New Releases by Angela Carter

Utnämnd av BBC till en av de 100 mest inflytelserika romanerna någonsin. »Den mest oberoende och egensinniga engelska författaren - någonsin.« Salman Rushdie »En excentrisk roman, som utmanar både vad som ryms i en roman och i en människa.« Betyg: 5 av 5 - Jonas Frånander, BTJ Sophie Fevvers besitter en tjuskraft omöjlig att värja sig från. Hon uppvaktas av prinsen av Wales och Toulouse-Lautrec har målat hennes porträtt. Hon är sin tids mest berömda luftakrobat på Kapten Kearneys cirkus och hennes reklamfras lyder »Är hon verklighet eller fantasi?«. Det är frågan alla ställer sig. Hon hävdar att hon är en fågelkvinna - samtidigt som hon fick sin första menstruation växte ett par vingar ut från skulderbladen. Den amerikanska journalisten Jack Walser tror sig ha tidernas scoop, han ska avslöja Sophies verkliga identitet. Han följer med cirkusen på en magisk turné genom 1800-talets London, St. Petersburg och Sibirien - och uppdraget får en särskild intensitet då även Walser förälskat sig i fågelkvinnan. Cirkuskvällar [Nights at the Circus, 1984] belönades med det anrika James Tait Black Memorial Prize när den kom ut. En fullödig roman där Angela Carter med stor lekfullhet använder hela sitt register. I översättning av Olof Hoffsten och med ett nyskrivet förord av Marie Wennersten. ANGELA CARTER [1940-1992] var en brittisk romanförfattare, novellist, poet, dramatiker, essäist och manusförfattare. Hon debuterade 1965 med romanen Shadow Dance. Redan tidigt i författarskapet tilldelades hon prestigefyllda priser som The Somerset Maugham Prize och The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Carter har rankats av The Times som en av de tio största brittiska efterkrigsförfattarna.

Angela Carter, tra le più grandi e più audaci scrittrici inglesi di sempre, ritorna con uno dei suoi capolavori: La bottega dei giocattoli, vincitore del John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, è l’esempio perfetto di uno stile unico e di una fantasia travolgente. Nell’estate dei suoi quindici anni, per Melanie cambia tutto. Ormai non è più una bambina: lunghe ore trascorse in esplorazione davanti allo specchio lo confermano. Deliziata dalla scoperta del proprio corpo, la ragazza è tutta un fremito. Una notte in cui è a casa da sola, troppo eccitata per dormire, non resiste alla tentazione del proibito e, indossato il candido abito nuziale della madre, esce in giardino e passeggia al chiaro di luna. Qualcosa, però, va storto, e il giorno seguente il destino le fa visita presentandole il conto: i suoi genitori non ci sono più. Melanie e i suoi due fratellini sono dunque costretti ad abbandonare la casa di famiglia per trasferirsi a Londra, dagli zii che non hanno mai conosciuto: zia Margaret, una donna gentile che ha smesso di parlare quando si è sposata, e zio Philip, giocattolaio ossessivo, dispotico e manipolatore. Come se non bastasse, alla coppia fa seguito il giovane Finn, che da subito si mostra molto interessato alla nuova arrivata. Sempre più consapevole della propria femminilità e sempre più affamata di libertà, Melanie dovrà imparare in fretta a non farsi sottomettere... Un vibrante romanzo sul fascino inquietante del diventare adulti e un tassello importante nell’opera di Angela Carter, capace di farci ridere, di turbarci, di trasportarci in mondi affascinanti e misteriosi. «La sua prosa si presta a magnifiche scene di meticolosa sensualità... Sogni, miti, fiabe, metamorfosi, l’inconscio ribelle, viaggi epici e una celebrazione molto sensuale della sessualità nelle sue manifestazioni più gioiose e più oscure». Ian McEwan «I suoi libri ci liberano dalle catene, rovesciando le statue del pomposo, demolendo i templi della rettitudine. Prendono la loro forza da tutto ciò che è ingiusto, illegittimo, basso. Non hanno eguali né rivali». Salman Rushdie «Veloce, ficcante e impreziosito da uno stile efficace, il libro avvinghia il lettore. La storia non delude, rimanendoti appiccicata per giorni». Omar Di Monopoli

