This new edition of A. B. Yehoshua's novellas and short stories includes two stories which did not previously appear in the hardback edition published in 1988, and no longer includes 'Mr. Mani' which, in the intervening years, has been developed into a prize-winning novel. The development of the author's style can be traced from its dark beginnings in stories such as 'The Yatir Evening Express', about a village which decides to vent its frustration at its isolation and insignificance on the evening express. Isolation and loneliness are central to Yehoshua's concerns, whether it be people's isolation from each other, from their community or from their family. The pain of this isolation is intense, as in the title story in which the distance between an ageing poet and his simple son is agonising. In 'Facing the Forests', a fire-watcher's isolation gives rise to deep longings for tragedy – a story which has since been seen to symbolise the relationship between Jew and Arab in Israel. Several of the stories deal with people thrust into positions of responsibility and the feelings of frustration and impotence which ensue are disturbing – murderous even. In 'Three Days and a Child', a man agrees to care for the three-year old son of a former lover. Those three days are marked by a strange detachment and sadistic, heart-stopping neglect of the child. The stories are ironic and understated, and the pace masterly. This collection confirms Yehoshua's talent as a major short-story writer. He has been awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for his entire œuvre.

An experiment is under way in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: a woman, recently widowed, is starting a trial period in assisted living, mainly to placate her over-anxious son, whilst in Jerusalem her daughter Noga, a young harpist, returns from her job with a Dutch orchestra to look after the family apartment. To enliven her stay, Noga's brother finds work for her - playing roles as an extra in film, TV, and in the opera Carmen. The random roles Noga is thrust into resonate strangely with her own life which she begins to re-evaluate. Central to her past is the fact that she refused to have children, resulting in the break-up of her marriage. No-one in her family understood her motives for not wanting children and everyone has a different explanation for it. Now, a chance encounter with her former husband reveals his continuing powerful, love as well as a shocking deed she committed during their marriage. But Noga is a free spirit neither tied to the past nor defined by it, and always keen to push boundaries. She lives for her music and is willing to go wherever it takes her. The three-month experiment proves as much of a test for her as for her mother and both are radically transformed by the end. A.B. Yehoshua is as creative, humorous and provocative as ever in The Extra, exploring themes familiar to him of love, family relationships and artistic ambitions, set mainly in an ever-changing Jerusalem.

Winner of the 2019 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry Finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry A searing volume by a poet whose work conveys "the visceral effect that prison has on identity" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times). Felon tells the story of the effects of incarceration in fierce, dazzling poems—canvassing a wide range of emotions and experiences through homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and grace—and, in doing so, creates a travelogue for an imagined life. Reginald Dwayne Betts confronts the funk of postincarceration existence and examines prison not as a static space, but as a force that enacts pressure throughout a person’s life. The poems move between traditional and newfound forms with power and agility—from revolutionary found poems created by redacting court documents to the astonishing crown of sonnets that serves as the volume’s radiant conclusion. Drawing inspiration from lawsuits filed on behalf of the incarcerated, the redaction poems focus on the ways we exploit and erase the poor and imprisoned from public consciousness. Traditionally, redaction erases what is top secret; in Felon, Betts redacts what is superfluous, bringing into focus the profound failures of the criminal justice system and the inadequacy of the labels it generates. Challenging the complexities of language, Betts animates what it means to be a "felon."

Silence, gender, and the sonnet revival -- Breaking "the silent Sabbath of the grave" : romantic women's sonnets and the "mute arbitress" of grief -- "In silence like to death" : Elizabeth Barrett's sonnet turn -- Sing again : Christina Rossetti and the music of silence -- "Silence, 'tis more cruel than the grave!" : Isabella Southern and the turn to the twentieth century -- Women's renunciation of the sonnet form.