The Fiction of Emyr Humphreys

Contemporary Critical Perspectives

Author(s) Linden Peach

Language: English

Genre(s): Welsh Interest

Series: Writing Wales in English

  • January 2011 · 156 pages ·216x138mm

  • · Paperback - 9780708322161
  • · eBook - pdf - 9780708324042
  • · eBook - epub - 9781783164417

About The Book

An introduction to the work of one of Wales's leading writers, highlighting his importance to contemporary critical and cultural agendas such as issues of identity, nation, environment and religious conflict.

Endorsements

"Linden Peach has achieved a rare thing: an engrossing, accessible book that will be relished by students and academics alike. Emyr Humphreys's pre-eminence as a writer of fiction in Wales over the last sixty years is undisputed. Peach conveys the sheer vibrancy of Humphreys's 'dissident prose' with infectious enthusiasm, while at the same time providing a masterclass in reading his novels with reference to contemporary literary theories."--Kristi Bohata, Swansea University

Contents

Part One: Frames and Contexts 1. Humphrey's Life and Works 2. What Kind of Fiction? 3. History, Space and Progress 4. Bodies in Time: Psychoanalytic Contours 5. Women, Feminism and Post-feminism Part Two: Readings 6. Resistance, Gender and Performative Identity: A Man's Estate 7. Contested Masculinities: A Toy Epic 8. Time and Being: Outside the House of Baal 9. Land of the Living and Epic Theatre 10. Warring Families: Unconditional Surrender and The Gift of a Daughter 11. Strangers in a Strange Land: Natives, Ghosts and Strangers and Old People are a Problem 12. Intimate Strangers: The Shop 13. Independence, Globalism and Nonconformity: The Woman at the Window 14. Afterword

About the Author(s)

Author(s): Linden Peach

Professor Linden Peach is Director of Educational Development at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, London. He has published extensively on modern literature, including important works on the Welsh novelist and pacifist Emyr Humphreys, and on Welsh women’s writing. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the English Association.

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