Essays and occasional writings from one of literature's iconic voices. Samuel R. Delany is an acclaimed writer of literary theory, queer literature, and fiction. His "prismatic output is among the most significant, immense and innovative in American letters," wrote the New York Times in 2019; "Delany's books interweave science fiction with histories of race, sexuality, and control. In so doing, he gives readers fiction that reflects and explores the social truths of our world." This anthology of essays, lectures, and interviews addresses topics such as 9/11, race, the garden of Eden, the interplay of life and writing, and notes on other writers such as Theodore Sturgeon, Hart Crane, Ursula K. Le Guin, Holderlin, and a note on—and a conversation with—Octavia Butler. The first of two volumes, this book gathers more than twenty-five pieces on films, poetry, and science fiction. These sharp, focused writings by a bestselling Black, gay author are filled with keen insights and observations on culture, language, and life.

Berlin, 1979. When the CIA’s most valuable spy is compromised, the Agency realizes it does not have the capability to bring him to safety. If he cannot evade the dreaded East German security service, the result will be chaos and a cascade of failures throughout the Agency’s worldwide operations. Master Sergeant Kim Becker lived through the hell of Vietnam as a member of the elite Studies and Operations Group. When he lost one of his best men in a pointless operation, he began to question his mission. Now, he is serving with an even more secretive Army Special Forces unit based in Berlin on the front line of the Cold War. The CIA turns to Becker’s team of unconventional warfare specialists to pull their bacon out of the fire. Becker and his men must devise a plan to get him out by whatever means possible. It's a race against time to prepare and execute the plan while, alone in East Berlin, the agent must avoid his nemesis and play for time inside the hostile secret service headquarters he has betrayed. One question remains - is the man worth the risk?

Along with Benedict Arnold, Simon Girty was one of the most hated men in early America. The son of an Irish immigrant, he was raised on the western Pennsylvania frontier but was captured by the Senecas as a teenager and lived among them for several years. This able frontiersman might be seen today as a defender of Native Americans, but in his own time he was branded as a traitor for siding with First Nations and the British during the Revolutionary War. He fought fiercely against Continental Army forces in the Ohio River Valley and was victorious in the bloody Battle of Blue Licks.In this classic work, Richard Taylor artfully assembles a collage of passages from diaries, travel accounts, and biographies to tell part of the notorious villain's story. Taylor uses the voice of Girty himself to unfold the rest of the narrative through a series of interior monologues, which take the form of both prose and poetry. Moments of torture and horrifying bloodshed stand starkly against passages celebrating beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Throughout, Taylor challenges perceptions of the man and the frontier, as well as notions of white settler innocence.Simon Girty's bloody exploits and legend made him hated and feared in Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley, but many who knew him respected him for his convictions, principles, and bravery. This evocative work brings to life a complex figure who must permanently dwell in the borderland between myth and fact, one foot in each domain.

In this powerful epistolary novel, acclaimed Anishinaabe author Gerald Vizenor interweaves history, cultural stories, and irony to reveal a shadow play of truth and politics. Basile Hudon Beaulieu lives in a houseboat on the River Seine in Paris between 1932 and 1945. He observes the liberals, fascist, artists, and bohemians, and presents puppet shows with his brother. His thoughts and experiences are documented in the form of fifty letters to the heirs of the fur trade. Vizenor is a unique voice of Native American presence in the world of literature, and in his inimitable creative style he delivers a moving, challenging, and darkly humorous commentary on modernity.

