|
|
Bell Madison Smartt
Boy With a Coin (Kindle Single)
List Price:
$0.99
Description
Charlie Chapo is the Haitian nickname of an American traveler who’s tried to adopt Haitian culture as his own. At dawn on January 12, 2010, he walks into the hills above Port-au-Prince as an earthquake lays waste to the city below. A pilgrimage of sorts, his journey that day takes him into, through and out of himself, toward another identity. Out of the shattered world fallen around him comes a kind of reconstructed self. Madison Smartt Bell is the author of the prize-winning trilogy about the Haitian Revolution. The Chicago Tribune called his National Book Award finalist, All Souls' Rising, a "masterpiece." He is the author of fourteen novels, most recently The Color of Night, and has been a frequent visitor to Haiti since 1995.
All Souls' Rising: A Novel of Haiti (1)
List Price:
$15.95
Price: $7.48
You Save: $8.47 (53%)
Description
In this first installment of his epic Haitian trilogy, Madison Smartt Bell brings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s. A brutal rebellion that strove to overturn a vicious system of slavery, the uprising successfully transformed Haiti from a European colony to the world’s first Black republic. From the center of this horrific maelstrom, the heroic figure of Toussaint Louverture–a loyal, literate slave and both a devout Catholic and Vodouisant–emerges as the man who will take the merciless fires of violence and vengeance and forge a revolutionary war fueled by liberty and equality. Bell assembles a kaleidoscopic portrait of this seminal movement through a tableau of characters that encompass black, white, male, female, rich, poor, free and enslaved. Pulsing with brilliant detail, All Soul’s Rising provides a visceral sense of the pain, terror, confusion, and triumph of revolution.
In his breathtaking and powerful novel that garnered nominations for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, Madison Smartt Bell leaves the dark contemporary world he has so brilliantly made his own in nine previously acclaimed novels and short story collections, such as Save Me, Joe Louis. Now he turns to the past and brings viscerally to life the slave rebellion that would bring an end to the white rule of Haiti in the late eighteenth century. The result is an explosive, epic historical novel of astonishing depth and range, catapulting Bell into the ranks of the finest living authors.
Master of the Crossroads
List Price:
$16.95
Price: $8.57
You Save: $8.38 (49%)
Description
Continuing his epic trilogy of the Haitian slave uprising, Madison Smartt Bell’s Master of the Crossroads delivers a stunning portrayal of Toussaint Louverture, former slave, military genius and liberator of Haiti, and his struggle against the great European powers to free his people in the only successful slave revolution in history. At the outset, Toussaint is a second-tier general in the Spanish army, which is supporting the rebel slaves’ fight against the French. But w hen Toussaint is betrayed by his former allies and the commanders of the Spanish army, he reunites his army with the French, wresting vital territories and manpower from Spanish control. With his army one among several factions, Toussaint eventually rises as the ultimate victor as he wards off his enemies to take control of the French colony and establish a new constitution. Bell’s grand, multifaceted novel shows a nation, splintered by actions and in the throes of chaos, carried to liberation and justice through the undaunted tenacity of one incredible visionary.
In 1995 Madison Smartt Bell published All Souls' Rising, earning both critical plaudits and a National Book Award nomination for this fictional account of Haiti's 18th-century slave rebellion. Now he continues the saga with Master of the Crossroads, the second volume of a projected trilogy. Even in his earlier narratives of contemporary America, the author has always been attuned to the byzantine politics of color. But by focusing on the figure of Toussaint Louverture--the black general who led the Haitians to independence only to be jailed for treason against the French Republic--Bell allows the politics of race to point him in unexpected and rewarding narrative directions. This is a big, muscular book, which derives much of its strength from the author's willingness to paint his tumultuous political and physical landscapes with broadly sweeping strokes. But it is also a work of surprising delicacy, whose finely drawn characters come to life with the minutest gesture or softly whispered word. The crossroads herein are not merely literal but metaphorical. Yes, the former slaves and their courageous leader are pinned down in the island's remote interior, caught between the English forces and the Spanish army (their nominal yet treacherous ally). But more to the point, Haiti's intricate progress from slavery to freedom brings each of the characters to a crucial, defining moment of energy or introspection. And finally, swirling through the book like an island mist, is the voodoo figure of Mâit' Kalfou, or the "Master of the Crossroads." Straddling the worlds of the dead and the living, this ecstatic spirit may at any time inhabit the body of a believer: Between Legba and Kalfou the crossroads stood open now, and now Guiaou could feel that opened pathway rushing up his spine--passage from the Island Below Sea inhabited by les Morts et les Mystères. His hips melted into the movement of the drums, and the tails of the red coat swirled around his legs like feathers of a bird. With the other dancers he closed the small, tight circle around Legba and Kalfou, who faced each other as in a mirror: the shining surface of the waters, which divides the living from the dead. Throughout, Bell's captivating vision of the battlefield bears witness to his rigorous research. Still, the voodoo celebrations, and the author's sly evocation of their unexpected resonance, remain the novel's strongest moments. Why? They speak, perhaps, to the apocalyptic nature of the Haitian rebellion. And more intriguingly, they permit Bell to play with the deceptive nature of belief and reality--a move that, in an avowedly historical novel, hints at the ironic fluidity of history itself. --Kelly Flynn
Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form
List Price:
$18.95
Price: $4.93
You Save: $14.02 (74%)
Description
With clarity, verve, and the sure instincts of a good teacher, Madison Smartt Bell offers a roll-up-your-sleeves approach to writing in this much-needed book. Focusing on the big picture as well as the crucial details, Bell examines twelve stories by both established writers (including Peter Taylor, Mary Gaitskill, and Carolyn Chute) and his own former students. A story's use of time, plot, character, and other elements of fiction are analyzed, and readers are challenged to see each story's flaws and strengths. Careful endnotes bring attention to the ways in which various writers use language. Bell urges writers to develop the habit of thinking about form and finding the form that best suits their subject matter and style. His direct and practical advice allows writers to find their own voice and imagination.
