Island of Lightning is the latest book of travel essays by the prizewinning Robert Minhinnick, poet, novelist, translator, cultural commentator and environmentalist. In it he travels from his home in south Wales to Argentina, China, Finland, Iraq, Tuscany and Piemonte, Malta, New York, Zagreb, Lithuania and the lightning island of Malta. In conventional travel essays and leaps of imaginative narrative his subjects include the annual Elvis convention in Porthcawl, Neolithic sculptures, the cruelties of late twentieth century communism and its aftermath, rugby union, the Argentinian writer Alfonsina Storni, poets playing football, the body of a saint and the definition of cool. His themes are big ones: the relationship of man and landscape, man and time, man and nature, immigration and war, in one sense ultimately humankind itself. Minhinnick explores with the eye of a poet and the gift of a telling image or metaphor. His walk from Cardiff to the Rhondda valleys is almost geological as he passes through the social and cultural strata of the area's history.
His astonishment at the sheer number of people - the scale on which society works - in China, results in an inventive grappling with the hugeness of the world (and its growing problems). At the other end of the spectrum his re-imagining of the life of Alfonsina Storni, her love for Borges and her suicide is a delicate commentary on the personal and the solitary. Readers will be entertained, informed and provoked by this series of essays in which Minhinnick takes his subjects as though holding them in his hand, turning them for new perspectives and understanding.
Island of Lightning is the latest collection of travel writing by author, cultural commentator and environmentalist Robert Minhinnick, following the award-winning To Babel and Back (2005). In 23 essays Robert travels to Malta (the island of lightning), China, USA, Argentina, Iraq, Finland, Italy, Croatia, Lithuania and Brittany. All the while he is constantly returning to his native Wales, including a walk through Welsh history and culture from Cardiff to the Rhondda valleys.
Other topics broached along the way range from rugby union to poets playing football; the Argentinian writer Alfonsina Storni and her love for Borges to the annual Elvis convention in Porthcawl; the body of a saint to the definition of cool.
Robert Minhinnick is a prize-winning poet and novelist. He was shortlisted for the £30,000 Sunday Times Short Story Award in 2012. He has twice won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem (1999, 2003); his New Selected Poems was published by Carcanet in 2012. His novel Sea Holly was shortlisted for the 2008 Ondaatje Prize, and his essay collections Watching the Fire-Eater and To Babel and Back both won Wales Book of the Year, and were followed by The Keys of Babylon. He lives in Porthcawl in south Wales.
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His astonishment at the sheer number of people - the scale on which society works - in China, results in an inventive grappling with the hugeness of the world (and its growing problems). At the other end of the spectrum his re-imagining of the life of Alfonsina Storni, her love for Borges and her suicide is a delicate commentary on the personal and the solitary. Readers will be entertained, informed and provoked by this series of essays in which Minhinnick takes his subjects as though holding them in his hand, turning them for new perspectives and understanding.
Island of Lightning is the latest collection of travel writing by author, cultural commentator and environmentalist Robert Minhinnick, following the award-winning To Babel and Back (2005). In 23 essays Robert travels to Malta (the island of lightning), China, USA, Argentina, Iraq, Finland, Italy, Croatia, Lithuania and Brittany. All the while he is constantly returning to his native Wales, including a walk through Welsh history and culture from Cardiff to the Rhondda valleys.
Other topics broached along the way range from rugby union to poets playing football; the Argentinian writer Alfonsina Storni and her love for Borges to the annual Elvis convention in Porthcawl; the body of a saint to the definition of cool.
Robert Minhinnick is a prize-winning poet and novelist. He was shortlisted for the £30,000 Sunday Times Short Story Award in 2012. He has twice won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem (1999, 2003); his New Selected Poems was published by Carcanet in 2012. His novel Sea Holly was shortlisted for the 2008 Ondaatje Prize, and his essay collections Watching the Fire-Eater and To Babel and Back both won Wales Book of the Year, and were followed by The Keys of Babylon. He lives in Porthcawl in south Wales.
Формат: Скан PDf
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