'There is in this world a kind of desire like stinging pain'
A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. He imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Se
Pip switches identities, sexes and centuries in this punk, fairytale reimagining of Charles Dickens's original Great Expectations. Both familiar and unfamiliar, our orphaned narrator is transplanted
'So the club rose, the blood came down, and his bitterness and his anguish and his guilt were compounded'
Drawing on Baldwin's own experiences of prejudice in an America violently divided by race,
'The morning became a long, drawn-out afternoon that became depthless night dawning innocently through the house'
Tales of desire and madness from this giant of Brazilian literature.
Penguin Mo
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. H
'The illegible signature of teetering disaster'
Three great stories--The Aurelian, Signs and Symbols and Lance--the last both a derisive attack on science-fiction and an attempt to imagine the rea
'To create today is to create dangerously'
Camus argues passionately that the artist has a responsibility to challenge, provoke and speak up for those who cannot in this powerful speech, accompani
'If I think about it, and I have the time and inclination and capacity to do so, we dogs are an odd lot.'
How does a dog see the world? How do any of us? In this playful and enigmatic story of a c
'Like rotting stakes in a forest clearing'
The great journalist of conflict in the Third World finds an even stranger and more exotic society in his own home of post-War Poland
Penguin Modern:
'But no, she's abstract, is a bird
Of sound in the air of air soaring,
And her soul sings unencumbered
Because the song's what makes her sing.'
Dramatic, lyrical and ranging over four distinct
Sadder than salad.
From apples to artichokes, these glittering, fragmented, painterly portraits of food by the avant-garde pioneer Gertrude Stein are redolent of sex, laughter and the joy of every
' "Another hour gone. But I'm not afraid. There's only one thing I regret: that I've lived for so many years without knowing where human happiness is to be found" '
In these stories, four writers
'As you are well aware, we never loved each other in your lifetime. Both of us pretended.'
Simenon explores the complexity of parent child relationships and the bitterness of things left unsaid in
'The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful.'
These two classic essays were the first works of criticism to break down the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture, and made Susa
'Do I wish to keep up with the times? No. My wish simply is to live my life as fully as I can'
The great American poet, novelist and environmental activist argues for a life lived slowly.
Pengu
'She only wished to prove to herself she was once more on a train going somewhere'
A passionate, unfulfilled woman considers her life and her marriage in this moving novella by one of America's fi
'The sap had dried up; the sap, the incentive, the fever, the desire to do, to act, to act the fool, make love, create'
A middle-aged woman breaks with her handsome young lover; a placid husband i
'The alphabet of
the trees
is fading in the
song of the leaves'
Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionized American verse,
Untrustworthy, charming Fussy Joe spins stories and breaks hearts in this rollicking story set in the 'sensational city' of 1960s Lagos.
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering
'I knew he was imagining a really lovely girl - all curves, curls, heart and hidden claws'
In stories that span the course of a lifetime - from childhood in the Caribbean to adolescent modelling i
'The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs'
Biting and timeless reflections on patriotism, prejudice and power, from the man who wrote abou
'Oh the cruelty of time, that destroys all things!'
Beguiling, strange and hair-raising tales from early 20th century Japan: Nagai's Behind the Prison, Uno's Closet LLB and Akutagawa's deeply maca
From the self-described 'black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet', these soaring, urgent essays on the power of women, poetry and anger are filled with darkness and light.
Penguin Modern: fifty new
'See my hand up-tipped, learn the secret of my human heart...'
Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.
Penguin Modern
'What if she isn't happy - does she think men are happy in this world? Doesn't she know how lucky she is to be a woman?'
The pioneering Betty Friedan here identifies the strange problem plaguing A
'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'
This landmark missive from one of the greatest activists in history calls for direct, non-violent resistance in the fight against racism, an
'It's an improbable city, Bologna - like one you might walk through after you have died.'
A dreamlike meditation on memory, food, paintings, a fond uncle and the improbable beauty of Bologna, from
'INTENSE SEXUAL DESIRE IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD'
A tale of art, sex, blood, junkies and whores in New York's underground, from cult literary icon Kathy Acker
Penguin Modern: fifty new
'Everything was dead, everything unreal; the dark mob was made up of stiff lay-figures'
One of America's greatest writers explores mob violence, voyeurism and betrayal in these unforgettable tales
'I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided . . .'
By turns comical, grouchy and exalted, and including his tragic masterpiece 'The Great Hunger', some of the key poem