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Raised within the socially restrictive mores of a transient middle-class family and troubled with a stammering problem, Ana Maria Matute took refuge in literature. At 17, she began to use her experiences to probe the themes of lost childhood, injustice, and the lives of the marginalized. She soon developed a fresh prose style that deftly blended fantasy and realism, revitalizing the mid-20th-century Spanish literary scene. This landmark program features...
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English
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Virginia Woolf pushed the boundaries of the novel as a tool for psychological inquiry through her experimentation with subjective and relativistic perceptions of time and events. This program intercuts scenes from a compelling dramatization of Mrs. Dalloway with a portrayal of Virginia Woolf-played by actress Eileen Atkins-who, based on entries from her diary, explicates the story. Literary critic Hermione Lee addresses topics in the novel such as...
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"Bill Blair finds the land by accident, three wooded acres in a rustic community south of San Francisco. The year is 1954, long before anyone will call this area Silicon Valley. Struck by a vision of the family he has yet to create, Bill buys the property on a whim. In Penny Greenway he finds a suitable wife, a woman whose yearning attitude toward life seems compelling and answerable, and they marry and have four children. Yet Penny is a mercurial...
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"Set in Rome, Cape Cod, and Wisconsin over the course of the summer of 2009, and Rome during the spring of 1970, The Wanting Life tells the intertwined story of three members of the Novak family: Father Paul, a closeted gay Catholic priest who's dying of cancer and has secrets he desperately wants to share; Britta, his self-destructive sister and caretaker, who's struggling to find meaning in a world without her beloved husband; and Maura, Britta's...
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English
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They come from diverse backgrounds and represent a cross-section of global culture, yet they all share a passion for the written word. In this documentary, authors Gloria Steinem, Doris Lessing, Amy Tan, Isabel Allende, Bharati Mukherjee, Harriet Doerr, June Jordan, and Mona Simpson speak out about their personal lives and openly share their thoughts and feelings on the themes of childhood; love, marriage, and children; starting out as writers; the...
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English
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Surveying the uncompromising life and career of the erstwhile Amandine Aurore-Lucie Dupin, this program familiarizes viewers with her literary output, political beliefs, and the widely varied circles she inhabited. Beginning with her birth in Paris, the film describes Sand's semi-aristocratic upbringing, stifling marriage, turbulent romances, creative evolution, and visionary proto-feminist stance. Sand's memoir excerpts and artworks are featured;...
87) Zoe Valdes
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Español
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Born in Cuba to Chinese parents, award-winning novelist Zoe Valdes has achieved worldwide recognition for portraying the struggles and dreams of women. This program highlights her upbringing, education, and influences, as well as examining several of her most important books, including La Hija del Embajador and Te Di La Vida Entera.
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English
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This moving dramatization of Tillie Olsen's frequently anthologized "I Stand Here Ironing" is an unvarnished exploration of an impoverished single mother's ambivalence toward her worth as a parent and her 19-year-old daughter's future. Rich in subtext, the highly metaphorical story-penned in a stark and dramatic fashion devoid of cliche and sentimentality-raises important questions about individual identity, the role of women in society, the effects...
89) Born in shame
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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts comes the final novel in the Irish Born Trilogy—following Born in Fire and Born in Ice.
Shannon Bodine’s life revolves around her job as a graphic artist at a New York ad agency. But her world turns upside down when she learns the identity of her real father: Thomas Concannon.
Obeying her late mother’s wishes, Shannon reluctantly travels...
Shannon Bodine’s life revolves around her job as a graphic artist at a New York ad agency. But her world turns upside down when she learns the identity of her real father: Thomas Concannon.
Obeying her late mother’s wishes, Shannon reluctantly travels...
91) Women
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English
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The feminine form has inspired artists for thousands of years-but have the results done justice or injustice to women? What specifically does the history of sculpture tell us about attitudes toward womanhood and ideas of feminine beauty? British art critic Waldemar Januszczak addresses those questions in this challenging, eye-opening program. After tracing the representation of women from the prehistoric Venus of Willendorf and Venus de Milo to Marc...
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English
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Flannery O'Connor is often likened to Faulkner for her portrayal of the character and lifestyle of the South, Kafka for her fascination with the bizarre, and Beckett for her dark humor-comparisons that underscore the fact that her voice has a unique place in the canon of American literature. This program provides a biographical sketch of O'Connor that illuminates her efforts to come to terms with what she perceived as the fundamental absurdity of...
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English
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When Maxine Hong Kingston was growing up in California, she listened to her parents' stories and memories of their native China. In her highly acclaimed memoirs, The Woman Warrior and China Men, she linked those tales of tradition to the story of her own American experience, blending childhood memory, meditation, and magic. They are the most widely taught books by a living American author on college campuses today. In this program with Bill Moyers,...
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English
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In this compelling program, world-renowned author Toni Morrison candidly answers questions regarding how she became a writer, the pain of empathizing with her characters, the sensual nature of her novels, and how it felt to win the Nobel Prize. In addition, she pulls no punches discussing how she first became aware of her racial otherness, how writing for a black audience has kept her work from becoming derivative, the societal uses of racism, and...
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English
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Shangilia Mtoto wa Afrika (Rejoice Child of Africa) is an orphanage in Nairobi that uses performing arts as a tool to improve the lives of street children-and, in the process, change the negative stereotype of these children held by Kenyan society. This inspiring documentary tells the story of how veteran actress Anne Wanjugu created Shangilia-and how, after she suddenly passed away, the organization overcame obstacles that arose with the loss of...
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English
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What were Alice Walker's motivations in writing "Everyday Use"? In this program, the author discusses her short story with her official biographer, Evelyn C. White. Over the course of the interview, Walker talks about the autobiographical aspects of the story, the significance of quilting to African-American women, the perception of class differences, and the important life lessons she wished to explore.
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English
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Isabel Allende, the most recent Latin American novelist to bestride the world literary stage-and the first Latin American woman-describes the emotions that inform her fiction and the events that set them in motion. Niece of the deposed (and presumably assassinated) Chilean Marxist president Salvador Allende, she fled Chile in terror and blossomed in exile to write of the love, hate, and revenge that shape the lives of people she knew, or dreamt about:...
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"For fans of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank comes a captivating novel that offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of Vanessa Bell, her sister Virginia Woolf, and the controversial and popular circle of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group. London, 1905: The city is alight with change, and the Stephen siblings are at the forefront. Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian are leaving behind their childhood home and taking a house in the leafy...
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English
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Surveying some of the most under-appreciated art of the 20th century, this program documents a groundbreaking exhibit of work by Latin American women at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The video opens up the world of these bold and sensitive visionaries, illuminating their accomplishments, their impact on artists outside their own countries, and the relationship between cultural and artistic identity. Featuring the work of legendary painters Frida Kahlo...
100) Rosa Regas
Language
Catalan
Description
Born in Barcelona, Rosa Regas has founded two publishing houses and two magazines, as well as written several award-winning novels. In this extended interview, the novelist and journalist discusses several of her books, including Azul, Luna Lunera, and Le Cancion de Dorotea.