. After a few moments her hand fumbled awkwardly near my hair, trying to console me.' [ My father's friend who knew nothing about his alcoholism surprised us at his funeral Opens in new window ] The fragmentary style of the essays lends depth and vividness to the memories unearthed and juxtaposed. This is an absorbing and moving read for those who have enjoyed essay collections such as Katie Roiphe's The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End.
Mail & Guardian
29-05-2025
- General
- Mail & Guardian
Writing against the grain: Adekeye Adebajo's Africa
Africa has always been marked by difference, globally, and this difference always bears negativity,and tends to perpetuate stereotypes. What Adekeye Adebajo's recent work The Splendid Tapestry of African Life: Essays on a Resilient Continent, Its Diaspora, and the World, counts for is to challenge and make that difference a positive appeal to the continent. The book is a collection of essays penned over a period of three decades, covering most compelling issues, debates and developments across the continent. It is the outcome of Adebajo's intellectual engagement which evolved and established a comprehensive and grounded critique, thoughts and reviews over the time. The collection is broken into 10 chapters, with 36 essays in total. The titles of essays are full of echoes and implications that bring a global kind of rendering to the issues explored. Among the names invoked throughout the book are William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Pliny the Elder, Ali Mazrui, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Chinua Achebe — to name just a few. Even the title of the book resonates with Nigerian novelist, poet and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka's latest novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, where he laments the decay of beauties spoiled by the politics of corruption in his country. The title of the book also suggests a striking contrast with the issues covered, or more deeply, a politics of difference, which comes to mind when dealing with Africa. This contrast is summed up as follows: Africa we believe versus Africa we think. For the problematic arises out of difference, challenges and analysis. The truth that Adebajo brings into life is not something new, it is something embedded in Africa, which is not and/or cannot be seen from outside the continent. Nigerian poet and scholar Harry Garuba once said that the truth lies at the heart of an unexplored part of Africa that is not yet covered by the Western discourse, namely Afro-pessimism and Afro-romanticism. I believe Adebajo's attempt in this extensive study is to tap into that unexplored medium of the African domain. He aptly challenges the prevailing eurocentric and discursive representations of Africa foregrounded in the mainstream media, as well as the Western military and political interventions across the continent. For instance, calling France a myth of 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité', he calls into question the country's sustained hegemonic power in the francophone countries, saying, 'France continued to apply democracy inconsistently, sanctioning sham elections in Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, Niger and Togo between 1992 and 1996, and resuming aid to fraudulent, undemocratic regimes.' He adds, 'France's intervention on the continent has thus become a costly relic of a bygone age of imperial delusion.' The book covers a diverse range of issues, problems and themes around Africa including pan-Africanism; slavery; colonialism; reparations; foreign policy; governance; decolonisation; peacekeeping; Africa and Western relations; terrorism and Cold War problems on the continent, as well as cultural issues. In 586 pages, Adebajo deals with a multitude of issues besetting and underrating Africa. The Splendid Tapestry is informative and illuminating, providing an insightful, critical and deconstructive approach to global issues over Africa. Regarding reparations, for Adebajo, one of the most significant recent developments is the agreement by Germany to pay Namibia €1.1 billion in compensation, which was followed by the Netherlands' apology for Dutch slavery, globally. He asks: 'Will the more egregious abusers of France, Britain, Belgium, Portugal and Italy follow suit and start to atone for their historical crimes against humanity?' The way Adebajo tackles problems is strategic and optimistic. Bringing African leaders, thinkers, scholars such as Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Kwame Nkrumah, Ruth First, Wole Soyinka, Ali Mazrui and many others into his pan-Africanist perspective, he establishes Africa as a global actor through interactions, encounters and engagement on the global scene. He sees Africa as moving, glittering and shining: 'Africa. A breath-taking continent of spectacular beauty conjures up extreme images of paradisiacal Eden as the birthplace of humankind and, in contrast, a conflict-ridden, disease-afflicted 'Dark Continent' that offers a glimpse of apocalyptic Armageddon. 'But Africa is a resilient continent that, despite continuing challenges, is currently on the move in the areas of economic development, conflict resolution, and democratic governance.' Though the bulk of the book takes a strategic and critical view over the African political landscape, considerable parts are dedicated to cinema, sports and cityscapes. One of the striking points he makes about Nollywood is important to note. He locates Nollywood at the heart of Africa because of its Nigerian location. He maintains: 'Nollywood has unquestioningly become one of the few true representations of 'global Africa'.' What strikes me most is to read about African cities in the writer's imagination. Adebajo provides astonishing pieces of cities, profoundly lived experiences of Lagos, Abuja, Accra, Abidjan, Johannesburg and Laayoune.
RNZ News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
This Compulsion in Us
Award-winning novelist Tina Makereti has written her first nonfiction book. A collection of essays, This Compulsion In Us brings Tina's perspective as wahine Maori - that of a teacher, daughter, traveller, and parent. and confrontis experiences with alcoholism and breast cancer. In her writing Tina also likes to explore unknowability and the uncanny. Tina Makereti is the author of three acclaimed novels: Where the Rekohu Bone Sings, The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke, and Ockham-shortlisted The Mires. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Wall Street Journal
17-05-2025
- Wall Street Journal
To Prove They Don't Cheat With AI, Students Are Turning to…AI
Editor's note: We ran this edited column through an AI detector that determined it was 99% likely to have been written by a human. We assure you, the following is 100% human. Students don't want to be accused of cheating, so they're using artificial intelligence to make sure their school essays sound human.
CBS News
11-05-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Author Michele Weldon talks new book on lessons learned during pandemic
More than 7 million people have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. When you think about the pandemic, what comes to mind? Was it a moment of fear, hope, or a new way of embracing life and what lies ahead? Former Northwestern University journalism professor and award-winning author Michele Weldon discusses this in her new book, "The Time We Have: Essays on Pandemic Living." Former Northwestern University journalism professor and award-winning author Michele Weldon discusses this in her new book, "The Time We Have: Essays on Pandemic Living." Michele Weldon It's a compilation of essays about the lessons people learned during the pandemic. Weldon shares the key lessons learned looking back at that time. "I think it's important to look at large chunks of our life and not just to move on and say, 'Oh, I'm so glad that's over with' and really examine how to move purposely and mission on our lives knowing that something like this can also randomly happen at another time, maybe not at this magnitude, but how we move forward in hope and joy and really with a commitment to each other and to ourselves." Weldon says the pandemic also brought with it a great deal of grief, and the essays examine the lessons learned and the hope drawn from it, too. "The Time We Have: Essays on Pandemic Living" is now available in bookstores and online.
