Synopses & Reviews
Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-209) and index.
Review
"Vanessa Curtis's portrait of Woolf, her family, and her friends is quite compelling. What I found most distinctive is Curtis's fine appreciation of the emotional tissue that connected Woolf to the women who loved her. . . Using diaries and letters, Curtis illuminates these varied relationships."
—Lynn K. Talbot, Roanoke College, coauthor of Living at the Edge
Synopsis
This is the first biography to concentrate exclusively on Woolf's close and inspirational friendships with the key women in her life, including the caregivers of her Victorian childhood who instilled in her a lifelong battle between creativity and convention: her taciturn sister, Vanessa Bell; enigmatic artist Dora Carrington; complex writer Katherine Mansfield; aristocratic novelist Vita Sackville-West; and riotous, militant composer Ethel Smyth.
Synopsis
Born into a life of constant financial, physical, and moral threat, Meti Birabiro takes refuge in literature and the fantastic. Blue Daughter of the Red Sea is Birabiro s poetic account of the harsh reality of her young life spread across three continents. Her voice is a fresh melange of child and adult perspectives, at once brutally honest and wise beyond her years. Through her journey from Ethiopia to Italy and finally to the United States, we encounter Birabiro s relatives, friends, and enemies relationships so intense that these people become her vampires, devils, angels, and saints. These characterizations always lead her back to the truth, helping her to decipher what is fair and good, to understand what she must cherish and what she must rage against.
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About the Author
Vanessa Curtis cofounded the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain.in 1998. She coedits the
Virginia Woolf Bulletin and has published a monograph on Virginia Woolf for the Bloomsbury Heritage series. She lives and writes near Chichester Harbour, England.