Author: Rodney Bolt File Type: epub Rodney Bolts delightful life of Marlowe plays out a surprising solution to an enduring literary mystery, bringing the spirit of Shakespeare alive as weve never seen it before. Rodney Bolts book is not an attempt to prove that, rather than dying at 29 in a tavern brawl, Christopher Marlowe staged his own death, fled to Europe, and went on to write the work attributed to Shakespeare. Instead, it takes that as the starting point for a playful and brilliantly written fake biography of Marlowe, which turns out to be a life of the Bard as well. Using real historical sources (as well as the occasional red herring) plus a generous dose of speculation, Bolt paints a rich and rollicking picture of Elizabethan life. As we accompany Marlowe into the halls of academia, the society of the popular English players traveling Europe, and the dangerous underworld of Elizabethan espionage, a fascinating and almost plausible life story emerges, along with a startlingly fresh look at the plays and poetry we know as Shakespeares. Tapping into centuries of speculation about the man behind the work, about whom so few facts are known for sure, Rodney Bolt slyly winds the lives of two beloved playwrights into one.

Author: Svetlana Alexievich File Type: epub From the Nobel Prize-winning writer, an oral history of childrens experiences in World War II across Russiain the vein of The Unwomanly Face of War and *Secondhand Time* For more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of the twentieth century. When the Swedish Academy awarded her the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing a new kind of literary genre, describing her work as a history of emotions . . . a history of the soul. Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style, Last Witnesses is Alexievichs collection of the memories of those who were children during World War II. They had sometimes been soldiers as well as witnesses, and their generation grew up with the trauma of the war deeply embeddeda trauma that would change the course of the Russian nation. Collectively, this symphony of childrens stories, filled with the everyday details of life in combat, reveals an altogether unprecedented view of the war. Alexievich gives voice to those whose memories have been lost in the official narratives, uncovering a powerful, hidden history from the personal and private experiences of individuals. Translated by the renowned Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Last Witnesses is a powerful and poignant account of the central conflict of the twentieth century, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human side of war. **Review Praise for Svetlana Alexievich, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time [Svetlana] Alexievich presents less a straightforward oral history of World War II than a literary excavation of memory itself. The New York Times Book Review Alexievich has forged her own distinctive identity as a witness to witnesses who usually go unheard. . . . In a post-truth era when journalism is under pressuresusceptible to propaganda, sensationalism, and alternative factsthe power of documentary literature stands out more clearly than ever. . . . Listen to Alexievich. *The Atlantic* [Alexievichs] books are woven from hundreds of interviews, in a hybrid form of reportage and oral history that has the quality of a documentary film on paper. But Alexievich is anything but a simple recorder and transcriber of found voices she has a writerly voice of her own which emerges from the chorus she assembles, with great style and authority, and she shapes her investigations of Soviet and post-Soviet life and death into epic dramatic chronicles as universally essential as Greek tragedies. . . . A mighty documentarian and a mighty artist. *The New Yorker* Alexievich has gained probably the worlds deepest, most eloquent understanding of the post-Soviet condition. . . . [She] has consistently chronicled that which has been intentionally forgotten. Masha Gessen Alexievich stations herself at a crossroads of history and turns on her tape recorder. The result is oral history that at times can feel more authentic than narrated history. Alexievich makes it feel intimate, as if you are sitting in the kitchen with the characters, sharing in their happiness and agony. The Washington Post Alexievichs witnesses are those who havent had a say. She shows us from these conversations, many of them coming at the confessional kitchen table of Russian apartments, that its powerful simply to be allowed to tell ones own story. This is the kind of history, otherwise almost unacknowledged by todays dictatorships, that matters. *The Christian Science Monitor* About the Author Svetlana Alexievich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 1948 and has spent most of her life in the Soviet Union and present-day Belarus, with prolonged periods of exile in Western Europe. Starting out as a journalist, she developed her own nonfiction genre, which gathers a chorus of voices to describe a specific historical moment. Her works include The Unwomanly Face of War (1985), Last Witnesses (1985), Zinky Boys (1990), Voices from Chernobyl (1997), and Secondhand Time (2013). She has won many international awards, including the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.