The Soft Voice Of The Serpent
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The Soft Voice Of The Serpent
''The Soft Voice of the Serpent and Other Stories'' is the second short story collection by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer, and her first to be published outside South Africa. It was published on May 23, 1952, by Simon & Schuster in the United States, and in the United Kingdom by Gollancz in 1953. It overlaps substantially with her first short story collection, ''Face to Face'' (1949), and the stories are set in South Africa. Stories The bracketed dates record, for stories which had previously been published elsewhere, the first appearance of the story in print. *"The Soft Voice of the Serpent" (1948) A husband adjusts to the loss of a limb. Sitting in his garden, he feels religious awe at the natural world he is observing. First published as "The two of us" in South Africa.Venter, Delina Charlotte (1991)"The interaction of race, gender and class in a selection of short stories by Nadine Gordimer."(MA thesis). Retrieved 2011-11-09. *"The Catch" (1951) A young white co ...
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Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognized as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great benefit to humanity". Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as ''Burger's Daughter'' and ''July's People'' were banned. She was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned, and gave Nelson Mandela advice on his famous I Am Prepared to Die, 1964 defence speech at the trial which led to his conviction for life. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes. Early life Gordimer was born near Springs, Gauteng, an East Rand mining town outside Johannesburg. She was the second daughter of her parents. Her father, Isidore Gordimer, w ...
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Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46. Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. A young Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, Wilde read Literae Humaniores#Greats, Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional Classics, classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde m ...
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1952 Short Story Collections
Year 195 ( CXCV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Scrapula and Clemens (or, less frequently, year 948 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 195 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus has the Roman Senate deify the previous emperor Commodus, in an attempt to gain favor with the family of Marcus Aurelius. * King Vologases V and other eastern princes support the claims of Pescennius Niger. The Roman province of Mesopotamia rises in revolt with Parthian support. Severus marches to Mesopotamia to battle the Parthians. * The Roman province of Syria is divided and the role of Antioch is diminished. The Romans annexed the Syrian cities of Edessa and Nisibis. Severus re-establish his head ...
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The Lying Days
''The Lying Days'' is the debut novel of Nobel winning South African novelist, Nadine Gordimer. It was published in 1953 in London by Victor Gollancz and New York by Simon & Schuster. It is Gordimer's third published book, following two collections of short stories, ''Face to Face'' (1949), and ''The Soft Voice of the Serpent'' (1952). The novel is semi-autobiographical, with the main character coming from a small mining town in Africa similar to Gordimer's own childhood. The novel is also a bildungsroman "about waking up from the naivete of a small colonial town." Reception Reviews of ''The Lying Days'' in 1953 were generally positive. ''New York Times'' critic James Stern compared the novel favourably to the works of Alan Paton, especially ''Cry, the Beloved Country'', describing ''The Lying Days'' as the better of the two novels. Stern described the novel as less "novel" and more "biography", following the style and form of biographical writing. In a review in the ''Fitchbur ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ...
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Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. ''Kirkus Reviews'', published on the first and 15th of each month; previews books before their publication. ''Kirkus'' reviews over 10,000 titles per year. History Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economic measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100. Initially titled ''Bulletin'' by Kirkus' Bookshop Service from 1933 to 1954, the title was ...
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Township (South Africa)
In South Africa, the terms township and location usually refer to the often underdeveloped racially segregated urban areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, were reserved for non-whites, namely Black Africans, Coloureds and Indians. Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities. The term ''township'' also has a distinct legal meaning in South Africa's system of land title, which carries no racial connotations. Townships for non-whites were also called ''locations'' or ''lokasies'' in Afrikaans and are often still referred to by that name in smaller towns. The slang term "kasie/kasi", a popular short version of "lokasie" is also used. Townships sometimes have large informal settlements nearby. History Early development During the first half of the twentieth century, a clear majority of the black population in major urban areas lived in hostels or servants' accommodations provided by employers and were mostly single men. In t ...
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The Importance Of Being Earnest
''The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People'' is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian morality, Victorian ways. Some contemporary reviews praised the play's humour and the culmination of Wilde's artistic career, while others were cautious about its lack of social messages. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' Wilde's most enduringly popular play. The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career but also heralded his downfall. The John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Lor ...
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The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of Short story, short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous Fact-checking, fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''The New York Times, N ...
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Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints. History Early years In 1924, Richard Simon's aunt, a crossword puzzle enthusiast, asked whether there was a book of ''New York World'' crossword puzzles, which were very popular at the time. After discovering that none had been published, Simon and Max Schuster decided to launch a company to exploit the opportunity.Frederick Lewis Allen, ''Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s'', p. 165. . At the time, Simon was a piano salesman and Schuster was editor of an automotive trade magazine. They pooled , equivalent to $ today, to start a company that published crossword puzzles. The new publishing house used "fad" publishing to publish bo ...
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Shemira
''Shemira'' ( he, שמירה, lit. "watching" or "guarding") refers to the Jewish religious ritual of watching over the body of a deceased person from the time of death until burial. A male guardian is called a ''shomer'' (), and a female guardian is a ''shomeret'' (). ''Shomrim'' (plural, ) are people who perform ''shemira''. In Israel, ''shemira'' refers to all forms of guard duty, including military guard duty. An armed man or woman appointed to patrol a grounds or campus for security purposes would be called a ''shomer'' or ''shomeret''. History Historically, ''shemira'' was a form of guard duty, to prevent the desecration of a body prior to burial. The body guards, "guardians of the dead," perform a thankless task—literally.Raphael, Dr. Simcha Paull (1994). ''Jewish Views of the Afterlife''. Jason Aaronson, Inc., pp. 415-416. In the Talmud, in b. Berachot 18a and Shabbat 151b, the purpose of ''shemira'' was to guard against rodents, as rodents fear the living and not the dea ...
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The Yale Review
''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on history and economics and was renamed ''The New Englander'' in 1843. In 1885 it was renamed ''The New Englander and Yale Review'' until 1892, when it took its current name ''The Yale Review''. At the same time, editor Henry Wolcott Farnam gave the periodical a focus on American and international politics, economics, and history. The modern history of the journal starts in 1911 under the editorship of Wilbur Cross. Cross remained the editor for thirty years, throughout the magazine's heyday. Contributors during this period, according to the ''Review's'' website, included Thomas Mann, Henry Adams, Virginia Woolf, George Santayana, Robert Frost, José Ortega y Gasset, Eugene O'Neill, Leon Trotsky, H. G. Wells, Thomas Wolfe, John Maynard Keyne ...
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