{"title":"Michael Gorra","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichael Gorra’s work explores the rich terrain of literary art and culture with a keen eye for narrative and nuance. His writings delve into the intricate connections between storytelling and human experience, offering readers thoughtful reflections on literature’s power.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn titles such as \u003cem\u003eThe Saddest Words\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Storytellers\u003c\/em\u003e, Gorra combines critical insight with engaging prose, inviting readers to consider the forces that shape stories and the emotions they evoke. His books are essential for those drawn to the intersection of literature, history, and the art of storytelling.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-saddest-words-by-michael-gorra-9781324091011","title":"The Saddest Words","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith this \u003cq\u003erich, complex, and eloquent\u003c\/q\u003e (Drew Gilpin Faust, \u003cem\u003eAtlantic\u003c\/em\u003e) work, Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Gorra charts the evolution of an author through his most cherished—and contested—novels. Given the undeniable echoes of \"Lost Cause\" romanticism in William Faulkner’s fiction, as well as his depiction of Black characters and Black speech, Gorra argues convincingly that Faulkner demands a sobering reevaluation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUpending previous critical traditions and interweaving biography, literary criticism, and rich travelogue, the widely acclaimed \u003cem\u003eThe Saddest Words\u003c\/em\u003e recontextualizes Faulkner, revealing a civil war within him, while examining the most plangent cultural issues facing American literature today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47433027256556,"sku":"9781324091011","price":35.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781324091011.jpg?v=1774765749"},{"product_id":"the-saddest-words-by-michael-gorra-9781631491702","title":"The Saddest Words","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShould we still read William Faulkner in this new century? What can his works tell us about the legacy of slavery and the Civil War, that central quarrel in our nation's history? These are the provocative questions that Michael Gorra asks in this historic portrait of the novelist and his world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBorn in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such iconic novels as \u003ci\u003eAbsalom, Absalom!\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Sound and the Fury\u003c\/i\u003e, creating in Yoknapatawpha County the richest gallery of characters in American fiction, his achievements culminating in the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut given his works' echo of “Lost Cause” romanticism, his depiction of black characters and black speech, and his rendering of race relations in a largely unreconstructed South, Faulkner demands a sobering reevaluation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eInterweaving biography, absorbing literary criticism, and rich travelogue, \u003ci\u003eThe Saddest Words\u003c\/i\u003e recontextualizes Faulkner, revealing a civil war within him, while examining the most plangent cultural issues facing American literature today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47471827124460,"sku":"9781631491702","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/3e9a6ddf9a34f463ca9906f77811ec89.jpg?v=1775694239"},{"product_id":"the-storytellers-by-michael-gorra-9780226825557","title":"The Storytellers","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTracing the origins of the modern short story, Michael Gorra provides the first fully realised picture of a century's worth of great tales.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Storytellers\u003c\/em\u003e offers a far-reaching account of the rich tradition of short narratives that flourished in nineteenth-century Europe and America, one that both prepared for and eventually gave way to the modern short story. Tracing unexpected resemblances across languages and decades, Michael Gorra restores a wide-angle view of the form in which works usually treated as stand-alone classics reveal themselves as parts of a single, lively conversation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat unites these tales, Gorra argues, is their blend of novelty and unity. The book's heart lies in a series of accessible readings of great tales by Herman Melville, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Guy de Maupassant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles Chesnutt, and many more. Beyond its consideration of individual works, \u003cem\u003eThe Storytellers\u003c\/em\u003e examines the formal and thematic concerns that bind the century together: the use of frame tales, accounts of social marginality, and an abundance of ghosts and uncanny coincidences. Over time, Gorra shows, these qualities yielded to a cooler realism, with Anton Chekhov as the key transitional figure. His compressed studies of ordinary lives inspired the modern short story and consigned the gothic flourishes of earlier tales to genre fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat do we want from a story? What makes a tale worth telling? The nineteenth-century tale sought not the grand \"meaning of life\" promised by the novel, Gorra shows, but sudden revelations from singular events. \u003cem\u003eThe Storytellers\u003c\/em\u003e gives readers an incomparable guide to a vast body of tales that still has the power to thrill and entertain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67808143180012,"sku":"9780226825557","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780226825557-the-storytellers-1.jpg?v=1792527829"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/michael-gorra.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}