James Little – författare

Confinement appears repeatedly in Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre – from the asylums central to Murphy and Watt to the images of confinement that shape plays such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Drawing on spatial theory and new archival research, Beckett in Confinement explores these recurring concepts of closed space to cast new light on the ethical and political dimensions of Beckett’s work. Covering the full range of Beckett’s writing career, including two plays he completed for prisoners, Catastrophe and the unpublished ‘Mongrel Mime’, the book shows how this engagement with the ethics of representing prisons and asylums stands at the heart of Beckett’s poetics."James Little’s Beckett in Confinement offers a brilliant analysis of the politics behind Beckett’s production of closed space, both as a writer and as a director. It carefully examines the move from writing about closed space to creating an art of confinement. To argue that Beckett’s use of confined space is central to the political dynamics of his works, James Little also superbly employs genetic criticism to open up the confined space of the published text and bring highly relevant draft materials back into the critical conversation."Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History, University of Oxford, UK"The many characters Beckett invented share one characteristic: they are all imprisoned or trapped in some way, no matter where they are. Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space draws on untapped riches from Beckett’s correspondence and the archives to reconsider the obsession with entrapment, coercion and detention central to Beckett’s varied oeuvre. In this exciting and illuminating analysis, James Little offers a fresh and original reading of the work’s ethical and political dimensions, and shows us why we need to stop thinking about confinement as a metaphysical metaphor."Emilie Morin, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York, UK"Little breaks new ground in this expansive investigation to explore how confinement is a central component of Beckett’s political aesthetics … The reader is guided by a crisp and easy style of writing as Little demonstrates a command of sources which are broad in scope, but negotiated to form a compelling and impactful study."Journal of Beckett Studies

Confinement appears repeatedly in Samuel Beckett''s oeuvre – from the asylums central to Murphy and Watt to the images of confinement that shape plays such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Drawing on spatial theory and new archival research, Beckett in Confinement explores these recurring concepts of closed space to cast new light on the ethical and political dimensions of Beckett''s work. Covering the full range of Beckett''s writing career, including two plays he completed for prisoners, Catastrophe and the unpublished ''Mongrel Mime'', the book shows how this engagement with the ethics of representing prisons and asylums stands at the heart of Beckett''s poetics."James Little''s Beckett in Confinement offers a brilliant analysis of the politics behind Beckett''s production of closed space, both as a writer and as a director. It carefully examines the move from writing about closed space to creating an art of confinement. To argue that Beckett''s use of confined space is central to the political dynamics of his works, James Little also superbly employs genetic criticism to open up the confined space of the published text and bring highly relevant draft materials back into the critical conversation."Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History, University of Oxford, UK"The many characters Beckett invented share one characteristic: they are all imprisoned or trapped in some way, no matter where they are. Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space draws on untapped riches from Beckett''s correspondence and the archives to reconsider the obsession with entrapment, coercion and detention central to Beckett''s varied oeuvre. In this exciting and illuminating analysis, James Little offers a fresh and original reading of the work''s ethical and political dimensions, and shows us why we need to stop thinking about confinement as a metaphysical metaphor."Emilie Morin, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York, UK"Little breaks new ground in this expansive investigation to explore how confinement is a central component of Beckett''s political aesthetics … The reader is guided by a crisp and easy style of writing as Little demonstrates a command of sources which are broad in scope, but negotiated to form a compelling and impactful study."Journal of Beckett Studies

Confinement appears repeatedly in Samuel Beckett''s oeuvre – from the asylums central to Murphy and Watt to the images of confinement that shape plays such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Drawing on spatial theory and new archival research, Beckett in Confinement explores these recurring concepts of closed space to cast new light on the ethical and political dimensions of Beckett''s work. Covering the full range of Beckett''s writing career, including two plays he completed for prisoners, Catastrophe and the unpublished ''Mongrel Mime'', the book shows how this engagement with the ethics of representing prisons and asylums stands at the heart of Beckett''s poetics."James Little''s Beckett in Confinement offers a brilliant analysis of the politics behind Beckett''s production of closed space, both as a writer and as a director. It carefully examines the move from writing about closed space to creating an art of confinement. To argue that Beckett''s use of confined space is central to the political dynamics of his works, James Little also superbly employs genetic criticism to open up the confined space of the published text and bring highly relevant draft materials back into the critical conversation."Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History, University of Oxford, UK"The many characters Beckett invented share one characteristic: they are all imprisoned or trapped in some way, no matter where they are. Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space draws on untapped riches from Beckett''s correspondence and the archives to reconsider the obsession with entrapment, coercion and detention central to Beckett''s varied oeuvre. In this exciting and illuminating analysis, James Little offers a fresh and original reading of the work''s ethical and political dimensions, and shows us why we need to stop thinking about confinement as a metaphysical metaphor."Emilie Morin, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York, UK"Little breaks new ground in this expansive investigation to explore how confinement is a central component of Beckett''s political aesthetics … The reader is guided by a crisp and easy style of writing as Little demonstrates a command of sources which are broad in scope, but negotiated to form a compelling and impactful study."Journal of Beckett Studies

