Podcast
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The History of Literature #318 Lolita (with Jenny Minton Quigley)
Jacke hosts Jenny Minton Quigley, editor of the new collection LOLITA IN THE AFTERLIFE: On Beauty, Risk, and Reckoning with the Most Indelible and Shocking Novel of the Twentieth Century, for a discussion of Vladimir Nabokov’s classic (and controversial) 1958 novel. Jenny Minton Quigley is the daughter of Lolita’s original publisher in America, Walter J. Minton. Lolita in Continue reading
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The History of Literature #317 – My Antonia by Willa Cather
Jacke continues this week’s look at Willa Cather by zeroing in on the style and substance of My Antonia (1918), Cather’s celebrated novel about Bohemian immigrants struggling to survive on the unforgiving prairies of Nebraska. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson Continue reading
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The History of Literature #316 – Willa Cather (with Lauren Marino)
Willa Cather (1873-1947) went from a childhood in Nebraska to a career in publishing in New York City, where she became one of the most successful women in journalism. And then, after a period as an editor for one of the most famous magazines in America, she focused on writing novels about the hardscrabble lives Continue reading
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The History of Literature #315 – Gabriel García Márquez and the Incredible and Sad (and Marvelous) World
Following our last episode with Patricia Engel, Jacke takes a closer look at Gabriel García Márquez, including his literary influences, his search for truth in nostalgia and history, and his use of invention and the marvelous to approach a kind of heightened sense of what’s possible, what’s actual, and what’s essential. Help support the show Continue reading
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The History of Literature #314 – Gabriel García Márquez (with Patricia Engel)
Author Patricia Engel joins Jacke to talk about her childhood in New Jersey, her artistic family, her lifelong love of stories and writing, her new novel Infinite Country, and “The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother” by Gabriel García Márquez, a story she first read as a 14-year-old and which she Continue reading
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The History of Literature #313 – “Spring Snow” by Yukio Mishima
After taking a look at the eventful life and dramatic death of Yukio Mishima in our last episode, Jacke turns to a closer look at the works of Mishima, including appraisals by Jay McInerney and Haruki Murakami, before turning to a deep dive into the world of Spring Snow, the first volume in Mishima’s four-book masterpiece The Continue reading
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The History of Literature #312 – Yukio Mishima
In November of 1970, the most famous novelist in Japan dropped off the final pages of his masterpiece with his publisher, then went to a military office in Tokyo, where he and a small band of supporters took the commander hostage. The novelist – whose name was Yukio Mishima – then appeared on the balcony Continue reading
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The History of Literature #311 – Frederick Douglass Learns to Read
Jacke takes a look at adult literacy and continuing education, anti-literacy laws in nineteenth-century America, and two famous passages from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), in which the young slave manages to overcome obstacles and teach himself to read and write. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, Continue reading
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The History of Literature #309 – HoL Presents: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (A Storybound Project)
The History of Literature presents a short story by Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, produced by Storybound. PLUS! In preparation for our Writers Block episode, we hear from three great writers – Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch, and Franz Kafka – who privately (and achingly) wrote about not writing. Enjoy! Deesha Philyaw’s debut Continue reading
Jacke Wilson 