Synopses & Reviews
Encompassing many different visions of Africa, the stories in this comprehensive collection feature characters struggling to survive grinding poverty, tyrannical governments, cultural upheavals, and disintegrating relationships.
Reflecting a continent with a tragic history, An African Quilt depicts a place where even everyday life is extraordinary, and the continent’s history changes what it means to be a woman, an employee, a couple, a passerby, and, of course, a citizen. Revealed through the backdrop of postcolonial Africa, the struggles within these stories resonate beyond their context and appeal to every reader’s sense of what it means to be human. With Stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nadine Gordimer (Winner of the Nobel Prize), Bessie Head, Doris Lessing (Winner of the Nobel Prize), Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Others
Synopsis
Collected for the first time in one volume. How does money--or the lack of it--affect our lives? What happens when the rich meet the poor, when status comes with a price tag, when personal desires do battle with financial concerns? This unique anthology offers a mosaic of answers, with stories by: * Francine Prose * F. Scott Fitzgerald * Jack London * Kate Chopin * Ethan Canin * Gloria Naylor * Sandra Cisneros * O. Henry * Theodore Dreiser * Stephen Crane * Kate Braverman * James T. Farrell * Charlotte Perkins Gilman * and many others.
About the Author
Barbara H. Solomon is a professor of English and Women's Studies at Iona College. Her major academic interests are twentieth century American and world literature. Among the anthologies she has edited are The Awakening and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin, Other Voices, Other Vistas, Herland and Selected Stories of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and The Haves and Have-Nots. With Eileen Panetta, she has co-edited Once Upon a Childhood, Passages: 24 Modern Indian Stories, and Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Ghosts: 25 Classic Stories of the Supernatural. Prof. W. Reginald Rampone, Jr., is an associate professor of English who has taught at numerous colleges and universities. His research focuses on early modern English literature, especially Shakespeare's plays, and he has published Sexuality in the Age of Shakespeare. He is currently working on a book concerning Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and a critical edition of Nicholas Goodman's Hollands Leaguer.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Barbara Solomon
Hope Deferred
Alice Dunbar-Nelson Winter Dreams
F. Scott Fitzgerald A Jazz-Age Clerk
James T. Farrell Three Sketches from The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros The Untold Lie
Sherwood Anderson Where We Are Now
Ethan Canin The Sorrows of Gin
John Cheever Peace of Mind
T. Coraghessan Boyle Why I Am a Danger to the Public
Barbara Kingsolver The Free Vacation House
Anzia Yezierska Jack in the Pot
Dorothy West Miss Esther's Guest
Sarah Orne Jewett The Gift of the Magi
O. Henry Elephant
Raymond Carver Life in the Iron Mills
Rebecca Harding Davis Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Stephen Crane The Apostate
Jack London Under the Lion's Paw
Hamlin Garland A Deal in Wheat
Frank Norris Louisa
Mary Wilkins Freedman The Second Choice
THeodore Dreiser Everyone Had a Lobster
Francine Prose Mrs. Beazley's Deeds
Charlotte Perkins Gilman Blue Island
J. F. Powers Over the Hill
Kate Braverman A Pair of Silk Stockings
Kate Chopin He
Katherine Anne Porter I Stand Here Ironing
Tillie Olsen Everyday Use
Alice Walker Kiswana Browne
Gloria Naylor