Confinement appears repeatedly in Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre – from the asylums central to Murphy and Watt to the images of confinement that shape plays such as Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Drawing on spatial theory and new archival research, Beckett in Confinement explores these recurring concepts of closed space to cast new light on the ethical and political dimensions of Beckett’s work. Covering the full range of Beckett’s writing career, including two plays he completed for prisoners, Catastrophe and the unpublished ‘Mongrel Mime’, the book shows how this engagement with the ethics of representing prisons and asylums stands at the heart of Beckett’s poetics."James Little’s Beckett in Confinement offers a brilliant analysis of the politics behind Beckett’s production of closed space, both as a writer and as a director. It carefully examines the move from writing about closed space to creating an art of confinement. To argue that Beckett’s use of confined space is central to the political dynamics of his works, James Little also superbly employs genetic criticism to open up the confined space of the published text and bring highly relevant draft materials back into the critical conversation."Dirk Van Hulle, Professor of Bibliography and Modern Book History, University of Oxford, UK"The many characters Beckett invented share one characteristic: they are all imprisoned or trapped in some way, no matter where they are. Samuel Beckett in Confinement: The Politics of Closed Space draws on untapped riches from Beckett’s correspondence and the archives to reconsider the obsession with entrapment, coercion and detention central to Beckett’s varied oeuvre. In this exciting and illuminating analysis, James Little offers a fresh and original reading of the work’s ethical and political dimensions, and shows us why we need to stop thinking about confinement as a metaphysical metaphor."Emilie Morin, Professor of Modern Literature, University of York, UK"Little breaks new ground in this expansive investigation to explore how confinement is a central component of Beckett’s political aesthetics … The reader is guided by a crisp and easy style of writing as Little demonstrates a command of sources which are broad in scope, but negotiated to form a compelling and impactful study."Journal of Beckett Studies

This volume of the BDMP series charts the genesis of three iconic Beckett plays: Not I (1973), That Time (1976) and Footfalls (1976), all translated into French by their author. Including analyses of abandoned archival precursors – the ‘Kilcool’ drafts (1963) and the ‘Petit Odéon’ Fragments (1967–1968) – the book covers a crucial period in Beckett’s playwriting career, during which his long-held ambition to stage a mouth babbling in the dark became a catalyst for some of his most innovative work. This volume provides a comprehensive guide to the history of the three plays, tracking their development from compositional manuscripts through to publication and performance. The book contends that these plays should be seen as stagings of the subject–object breakdown explored in Beckett’s early writing. Drawing on the notes he took on psychology and psychoanalysis in 1934–1935, it examines the many psychological and psychoanalytic concepts that are used in the author’s later stagings of the mind. The plays are analysed through the lens of enactive cognition: not as representations of particular psychological conditions, but as pieces which encourage active interpretation on the part of their audiences. By staging minds in states of breakdown that resist diagnosis, Not I / Pas moi, That Time / Cette fois and Footfalls / Pas enact the subject–object breakdown that is such a key part of Beckett’s aesthetics.

Nationalist and tribal cohesion in Ireland, South Africa, the US, and elsewhere often relies on an absence of female and gender-nonconforming bodies in the public life.Staging a vital counter-narrative to global nationalist discourses, this book explores how 20th and 21st-century postcolonial literatures criticize hetero-normative definitions of nationhood across different geopolitical and cultural contexts.Szczeszak-Brewer delves into the metaphorical currency of male impotence and sexual aggression in nationalist narratives. She examines the place of gender-nonconforming characters in literature from Ireland, the US, Poland, France, Britain, South Africa, and Senegal, in the work of writers including: James Joyce, Witold Gombrowicz, Jean Toomer, Bessie Head, Zoë Wicomb, J. M. Coetzee, Andrea Levy, Patrick McCabe, and David Diop.Aligning queer and gender perspectives with discussions of white supremacy, this book examines the urgency for contemporary geopolitics to imagine new discourses of community against the backdrop of a rise in neo-nationalisms steeped in homophobic and misogynistic rhetoric.

