{"title":"Puncher and Wattmann","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781925780956","title":"The Hard Word","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Hard Word\u003c\/em\u003e wittily reflects on the stuff of words and what can be done with them, or to them, their uses and abuses - especially on the subject of love, perhaps the hardest word of all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeter Kirkpatrick taught English and Australian literature at Western Sydney University and the University of Sydney, and has published two other collections: \u003cem\u003eWish You Were Here\u003c\/em\u003e (Five Islands, 1996), and \u003cem\u003eWestering \u003c\/em\u003e(Puncher \u0026amp; Wattmann, 2006), which was shortlisted in the 2008 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. He is also the author of \u003cem\u003eThe Sea Coast of Bohemia: Literary Life in Sydney's Roaring Twenties\u003c\/em\u003e (2nd ed. API Network, 2007) and, with Jill Dimond, \u003cem\u003eLiterary Sydney: A Walking Guide\u003c\/em\u003e (UQP, 2000). With Fran De Groen he co-edited \u003cem\u003eSerious Frolic: Essays on Australian Humour\u003c\/em\u003e (UQP, 2009) and, with Robert Dixon, \u003cem\u003eRepublics of Letters: Literary Communities in Australia\u003c\/em\u003e (Sydney University Press, 2012)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309051916661,"sku":"9781925780956","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"9781923099005","title":"All the Rivers Run South","description":"\u003cp\u003eI want to say that Ouyang Yu plays with language, but he doesn't: what he does is recognise that language plays with us. This digressive, almost hallucinatory narrative unites Ouyang Yu's abiding obsessions: identity, history, cultural hypocrisy, race, the nature of storytelling. How do we approach a story as loose as life - one that will honour the messiness of life lived in what cannot help being both its first and final draft? \u003cem\u003eAll the Rivers Run South\u003c\/em\u003e is about the work of addressing oneself to history, to a history that cannot be told in one way (something which might also be said of Ouyang Yu's own work). It recalls something Javier Marías said about fiction that in it, material truer than history is made available to us. The author creates history, giving us life as it is lived, and the struggle to make sense of that - as personal history, as geopolitical history - while remaining open to serendipity and to the death, figurative as well as literal, of the author, constituting history's only guaranteed warrant. Ouyang Yu provides comfort for the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. \u003cem\u003eAll the Rivers Run South\u003c\/em\u003e is a salve and salvo for anyone who has ever thought, with Calderón, that \"man's greatest crime is to be born.\" - Declan Fry\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring the past thirty years the award winning writer Ouyang Yu has created the most challenging and innovative body of work this country has ever seen. The powerful energy of his genius, the rich stream of ideas and innovation in his poetry and novels, and in his essays and translations is evident in everything he writes, and never more so than in his enthralling new novel, \u003cem\u003eAll the Rivers Run South\u003c\/em\u003e. For those interested in the exchange of ideas between Chinese and Australian culture, familiarity with Ouyang's work is essential. - Alex Miller\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309621686645,"sku":"9781923099005","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781923099005_835b54d4-df64-48b9-86e8-4a60c66a142f.jpg?v=1786030544"},{"product_id":"9781925780710","title":"Dead Bolt","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is a captivating and varied collection. No matter what Ella Jeffery turns her attention to, her subjects find sharp resolution in language that has been subtly crafted and beautifully honed. These poems carry their insights deftly and intensely, her lens always focussed on those alchemical images that move her work from sensation into perception, from observation into shimmering awareness. Everything shines with the gloss of her highly polished linguistic and imaginative skills. Her work is a triumph and a delight. \u003cstrong\u003e- Judith Beveridge\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs its title suggests, \u003cem\u003eDead Bolt\u003c\/em\u003e is a meditation on home and its ability to become suddenly unhomely or uncanny. Ella Jeffery's poetry ranges from the plangent and elegiac to the comic and satirical. It attends to both the eye and the ear; its extraordinary imagery is matched by a marvellous attention to poetry's sonic capacity. \u003cem\u003eDead Bolt\u003c\/em\u003e is a compelling, exquisitely realised debut. \u003cstrong\u003e- David McCooey\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI love Ella Jeffery's poetry. Like Elizabeth Bishop's, it is companionable and unshowily surprising, and has perfect timing. Jeffery is clear-eyed and has a gift for the exact word, one that opens a rift. This is a masterly and original first collection - a major work. \u003cstrong\u003e- Lisa Gorton\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309627814261,"sku":"9781925780710","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781925780710_3f1cb8ce-8719-48bc-9db4-72ada14c283d.jpg?v=1786030762"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/publisher-puncher-and-wattmann.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}