Books published by Seagull Books London Ltd

Beginning in the 1960s and ending in the late '80s, this title presents a narrative of a passionate, and ultimately tragic, relationship between Mali and Farid set against the simultaneous decline of Egyptian-Lebanese society. It chronicles the casualties of social conventions, religious divisions, and cultural cliches.

Out of the many tragedies that almost seem to define the first decade of our century, the author has fashioned a richly woven, multilayered tapestry that not only explores the human side but brings out the cultural, historical, social, and political context within which the tragedies occur.

During the late Seventies and Eighties a new logo began to jostle for space with the more traditional landmarks on high streets throughout Britain. It was the badge of a remarkable Third World Bank...the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International).BCCI soon become a global corporate empire with former US Presidents, ex-British Prime Ministers and a range of dictators on its payroll, all helping with promoting the company.Tariq Ali was the first public voice to warn that the Bank was not all it seemed to be. Indeed, many of its own employees called BCCI the "Bank of Crooks and Cheats Incorporated". Some political analysts also predicted the company¿s collapse. The Bank finally imploded amidst a welter of scandal.This revealing screenplay presents an account of the rise and fall of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Here, Ali reveals how BCCI lasted so long, how financial regulators failed to see what was going on and how BCCI pioneered a mode of operation that prepared the way for an even greater financial cataclysm, the fall of Enron.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) is considered one of the great rationalist thinkers of the seventeenth century. This title contextualizes Spinoza's philosophy by linking it to the turbulent politics of the period, in which Spinoza was deeply involved.

In recent years, social workers have raised concern about the appearance of a new category among the working poor. This book tells about how we live in geographical space and how work and patterns of domicile affect our status and our inner being.

Few figures in cinema history are as towering as Russian filmmaker and theorist Sergei Mikhailovitch Eisenstein (1898-1948). Not only did Eisenstein direct some of the most important and lasting works of the silent era, including Strike, October, and Battleship Potemkin, as well as, in the sound era, the historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible--he also was a theorist whose insights into the workings of film were so powerful that they remain influential for both filmmakers and scholars today. ?Seagull Books is embarking on a series of translations of key works by Eisenstein into English. A fascinating memoir in two volumes, Beyond the Stars--first published by Seagull in 1995 and now available again. Begun as Eisenstein approached fifty, it is full of the famous names of his era, including Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, John Dos Passos, Jean Cocteau, and many more; at the same time, it is a serious book of inquiry about film as a medium, offering countless reflections by Eisenstein on his own work and that of other movie pioneers.

In the early 1960s, the Hungry Generation revitalized Bengali poetry in Calcutta, liberating it from the fetters of scholarship and the fog of punditry and freeing it to explore new forms, language, and subjects. Shakti Chattopadhyay was a cofounder of the movement, and his poems remain vibrant and surprising more than a half century later. In his "urban pastoral" lines, we encounter street colloquialisms alongside high diction, a combination that at the time was unprecedented. Loneliness, anxiety, and dislocation trouble this verse, but they are balanced by a compelling belief in the redemptive power of beauty. This book presents more than one hundred of Chattopadhyay's poems, introducing an international audience to one of the most prominent and important Bengali poets of the twentieth century.

Dramatist, poet, novelist, and journalist Matei Visniec, born in Romania and living in France since seeking political asylum in 1987, has been one of the most trenchant voices of Europe, condemning the atrocities of totalitarianism as well as excesses of consumer culture. This is an anthology of his dramatic work made available in English.

As the aftershocks of the economic meltdown reverberate throughout the world, and people organize to physically occupy the major financial centers of the West, few experts and even fewer governments have dared to consider a world without the powerful markets that brought on the crash. The author offers a way forward.

Discusses the difference between political and sexual identity and inquires whether psychoanalysis can be considered a radical form of thought that can be used fruitfully in dialogue about political struggle.

A decaying apartment building in post-Wall Berlin is home to Hell, a young woman with a passion for martial arts. When Hell's neighbor disappears she sets out across the city in search of her. In the course of her quest, she falls in love with a bank robber, confronts her own dark memories, and ends up saving more than just her missing neighbor.

Explores the problems and potentials of the fictions the author could not bring himself to write. Drawing from his notebooks, this title records here a range of ideas for stories - unsettled accounts, he calls them, or case studies of failure - and examines where they came from and why they eluded him.

Djibril, a young Djiboutian voluntarily exiled in Montreal, returns to his native land to prepare a report for an American economic intelligence firm. Meanwhile, a shadowy, threatening figure imprisoned in an island cell seems to know Djibril's every move.

A collection of Jesi's finest essays, ranging from his groundbreaking work on myth and politics to his reflections on time, festivity, and revolt as well as writers such as Rimbaud, Rilke, Lukacs, and Pavese.

Explores the hidden logic behind popular religions in nineteenth-century Bengal. This book examines cross-religious cults and the construction of Bengali myths and beliefs about godlings and spirits, approaching them as popular inventions that attempt to make sense of human existence in the face of an overwhelming and often hostile environment.

Dangerous Outcast traces prostitution in Bengal from precolonial times through the arrival of the British, examining how the profession was reordered to suit British desires.

Collection of essays that examine the rich history of European culture through the lens of mythology and philosophy.

Collects the remarkable letters and poems sent by French poet Guillaume Apollinaire to his fiancee, Madeleine Pages, during World War I.

A story of a boy growing up to be a writer. It discusses the profession of writing - the routines, responsibility, and obstacles. It also discusses being a father, a son, and a grandson; a family and a family's tales; and, how preceding generations mark their successors.

A fire broke out in the coal seams of their town years ago, and the flames are still smoldering underground. Margaret and Fritzi are the two sisters who are the last remaining youth of this vanishing town. Their inheritance is nothing but an abandoned swathe of land ruled by devastation.

Born in Tehran in 1957, film-maker Mohsen Ostad Ali Makhmalbaf grew up in the religiously and politically charged atmosphere of the 1960s. In this title, he reflects on the relationship between cinema and violence, tolerance, and social change, as well as the political and artistic importance of the autonomy of the film-maker.

"Everyone is free here. . . . The cities are open. They are open to the world and to the future. That is what gives them all an air of adventure; and . . . a kind of touching beauty." So wrote the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre on a 1945 trip to the United States during which he crossed the country and dove deep into the soul of the American city. In this new volume, Sartre's reflections on the distinctly American quality of cities in the United States are accompanied by Pedro Meyer's photographs of American cities, offering similarly sharp insights, but through a different historical lens: that of the late eighties and early nineties. Together, the photographs and essays articulate the enduring essence of American urban existence--its relationship with time, with labor and humanity, and with the open spaces emblematic of America.