ANCIENT ROME AUTHOR · FICTION · EARLY WORKS TO 1800
Lucius Apuleius
Also known as: Apuleius, Lucius, Apuleius
The story is told to Charite, held prisoner by a band of robbers, by their housekeeper, described as delira et temulenta ... anicula (6.25.1).
— from Apuleius
Most acclaimed
Apuleius
"These rhetorical texts by Apuleius, second-century Latin writer and author of the famous novel Metamorphoses or Golden Ass, have not been translated in English since 1909. They are some of the very few Latin speeches surviving from their period, and constitute important evidence for Latin and Roman North African social and intellectual culture in the second century A.D. They are the work of a talented writer who is being increasingly viewed as the major literary artist of his time in Latin." "The Apologia, Apuleius' self-defence against a charge of magic delivered in North Africa in A.D. 158-9, has been well described as 'a masterpiece of the Second Sophistic'. It is a brilliant, lively, and colourful piece and is the only Latin forensic oration preserved from the second century A.D., providing important evidence for contemporary North African life." "The Florida ('flowery pieces') is a collection of excerpts deriving from an earlier anthology of Apuleian speeches, most apparently delivered at Carthage in the 160s A.D. As a whole, these passages offer a unique view of the rhetorical practice of a performing intellectual in Latin in the second century A.D. They also give important information on civic life in Carthage through their treatment of proconsuls and the local senate." "The De Deo Socratis, probably also from the 160s, is an oration in the form of a popular philosophical lecture on the 'god' of Socrates, the inner voice which, according to Plato, advised him. This is the only surviving sophistic declamation in Latin. The material is treated brilliantly by Apuleius, being much ornamented with poetic quotation and rhetorical and stylistic pyrotechnics."--Jacket.
Florida
In her vigorous and moving new book, Lauren Groff brings her electric storytelling and intelligence to a world in which storms, snakes, and sinkholes lurk at the edges of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional, and psychological nature. Among those navigating it all are a resourceful pair of abandoned sisters; a lonely boy, grown up; a restless, childless couple; a searching, homeless woman; and an unforgettable, recurring character – a steely and conflicted wife and mother. The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida—its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind—becomes its gravitational center: an energy, a mood, as much as a place of residence. Groff transports the reader, then jolts us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty, as she writes about loneliness, rage, family, and the passage of time. With shocking accuracy and effect, she pinpoints the moments and decisions and connections behind human pleasure and pain, hope and despair, love and fury—the moments that make us alive. Startling, precise, and affecting, Florida is a magnificent achievement. Winner of the Story Prize. Finalist for the National Book Award, Kirkus Prize, and Southern Book Prize. Stories from this collection previously appeared in Best American Short Stories 2014, 2016, and 2017, the 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories, PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2012, The New Yorker, Tin House, Subtropics, American Short Fiction, Esquire, and in Granta’s 2017 Best of Young American Novelists issue. Named one of the best books of 2018 by over two dozen publications. Published in thirteen foreign markets.
Apologia
"Apologia is a story that gives our vague sense of apprehension about brutality in the modern world a focus, and, because the narrator actually does something on behalf of animals killed on the road, it gives us reason to believe that we can retrieve our dignity and a sense of purpose from the indifferent circumstances of everyday life." "It has long been a habit of writer Barry Lopez to remove dead animals from the road. At the conclusion of a journey from Oregon to Indiana in 1989, he wrote Apologia to explore the moral and emotional upheaval he experienced dealing with the dead every day. On the highway he encountered dozens of animals - raccoons, jackrabbits, porcupines, red foxes, sparrows, spotted skunks, owls, deer, gulls, badgers, field mice, garter snakes, barn swallows, pronghorn antelope, squirrels - all victims of vehicular destruction. Stopping for each body he saw, he gently removed each one from the road." "Lopez's eloquent prose is accompanied by Robin Eschner's dramatic woodcuts. By turns violent, raw, and tender, they provide a stunning counterpoint to a reverent testimony." --Book Jacket.