In Brixton, Nora and Dora Chance – twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river – are celebrating their 75th birthday. Over the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation Melchior Hazard turns 100 on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he''s still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior is their real father after all... Wise Children is adapted for the stage from Angela Carter''s last novel about a theatrical family living in South London. It centres around twin chorus girls, Nora and Dora Chance, whose lives are brimming with mystery, illegitimacy and scandal. Dora narrates the story as her older self, looking back on a tumultuous life, throughout which she and her sister have loved to sing and dance. A big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and heartbreak, Wise Children is a celebration of show business, family, forgiveness and hope. Expect show girls and Shakespeare, sex and scandal, music, mischief and mistaken identity – and butterflies by the thousand.

Angela Carter a un double rapport à la littérature. D''une part, c''est pour elle un objet d''étude : elle a été chargée de cours dans l''atelier d''écriture de l''université de Sheffield. D''autre part, c''est son instrument de création et d''évasion : primée sur tous les continents, elle allie rigueur du style et ambiance quasi-fantastique. Les textes qui constituent Vénus noire se trouvent à la croisée de ces deux acceptions. Ce recueil forme une sorte de prisme kaléidoscopique qui met en lumière différentes facettes du thème de la " femme nouvelle ", allant d''une inconnue accusée de meurtre aux Etats-Unis au XIXe siècle à la maitresse de Baudelaire. Qu''elle s''inspire de Shakespeare ou d''Edgar Allan Poe, Angela Carter garde la même façon oblique et inimitable de traiter ses sujets. Il ne s''agit pas seulement d''une relecture analytique, mais de variations romanesques à l''érotisme cruel, trouble et inquiétant. Ce qu''Angela Carter met en scène, c''est l''acte même de lecture, la dérive onirique qui s''empare du lecteur qui déchiffre un récit avec ses attentes, ses fantasmes, l''ombre portée de ses désirs et désillusions, l''empreinte de sa vie.

This charming book recalls a time when the housewives of Britain were still makingdo and keeping a nation ''fighting fit''. It contains a vast collection of recipes, froma classic fish pie to a ''gooey'' ginger cake, showing how even during the post-warrationing period, food could still be adventurous and tasty. Go back to basics andsavour the tastes of the war years with this nostalgic collection of recipes. Illustratedwith fine drawings by the artist Edward Bawden.

Le Docteur Hoffman, un mystérieux savant fou, « attaque » la réalité d''une ville d''Amérique du Sud en y créant des illusions. Étrangement, au milieu du chaos et de la confusion qui règnent, Desiderio est le seul être insensible aux illusions déployées par l’infâme docteur. Non pas qu’il ne les voie pas, mais il y est profondément indifférent, comme en réalité à toutes choses. Tombé amoureux, en rêve, de la fille du docteur Hoffman, ce héros maussade reçoit pour mission de remonter la trace du docteur afin de sauver la ville, et, ce faisant, s’embarque dans un voyage picaresque qui lui fera rencontrer des centaures, des peuplades plus ou moins barbares, avant de devenir membre d’une troupe de carnaval itinérante puis d’intégrer la suite d’un comte lituanien et d’échapper de peu à des cannibales... Qualifié à sa sortie par le New York Times de « plus beau roman surréaliste des trente dernières années », Les Machines à désir infernales du Docteur Hoffman était de l’aveu même d’Angela Carter son roman le plus audacieux sur le plan formel, et reste pour la plupart de ses lecteurs son grand classique méconnu. Jamais, en effet, elle n’avait écrit un texte aussi baroque, aussi picaresque et en même temps aussi proche de la fable métaphysique, même si l''on retrouve dans ce roman inédit en français l’humour, le style inimitable et la charge subversive propre à tous ses autres textes.

