These three great plays by one of the founding fathers of the theatre of the absurd, are alive and kicking with tragedy and humour, bleakness and farce. In "Rhinoceros" we are shown the innate brutality of people as everyone, except for Berenger, turn into clumsy, unthinking rhinoceroses. "The Chairs" depicts the futile struggle of two old people to convey the meaning of life t...(展开全部)

The leading figure of absurdist theater and one of the great innovators of the modern stage, Eugene Ionesco did not write his first play, The Bald Soprano, until 1950. He went on to become an internationally renowned master of modern drama, famous for the comic proportions and bizarre effects that allow his work to be simultaneously hilarious, tragic, and profound.

A leading historian reconstructs the forgotten history of medieval Africa From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African ...(展开全部)

One animal left India in 1515, caged in the hold of a Portuguese ship, and sailed around Africa to Lisbon―the first of its species to see Europe for more than a thousand years. The other crossed the Atlantic from South America to Madrid in 1789, its huge fossilized bones packed in crates, its species unknown. How did Europeans three centuries apart respond to these two mysterio...(展开全部)

伊利亚·伊里夫（1897—1937）和叶甫盖尼·彼得罗夫（1903—1942），两位均是来自敖德萨地区的苏联记者、作家，彼得罗夫还曾供职于敖德萨刑事侦查局。1926年两人因同时在《汽笛》报担任记者而结识，之后开启了十余年的共同创作生涯，其间他们几乎所有的作品都是共同署名的。两位作家心意相通，作品非但没有显得割裂，反而因两位作家相互取长补短而更加精彩。遗憾的是，两位作家均英年早逝，留下的作品不多，但是凭借两人共同创作的许多脍炙人口的经典幽默讽刺作品，他们至今依然为人们津津乐道，可以说是俄罗斯文学史上一朵无法被忽视的“奇葩”。《十二把椅子》是两位作家的代表作，时至今日依然时常出现在俄罗斯的畅销书榜单前列。

At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction—pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Zuckerman himse...(展开全部)

At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction - pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Zuckerman him...(展开全部)

At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction - pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Zuckerman him...(展开全部)

At forty, the writer Nathan Zuckerman comes down with a mysterious affliction—pure pain, beginning in his neck and shoulders, invading his torso, and taking possession of his spirit. Zuckerman, whose work was his life, is unable to write a line. Now his work is trekking from one doctor to another, but none can find a cause for the pain and nobody can assuage it. Zuckerman himse...(展开全部)

How have ruins become so valued in Western culture, and so central to our art and literature? Covering a vast chronological and geographical range, from ancient Egyptian inscriptions to twentieth-century memorials, Susan Stewart seeks to answer this question as she traces the appeal of ruins and ruins images, and the lessons that writers and artists have drawn from their haunti...(展开全部)