Shortlisted for 2020 Center for Fiction's First Novel PrizeCorey Sobel challenges tenacious stereotypes in this compelling debut novel, shedding new light on the hypermasculine world of American football. The Redshirt introduces Miles Furling, a young man who is convinced he was placed on earth to play football. Deep in the closet, he sees the sport as a means of gaining a permanent foothold in a culture that would otherwise reject him. Still, Miles's body lags behind his ambitions, and recruiters tell him he is not big enough to compete at the top level. His dreams come true when a letter arrives from King College.The elite southern school boasts one of the best educations in America and one of the worst Division One football programs. King football is filled with obscure, ignored players like Miles -- which is why he and the sports world in general are shocked when the country's top recruit, Reshawn McCoy, also chooses to attend the college. As brilliant a student as he is a player, the intensely private Reshawn refuses to explain why he chose King over other programs.Miles is as baffled as everyone else, and less than thrilled when he winds up rooming with the taciturn Reshawn. Initially at odds with each other, the pair become confidants as the win-at-all-costs program makes brutal demands on their time and bodies. When their true selves and the identities that have been imposed on them by the game collide, both young men are forced to make life-changing choices.

Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing and he finds himself accused of abduction and murder. Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. After leaving the seclusion of the Cherokee reservation, he is able to explore a future free from the consequences of his family's choices and to construct a new worldview, for a time. However, prejudice and persecution in the white world of the resort eventually compel Cowney to free himself from larger forces that hold him back as he struggles to unearth evidence of his innocence and clear his name.

Meticulously using contemporary newspaper reports, court records, published memoirs, private letters and diaries, Michael Wilding tells the story of three troubled geniuses of Australian writing and their world of poetry and poverty, alcohol and opiates, horse-racing and theatre, journalism and publishing. Gordon shot himself, unable to pay the printer of his poems; Kendall ended up in a mental hospital after forging a cheque, and Clarke died bankrupt for a second time.

Pat and Ruth Beckett have retired from Sydney to the sublime landscape of the far south coast. To their garden, to their books, to their island in the lake. They want no part of the madness of Harbourside Grammar, monstrous celebrity billionaire Buckets Barrington, or the sinister Magnareach Corporation. But the madness wants a part of them. Can great books, small black ducks, perfectly formed compost and proper placement of the apostrophe be enough to defend their paradise?

In this collection acclaimed Australian author, playwright, screenwriter Louis Nowra shows his breathtaking range that takes us from Venice to Lord Howe Island, from the chaos of contemporary Moscow to Sydney high society, from Edwardian London to a mysterious island full of beauty and terror in Far North Queensland. In these highly imaginative stories and novellas, odd balls, society matrons, prime ministers, obsessives, drunks, the vengeful, the innocents and other vivid characters feature in stories that are disturbing, moving and comic. This extraordinary collection is a testament to Nowra’s unique and unsettling vision.

In poetic vignettes set against the fascinating exotics of Australia and France, Chandani Lokugé weaves a haunting and meditative story on the spectral gains and losses of travel, the nature of its transience. Through it, she dignifies with grace and tenderness, our unassuageable yearning, when we have lost everything and even ourselves, to anchor to something, someone, somewhere, and the unexpected moment of our arrival.

Keys to the past; Gallipoli reimagined. Athens, November 1915. A city buffeted by the chaos of the war, a city swarming with spies and opportunists. When a British counter espionage unit is contacted by a man from Smyrna, it seems that a bold new plan is afoot to cut through the Turkish defences at nearby Gallipoli …. until the finding of the man’s body in a room set aside for the meeting. An Australian-born agent Robert Kaub is drawn into the investigation, and is soon forced to confront memories of love and betrayal in pre-war Athens. An ominous note, an old coin from Ephesus, cryptic cables – Robert’s discoveries bring him eventually to a place where things could go either way for the Allied cause. Aegean battlefields. A besieged city. Deaths foretold. These are mirrored in a mystery shaped by the ill-fated attempt to capture Constantinople, a story tinted by the truths and untruths of war, a tragic tale akin to myth.

It’s October 2048 and an Islamist political Party has swept to power in Britain’s general elections. Overnight the country is transformed by the introduction of the blasphemy laws. An Australian history teacher who lost his wife and daughter in a terror attack arrives in London to make contact with the leader of the Resistance. When he becomes involved with a homeless young woman, he discovers the possibility of a new life for both of them far from the dangers of the new London.

