“A true story of human desperation, shattering in its impact.”—Tennessee WilliamsDriven by famine from their home in the Rif, Mohamed’s family walks to Tangiers in search of a better life. But his father is unable to find work and grows violent. Mohamed learns how to charm and steal. During a short spell in a filthy Moroccan jail, a fellow inmate kindles his life-altering love of poetry.The distinguished writer Paul Bowles, perhaps best known for his novel The Sheltering Sky, collaborated closely with Mohamed Choukri on the translation of For Bread Alone, and penned the introduction.

For bread alone

Literature & Fiction

Shukrī, Muḥammad

Literary

P. Owen

Dictionary of astrology,

Wedeck, Harry Ezekiel

Reference

Popcorn Venus : women, movies & the American dream

Humor & Entertainment

Rosen, Marjorie

Movies

Looking backwards

COLETTE

“Both Mann and Hesse were charged with … energy. Mann, the resident of cities (particularly his beloved Munich) poured his uncertainty and his corrosive insights into his great first novel, Buddenbrooks, which was published in 1901 and sold an astonishing one million copies. The bourgeois writer had exposed most of the fault lines in bourgeois society, not only in Germany, but in most of Europe. At twenty-six, he was famous, proclaimed by many as a coming master of the literary twentieth century…., Hesse had solidified his literary reputation with Siddharta and Steppenwolf. One of their most attentive readers was Thomas Mann. . .. the best of the letters present us with two fundamentally decent, sophisticated men grieving for the ruined world. In the 1930s and 1940s, they rail against the stupidity of war and the cowardice of diplomats, against the social savagery of the Nazis, against the blind forces of abstraction and nationalism. They brood about the fate of Germany and of Europe after the last shots have been fired.  They have lived through a time of extraordinary horror and yet they have not surrendered to despair or nihilism. Reading the letters, I feel like some privileged guest in a special room, sitting off to the side somewhere, listening while these men talk. A fire burns in a fireplace. Through the windows I can see snow falling against a dark sky. We are in the country of exile. Neither man has given up hope. Art will prevail, they insist. Civilization will prevail. Music will drive off the explosive rumble of artillery. Life will defeat death. Listen to them: they are speaking truth. Nothing else matters. “ From the Introduction by Pete Hamill “For all differences between north and south, between urban and rural, between epic narrator and lyric confessor, between sophisticated cosmopolite and briskly recluse, Hesse and Mann shared a common experience that provided the basis for their eventual feeling of colleagueship. Reduced to its simplest terms, this experience was based on the insight that their common bourgeois heritage….was exhausted…. According to their diagnosis, it was an unthinking alliance to outmoded and sterile bourgeois ideals that enable the “law and order” mentality of the fascist so easily to take over in Europe. In opposition to that mentality ..Hesse and Mann proclaimed their faith in a humanism predicated upon belief in the integrity of the individual” From the Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski  

The Hesse-Mann letters: The correspondence of Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann, 1910-1955

HESSE,HERMANN

The Plays of Samuel Beckett

In The Plays of Samuel Beckett Eugene Webb first summarizes the western philosophical tradition which has culminated in the void--the centuries of attempts to impose form and meaning on existence, the failure of which has left experience in fragments and man a stranger in an unintelligible universe. Succeeding chapters take up the plays work by work, interpreting each individually and tracing recurrent motifs, themes, and images to show the continuity in the underlying tendencies of Beckett's mind and art.

The plays of Samuel Beckett

Webb, Eugene

Silence

Endō, Shūsaku

Botchan is one of Japan's most popular novels for young people for its meditations upon Japanese culture, lively characters, and coming-of-age theme.  The titular character is a young, headstrong and reckless youth who is nevertheless possessed of a serious sense of honor and integrity. Although his temper and impulsiveness create problems, Botchan's moral convictions underpin his journey: indeed, whether he will compromise his morals is the central question.  After taking a job as a junior teacher in a local middle school, Botchan comes into conflict with Red Shirt; his school's eloquent but manipulative and conniving head teacher. Vying for the hand of a local beauty, Red Shirt will stop at nothing to achieve his aims, using his position and the system to undermine or defeat others. However a hot tempered but justice-seeking mathematics teacher, Yama Arashi, is determined to oppose such underhand behavior.  Who will Botchan side with in the end?  Natsume Soseki used both his own childhood and his reflections upon the contrasting cultures of Tokyo - which stood at the forefront of Japan's development - and Matsuyama, whose deep-rooted traditions remained strong. The descriptions of Matsuyama as it was at the opening of the 20th century offer insight into a country caught at the crossroads between the incipient modern world and the long standing ways of the past.

Botchan (UNESCO collection of representative works: Japanese series)

Natsume, Sōseki

The art of life: Dorothy Richardson and the development of feminist consciousness

Hanscombe, Gillian E

History & Criticism

In this intense and brilliant book Bowles focuses on Morocco, condensing expreience, emotion, and the whole history of a people into a series of short, insightful vignettes. He distills for us the very essence of Moroccan culture. With extraordinary immediacy, he takes the reader on a journey through the Moroccan centuries, pausing at points along the way to create resonant images of the country, it's landscapes, and the beliefs and characteristics of its inhabitants.

Points in time

BOWLES, Paul.

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Books by P. Owen