POETRY
Barbara Hamby
Most acclaimed
Babel
2004
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Seriously Funny
This investigation of the origins of comedy and the meaning of laughter draws on biology, anthropology, classical studies, behavioural science, philosophy and psychology - with a few authorial jokes along the way. What we learn of humour's origins in ritual invective and the cursing of malign spirit has a bearing on how we understand the violence we enjoy (or fear) in much contemporary stand-up comedy. And yet this is not simply an investigation of the nature of comedy and its origins. It is also about the indispensible contribution which humour makes to our humanity and the dangers to us in what we can't laugh at. The author sees humour as compromised by political correctness and therefore this book is not short on contentious argument. From fools and jesters, gleemen and clowns, comedians, harlequins, pantaloons and Punch, to stand-up comedians, man has learnt to laugh at what he fears, but can humour withstand the onslaught of "isms"? Can we go on making jokes if we fear whom we might hurt? Are ethnic jokes in fact important safety valves for racial tension that will otherwise express themselves?
On the street of divine love
Perhaps Paul Kareem Taylor said it best in his piece called On the Road Again: Barbara Hamby's American Odyssey: "Reading Barbara Hamby's poetry is like going on a road trip, one where the woman behind the wheel lets you ride shotgun as she speeds across the open highways of an America where drive-in movie theaters still show Janet Leigh films on Friday nights, hardware stores have not been driven out of business by soulless corporate titans, and where long poetic lines first introduced by Walt Whitman and resurrected by Ginsberg are pregnant with a thousand reasons to marvel at the world we inhabit."