Books in the European Women Writers series

On the brink of turning fifty, Elena suddenly falls into a deep depression brought on by her husband's odyssey to New York to celebrate the triumph of his cinematic career, a trip he takes not with Elena but with an unknown lover half her age. At the same time, Elena must come to grips with the transition of her grown-up sons to their own lives.

Narrated by a young woman who is from Vietnam - a 'dirty foreigner writing in French'. In this title, the narrator has distanced herself not only from Vietnamese society but also from her family. Her story is an exercise in clear-eyed fury revealing three generations of a cursed family.

Gritta, neglected by her father, is uprooted when her stepmother insists she enter a convent school. Strictly supervised by the nun Sequestra, Gritta slips into melancholy. A mishandled bird, however, awakens Gritta to the realization that she and her friends must flee their walled-in life.

Presents an English translation of Lasker-Schuler's prose - "Concert", which was one of the last books published by a Jew in Germany before Hitler came to power. It contains pieces that vary greatly in theme, mood, length, and complexity, yet they are unified by the medium and by the distinct and lyrical personality of the artist.

Nothing Grows by Moonlight (Av måneskinn gror det ingenting), first published in Norway in 1947, is sure to be talked about. It is a moving novel of love, betrayal, search, and sorrow that introduces a major twentieth-century Norwegian writer, Torborg Nedreaas, to an English-speaking audience. Under the surface of a dramatic story rich in atmosphere lurk social themes that will be of particular interest to American and British readers. At the beginning, a man picks up a woman in a railway station. "It is really very difficult to say what it was that made me notice her. It was probably many things, my own mood, the weather, the emptiness of that particular day." It turns out that she simply wants, desperately needs, someone to talk to. He listens to her story, spellbound, and from that night he is haunted forever by the clear, honest revelation of a broken soul—as the reader will be.The woman describes her hopeless involvement with her teacher and lover, who continues to see her, always to reject her, long after he is married. Obsessively, she returns to situations in which she is abused. Finally, in confronting her past without self-pity, without denying personal responsibility, she realizes how much her self-destructive behavior owes to a capitalistic and patriarchal system that forces women into roles that make them emotionally and economically dependent. A powerful subthemes of Nothing Grows by Moonlight concerns abortion, which Nedreaas sees not as a crime to be punished but as a tragedy that would not be necessary in a more equitable and caring society. But what finally lingers in the reader’s mind is the fully developed image of a woman, buffeted by life, coming to terms with God and man.

An anthology of contemporary East German women's writing in English translation. This work includes short stories, essays, autobiographical sketches, and excerpts from novels, written between 1974 and 1986 by women of the postwar generation. Their work reflects everyday life in the GDR before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Recounts a turbulent year in the life of Mia, a young woman whose apparent calm is threatened by inner doubts and outer catastrophe. Her modest dreams of happiness are dashed by the deaths of her mother, old friends, and her lover. Assailed by calamity and misfortune, she struggles with writer's block, confounded by the senseless world around her.

An anthology of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century German women's writing in English translation. It goes far toward filling a major gap in literary history by recovering for a wide audience the works of women who were as famous during their lifetime as Wieland, Schiller, and Goethe.

Based loosely on Paule Constant's own experiences, Private Property is at once deeply moving and intellectually exacting, an exploration of identity, home, and the tenuous relationship between mothers and daughters.

Offers three tales that feature a commanding female protagonist trapped in her place of origin, neither able nor wanting to escape from the home that gave her life but which now threatens to destroy her. This title presents personal images of utopia, the importance of heritage, and the necessity of burying the dead to approach the future.

When Deputy Willy Bost arrives in the mysterious border town of San Rosa, he does not know why he has been sent there or what he will find. What he encounters, gradually, is an obscure network of private and public relations tarnished by corruption, ambition, manipulation, and deceit. Nothing is clear in the workings of this sinister city.

The narrator relives meeting her lover, Franz, at the natural history museum, when, for the first time in her life, she experiences all-consuming love and absolute happiness. Ultimately the affair founders because of her inability to believe that Franz will actually leave his wife.

A complete translation of the cycle of ten novellas that Lou Andreas-Salome wrote between 1895 and 1898. This collection contributes to the rediscovery of Andreas-Salome's significance as a thinker and writer, above all with regard to her literary contribution to modern feminism and the principles of women's emancipation.

Offers three tales that features a commanding female protagonist trapped in her place of origin, neither able nor wanting to escape from the home that gave her life but which now threatens to destroy her. This title presents personal images of utopia, the importance of heritage, and the necessity of burying the dead to approach the future.

Presents a portrayal of life in contemporary Europe. This novel traces the fates of three people. Their stories, which take place in France and elsewhere throughout Europe and the United States, intersect in seemingly random yet revealing ways, gradually forming a complex social portrait.

When pregnant Rosie Carpe, her fatherless five-years-old son in tow, arrives in Guadeloupe looking for her elusive brother, Lazare, the world already seems a plenty confusing place. Could the man who comes to meet her, an elegant black man calling himself Lagrand, actually be her disheveled white brother?

Illuminates how men and women differ in their experiences of words, work, space, time, love, and sexuality.

After answering a classified ad placed by an import-export company looking for energetic young men willing to take on responsibilities for its African branches - no diploma required - Victor finds himself on The Will of God, a dilapidated boat heading into the heart of darkness as even Conrad couldn't have imagined.

Vain when a prince, as king Sihanouk discovered his responsibility to his country and came to embody Cambodia. He used every means to keep his country growing, healthy, and out of the wars of Southeast Asia. This play begins with Sihanouk's abdication in 1955 and ends with his arrest by the Khmer Rouge two decades later.

How can you imagine the worst when you are young and life is sunny? This novel reveals suffering at its most pure and most volatile as the affected people wonder, in the wake of tragedy, whether they should subsist with the living or with the dead.

Describes a love between two women in its totality, experienced as both a physical presence and a sense of infinity. This book also notes the contemporary emphasis on 'fictions of presence'.

Set in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) of the early 1970s, this novel presents an adventure story as well as a feminist critique of GDR socialism, science, history, and aesthetic theory.

In this semiautobiographical novel, the young French Algerian author Nina Bouraoui introduces us to a girl who feels that Algeria is the country of men. Her childhood years spent in Algeria lead her to explore the borderland between genders as she tries to find her balance between nations, races, and identities.

The letters between a young Dutch woman and a Swiss soldier.

Offers three tales that features a commanding female protagonist trapped in her place of origin, neither able nor wanting to escape from the home that gave her life but which now threatens to destroy her. This title presents personal images of utopia, the importance of heritage, and the necessity of burying the dead to approach the future.