‘Carter hoort in het hart van de literatuur.’ Salman Rushdie Na de dood van haar rijke ouders verhuist de vijftienjarige Melanie met haar broertje en zusje naar een onbekende oom in Londen. Hij maakt speelgoed, maar is een despoot. Zijn Ierse vrouw, die al jaren niet spreekt, en haar twee wonderlijke broers zien er verwaarloosd uit. Eens per maand organiseert de oom een toneelstuk in de kelder, met levensgrote en griezelig echte poppen. Melanie moet uiteindelijk meespelen en wel als Leda de zwaan... Dit zwarte sprookje ontpopt zich tot een prachtige, onverwachte liefdesgeschiedenis. Internationale Klassieker Met trots presenteren wij onze eerste Internationale Klassieker. De titels in deze reeks zijn bewezen successen en nog helemaal van nu. Carter schrijft wonderschoon, sprankelend en ritmisch over pittige thema’s met een openhartige seksuele ondertoon en is met recht een klassieker die ertoe doet dus!

Once upon a time fairy tales weren''t meant just for children, and neither is Angela Carter''s Book of Fairy Tales. This stunning collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world- from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters. This fabulous celebration of strong minds, low cunning, black arts and dirty tricks could only have been collected by the unique and much-missed Angela Carter. Illustrated throughout with original woodcuts.

a) The Unicorn As with the night-scented stock, the full splendour of the unicorn manifests itself most potently at twilight. Then the horn sprouts, swells, blooms in all its glory. SEE THE HORN (bend the tab, slit in slot marked ''x'') Despite being one of the most influential - and best-loved - of the post-war English writers, Angela Carter remains little-known as a poet. In Unicorn, the critic and historian Rosemary Hill collects together her published verse from 1963-1971, a period in which Carter began to explore the themes that dominated her later work: magic, the reworking of myths and their darker sides, and the overturning of literary and social conventions. With imagery at times startling in its violence and disconcerting in its presentation of sexuality, Unicorn provides compelling insight into the formation of a remarkable imagination. In the essay that accompanies the poems the critic and historian Rosemary Hill considers them in the context of Carter''s other work and as an aspect of the 1960s, the decade which as Carter put it ''wasn''t like they say in the movies''.

''Wicked, wayward or otherwise, Carter''s classic collection is a very erudite expression of girl power'' MINA HOLLAND, GUARDIAN ''One of the century''s greatest writers'' SUNDAY TIMES This bestselling collection of stories extols the female virtues of discontent, sexual disruptiveness and bad manners. These are subversive tales by Ama Ata Aidoo, Jane Bowles, Angela Carter, Colette, Bessie Head, Jamaica Kincaid and Katherine Mansfield among others. They all have one thing in common; the wish to restore adventuresses and revolutionaries to their rightful position as models for all women. Reflecting the wide-ranging intelligence and deliciously anarchic taste of Angela Carter, some of these stories celebrate toughness and resilience, some of them low cunning: all of them are about not being nice.

Such was the delight in Angela Carter''s The Virago Book of Fairy Tales, that she compiled a second volume. And what a treasure trove it is, perfectly complemented by the bewitching drawings of Corinna Sargood, brimming with pretty maids and old crones, crafty women and bad girls, enchantresses and midwives, rascal aunts and odd sisters. Here is a fabulous celebration of strong minds, low cunning, black arts and dirty tricks as could only have been collected by the unique Angela Carter, who wrote in her introduction to the first book ''I offer them in a valedictory spirit, as a reminder of the contributions to literature of Mother Goods and her goslings''. The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales is a wonderful gift to us all.

''Curiosity is the most fleeting of pleasures; the moment is satisfied, it ceases to exist and it always proves very, very expensive.'' Angela Carter''s playful and subversive retellings of Charles Perrault''s classic fairy tales conjure up a world of resourceful women, black-hearted villains, wily animals and incredible transformations. In these seven stories, bristling with frank, earthy humour and gothic imagination, nothing is as it seems. This book includes Bluebeard, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, The Sleeping Beauty of the Wood, Cinderella: or, The Glass Slipper, Ricky with the Tuft and The Foolish Wishes.