Crossing the boundaries of a single-author study, this book uncovers Flann O'Brien's attempt to forge a commercially successful Irish literary project from international avant-garde influences.Situating O'Brien's early work within a global context, the book uses new evidence of his collaborations to reimagine him as a networked writer. O'Brien drew upon experimental techniques to generate new categories of writing, rethink Irish culture and reach a wide audience. This study illuminates a network of cultural production around O'Brien, linking his work to English comic magazines, Dadaist photomontage, Expressionism, Central European theatre, and renowned writers like Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka.By re-examining Flann O'Brien within the context of the momentous global political and cultural crises that spurred avant-garde experimentation, the book also rewrites the cultural history of Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s.

Crossing the boundaries of a single-author study, this book uncovers Flann O'Brien's attempt to forge a commercially successful Irish literary project from international avant-garde influences.Situating O'Brien's early work within a global context, the book uses new evidence of his collaborations to reimagine him as a networked writer. O'Brien drew upon experimental techniques to generate new categories of writing, rethink Irish culture and reach a wide audience. This study illuminates a network of cultural production around O'Brien, linking his work to English comic magazines, Dadaist photomontage, Expressionism, Central European theatre, and renowned writers like Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka.By re-examining Flann O'Brien within the context of the momentous global political and cultural crises that spurred avant-garde experimentation, the book also rewrites the cultural history of Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s.

What drives a young couple to pack their four sons—ages seven, six, two, and six months—into a Toyota camper van and embark on a 15,000-mile overland journey from Australia to England? In 1977, Julian and Becky Little did exactly that, creating a remarkable family travel adventure.This captivating memoir chronicles six months of breathtaking scenery, unexpected challenges, and heartwarming encounters as the Little family traverses some of the world's most diverse terrain. From the scorching Nullarbor Plain to the snow-capped Himalayas, from tropical Bali beaches to the legendary Khyber Pass, their journey unfolds through three continents and sixteen countries during a time when such overland travel required true pioneering spirit.Written with humor, honesty, and vivid detail from original diaries, Six Littles Go a Long Way captures both the magic and chaos of ambitious family travel. Readers will experience the tension of navigating hostile Holi Day celebrations in India, smile at mishaps with broken-down camper springs, and share the wonder of seven-year-old James seeing snow for the first time or standing before the awe-inspiring Taj Mahal.The book reveals the adaptability of children and the determination of parents pushed beyond their comfort zones. From dealing with serious illness in remote locations to befriending fellow overlanders, Vietnamese boat people, and Afghan tribesmen, the Littles discover that human kindness transcends language and cultural barriers. Whether camping inside a giant Red Tingle tree in Australia, riding elephants to ancient forts in India, or navigating complex border crossings, each chapter delivers genuine adventure.Beyond the excitement, this is a deeply human story about family bonds tested by extreme circumstances. Becky and Julian's relationship evolves under pressure while their boys adapt with remarkable resilience to constant change, new cultures, and unexpected situations. The inclusion of diary entries from family friend Dianne adds valuable perspective to this compelling journey.Perfect for adventure enthusiasts and anyone curious about epic family journeys, Six Littles Go a Long Way demonstrates what happens when wanderlust meets family determination. This engaging memoir captures 1970s overland travel—an era before GPS, mobile phones, or modern safety nets—when getting lost meant truly being lost, and every mile required courage, resourcefulness, and family unity.

Outdoor adventure has inspired some of the most exciting literary nonfiction of recent years, and explore has published exemplary models of the genre: Ian Brown on backcountry bonding in the Rockies, Adam Killick on surviving a hurricane at sea, and J. B. MacKinnon on overlanding in a war zone. Personal essays convey the taste of wild eel and the chill of a cotton tent at -28C; cautionary tales describe the death of glaciers and the deviant lifestyles of Atlantic salmon. These incredible stories of the great outdoors entertain, inform, and amaze.