A compelling drama… a verdict just in time. A newcomer to Broome in Western Australia, Colin Everett is drawn into a fierce dispute about native title known as ‘the Bradshaw case’. The disappearance of a key witness points to threats of blackmail, or even worse. To win the case for the Aboriginal claimants, Colin and his fellow lawyers have to find the witness, get the better of their opponents, and probe the origin of ancient rock art in the Kimberley region. The case ends in a swirl of controversy and a crucial verdict. It offers a poignant glimpse of how the future can be shaped by half-truths and human failings, by contested versions of the past. Joseph Bradshaw, an explorer and pastoralist, gave his name to rock art of great beauty, uniqueness and antiquity. Little is known of the people who created it many thousands of years ago.

TV producer Jimmy Fyffe starts taking anabolic steroids to restore the 'manliness' he has lost in a disastrous career and unhappy marriage. His plan works - a little too well. Soon he is a cocaine dealer, carving out a market in Dublin’s more affluent suburbs. This draws him into conflict with two established drugs gangs. He is kidnapped, beaten and terrorized, and is linked to the killing of a drugs-lord and two Gardaí. Testosterone, Dublin 8 describes the effect of the 'male hormone' on an individual, and the wider society, told against the backdrop of a gentrifying Dublin. It is a moral tale wrapped in a classic thriller that gets to the heart - and veins - of modern Ireland. Is Jimmy next to die, or will the same newfound machismo that landed him in trouble also help him escape it? Things get worse before they get better; ultimately, the answer is found in an ayahuasca ceremony in the Wicklow mountains.

Castro's communist regime gained control of Cuba in 1959, sparking a surge of immigration to the United States, particularly Miami, as refugees sought a better life. But for many, Cuba will always be home. The island's stories pass from refugee to refugee, immigrant to grandchild, mingling hope for the future with grief for what's lost. Yet these stories also pass down a deep, unconscious desire for the unattainable, which often results in fractured relationships and a loss of purpose for both young and old. Grieving for Guava revels in the unbroken ties between past and future, Havana and Miami, and recounts the unintended generational costs of immigration. Ten stories explore the lives of Cuban refugees in Miami as they grapple with a longing for the past and a fervent need to move forward. Spanning six decades of the Cuban exile, these stories lay bare a collective struggle to overcome the destabilizing effects of migration and to reassemble splintered identities: A journalist returns to the island for a childhood toy. An investment banker leaves Miami to open a bookstore near the Malecon. A girl with cerebral palsy attempts to swim across the ocean to reach her lost home. Cecilia Fernandez artfully weaves together the complicated lives of her characters to produce an overarching sense of yearning for the past, transforming grief into an even more powerful force: communion.Grieving for Guava captures the heartache and hope that are common in the immigrant experience, adding a dynamic, human voice to the politically charged dialogue surrounding immigration.

Miracelle Loving's world comes crashing down when her mother, Ruby, is murdered during a fortune-telling session gone wrong. Not that she had much of a stable world to lose in the first place; the free-spirited mother-daughter duo had never remained in one place for very long. Without the guidance of her mother, Miracelle grows up following the only path she knows, traveling from town to town, sometimes fortune-telling, picking up odd jobs to fill the time and escape the ever-present lostness she can't seem to run far enough away from. Uncertain of what she wants and, indeed, whether she wants anything or anyone at all, the now thirty-something-year-old finds herself working as a card reader in a Knoxville dive bar, selling fictions as futures, when she is confronted with her mother's ghost voice promising to reveal the truth about her shadowy past. Desperate for answers, Miracelle sets out on a magical road trip unlike any other, in search of her own story and a father she's never known.Following snowy highways and backroads, Miracelle stumbles across a museum of oddities and a hole-in-the-road town called Radiant, ultimately wandering into the town of Smyte, where she begins waitressing at the Black Cat Diner. Here, she befriends card-playing has-been Russell Wallen, whom she joins for a series of nighttime adventures, long drives, and after-dark visits to a Holy Roller church. This mythical journey uncovers family secrets and forgotten truths, transforming a familiar story of love and betrayal to reveal the binding power of magic and memory.