Desiderio, an employee of the city under a bizarre reality attack from Doctor Hoffman''s mysterious machines, has fallen in love with Albertina, the Doctor''s daughter. But Albertina, a beautiful woman made of glass, seems only to appear to him in his dreams. Meeting on his adventures a host of cannibals, centaurs and acrobats, Desiderio must battle against unreality and the warping of time and space to be with her, as the Doctor reduces Desiderio''s city to a chaotic state of emergency - one ridden with madness, crime and sexual excess. A satirical tale of magic and sex, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is a dazzling quest for truth, love and identity.

Graffiti Gerbil felt dreadful. He had eaten too much, and now his poor tummy was swollen and painful. He felt so bad he knew he would have to go into hospital. He was very afraid. Beryl Badger promised to go with him. She knew that the doctors and nurses were kind and friendly, and would do what they could to make him better.

This book is about my trials, challenges, and my triumphs.

Ten beloved fairy tales, given new life by the one and only Angela Carter Little Red Riding Hood. Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. Bluebeard. The Fairies. Many classic fairy tale characters might not have survived into the present were it not for Charles Perrault, a seventeenth-century French civil servant who rescued them from the oral tradition and committed them to paper. Three centuries later, Angela Carter, widely regarded as one of England’s most imaginative writers, adapted them for contemporary readers. The result is a cornucopia of fantastic characters and timeless adventures, stylishly retold by a modern literary visionary. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

In Eighteenth Century France, Charles Perrault Rescued From The Oral Tradition Fairy Tales That Are Known And Loved Even Today By Virtually All Children In The West. Angela Carter Came Across Perrault''S Work And Set Out To Adapt The Stories For Modern Readers Of English. In Breathing New Life Into These Classic Fables, She Produced Versions That Live On As Classics In Their Own Right, Marked As Much By Her Signature Wit, Irony, And Subversiveness As They Are By The Qualities That Have Made Them Universally Appealing For Centuries.

In their heyday on the vaudeville stages of the early twentieth century, Dora Chance and her twin sister, Nora--unacknowledged daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day--were known as the Lucky Chances, with private lives as colorful and erratic as their careers. But now, at age 75, Dora is typing up their life story, and it is a tale indeed that Angela Carter tells. A writer known for the richness of her imagination and wit as well as her feminist insights into matters large and small, she created in Wise Children an effervescent family saga that manages to celebrate the lore and magic of show business while also exploring the connections between parent and child, the transitory and the immortal, authenticity and falsehood.

In this, her second novel, (awarded the 1967 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) Angela Carter''s brilliant imagination and starting intensity of style explore and extend the nature and boundaries of love.

Vyprahlá poušť spolu s městem plným temných přízraků a militaristického chaosu jsou nejen apokalyptickou projekcí zběsilého a zlověstného řádu světa, ale také východiskem pro pokusy vytvořit nový počátek – světa i vlastního já. Postavy tak stojí tváří v tvář svému fyzickému či duševnímu rozštěpení, rozmlženým konturám své vlastní osobnosti, jak je tomu u ženomuže Evelyna a nebohé Tristessy, falešně nádherné legendy amerikanistického Hollywodu. Nedokážou se konfrontovat s prototypem ženství v hyperbolickém ztělesnění Matky a striktně definovaným mužstvím básníka Zera. Kdo je vlastně ona nová Eva a proč je její vášeň tak mrazivá i spalující?

Nezáleží na tom, jestli si postavy vypůjčíme z historie, z mýtů, z vlastního života, ze světa fantazie anebo od kolegů a přátel, důležité je, co s nimi následně uděláme. Angela Carter s originalitou sobě vlastní využívá všech zmíněných možností, aby vytvořila jakousi literární féerii, nasycenou postavami přesných charakterů a plných životů. Ať už se jedná o milenku Charlese Baudelaira, Puka ze Shakespearova Snu noci svatojánské, … prostitutku, jež našla dočasné útočiště a dočasné odpovědi na dosud nezodpovězené otázky mezi Indiány, Edgara Allana Poea anebo křehkou dívku, jež nade vše ctí svého otce, ale skutečně miluje pouze své holuby – pokaždé čtenář nahlédne do rozvírající se lastury postupného odhalování lidského osudu, jenž stojí za to, aby se stal literaturou.