In Salvage: Readings from the Wreck , Dionne Brand's first major book of non-fiction since her classic A Map to the Door of No Return , the acclaimed poet and novelist offers a bracing look at the intersections of reading and life, and of what remains in the wreck of empire. Blending literary crticism and autobiography-as artifact, Brand reads Aphra Behn's Oroonoko , Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park , among other still-widely studied works, to explore encounters with colonial, ...
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In Salvage: Readings from the Wreck , Dionne Brand's first major book of non-fiction since her classic A Map to the Door of No Return , the acclaimed poet and novelist offers a bracing look at the intersections of reading and life, and of what remains in the wreck of empire. Blending literary crticism and autobiography-as artifact, Brand reads Aphra Behn's Oroonoko , Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park , among other still-widely studied works, to explore encounters with colonial, imperialist and racist tropes from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century--tropes that continue in new forms today. Brand vividly shows how contemporary practices of reading and writing are shaped by the narrative structures of these and related works; and explores how, in the face of this, one writes a narrative of Black life that attends to its own consciousness and expression. With the power and eloquence of a great poet coupled with the rigour of a deep and subtle thinker, Brand reveals how she learned to read the literature of two empires, British and American, in an anti-colonial light--in order to survive, and in order to live. This is the library, the wreck, and the potential for salvage she offers us now, in a brilliant, groundbreaking and essential work.
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Add this copy of Salvage to cart. $39.00, new condition, Sold by Russell Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Victoria, BC, CANADA, published 2024 by Knopf Canada.