Toussaint Louverture (Vintage)
List Price:
$14.95
Price: $7.47
You Save: $7.48 (50%)
Description
At the end of the 1700s, French Saint Domingue was the richest and most brutal colony in the Western Hemisphere. A mere twelve years later, however, Haitian rebels had defeated the Spanish, British, and French and declared independence after the first—and only—successful slave revolt in history. Much of the success of the revolution must be credited to one man, Toussaint Louverture, a figure about whom surprisingly little is known. In this fascinating biography, Madison Smartt Bell, award-winning author of a trilogy of novels that investigate Haiti’s history, combines a novelist’s passion with a deep knowledge of the historical milieu that produced the man labeled a saint, a martyr, or a clever opportunist who instigated one of the most violent events in modern history. The first biography in English in over sixty years of the man who led the Haitian Revolution, this is an engaging reexamination of the controversial, paradoxical leader.
The Stone that the Builder Refused
List Price:
$16.95
Price: $8.59
You Save: $8.36 (49%)
Description
The Stone that the Builder Refused is the final volume of Madison Smartt Bell’s masterful trilogy about the Haitian Revolution–the first successful slave revolution in history–which begins with All Souls' Rising (a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award) and continues with Master of the Crossroads. Each of these three novels can be read independently of the two others; of the trilogy, The Baltimore Sun has said, “[It] will make an indelible mark on literary history–one worthy of occupying the same shelf as Tolstoy’s War and Peace.”
Bell Madison Smartt News
LJ Bell recognizes students for excellence - Richmond County Daily Journal
Richmond County Daily Journal, NC - May 17, 7432
LJ Bell recognizes students for excellenceLJ Bell recently named its honor rolls for the fifth six week grading period. Third grade: Caleb Adcock, Jacee Richardson, Shirley Sims, Kristofer Spivey, Elizabeth Burns, Britney Chambers, Drew Loving, Kathleen Pittman, Evin Mabe, Erin Smart,
|
High school releases second quarter honor rolls - Ridgefield Press
Ridgefield Press, USA - May 17, 8989
High school releases second quarter honor rollsJanessa Alvarez, Stephan Amenta, Emily Andersen, Nicole Andry, Andrew Arcoleo, Dennis Ashley, Kelly Baker, Dillon Becker, Shane Beckwith, Cameron Bell, Shelby Bene, Gabriella Bermudez, Samuel Bishop, Alexa Blumling, Joseph Bonitatebus, Jonathan Borden,
|
A boxer prepares: Clottey gets ready for Cotto
CBSSports.com - May 26, 2009
What life experience and ring experience does he have to draw upon to fight the most important fight of his life against a smart, skilled opponent named Miguel Cotto, who has reigned as welterweight king for many years and whose sole loss might have
|
UNIOTO HIGH SCHOOL THIRD QUARTER 'A' HONOR ROLL - Chillicothe Gazette
Chillicothe Gazette, OH - May 24, 2009
UNIOTO HIGH SCHOOL THIRD QUARTER 'A' HONOR ROLL10th grade: Dimitrious Burgin, JD Callihan, Peter Clark, Richard Currier, Brick Davis, Madison Davis, Christian Dunkle, Nicklaus Freeman, Douglas French, Haliegh Goodman, Corbin Hill, Dylan Jones, Cody Krafthefer, Brianna Lovensheimer, Ian McCord,
|
Republicans retreat on Dem Party label?
msnbc.com - May 20, 2009
That really makes you smart and mature That changes all the problems. It seems that they are against many things these Republicans; what are they for? News Flash! The American populace relabels the Republican Party: The Inept Bunglers Consortium
|
|
-
-
-
More authors
-
Authors A to Z
|