Patricia Duncker

Hallucinating Foucault

Foucaultyu Sayiklamak

In Berlin, Max Duncker and his brother, Wolfgang, own a thriving publishing business, which owes its success to one woman: the Sibyl, or Mary Ann Evans, better known as George Eliot,who is writing the final installment of her bestselling serial Middlemarch. Max is as fond of gambling and brothels as Wolfgang is of making a profit and berating his spendthrift brother, but Max is given a chance to prove his worth by visiting the Sibyl and her not-quite-husband Lewes, to finalize the publishing rights to her new novel. The Sibyl proves to be as enthralling and intelligent as her books, bewitching Max and all of those around her. But Wolfgang has an ulterior motive for Max's visit; he wants his brother to consider the beautiful eighteen-year-old Countess Sophie von Hahn as a potential wife. An acquaintance from Max's childhood, she comes from a German family of great wealth. However, Sophie proves to be nothing like the angelic vision of domesticity Max envisaged; wild and willful, she gambles recklessly yet always wins, rides horses fiercely, and is happy to disobey authority, especially when it comes to her idol, George Eliot. Enchanted by this whirlwind of a woman, Max nevertheless fears he will never be able to tame her. With its vivid portrayal of George Eliot and how she lived her life, and the turbulent love story of the countess and Max, Sophie and the Sibyl is both a compulsive read and a high literary achievement.

A Victorian Romance

Sophie and the Sibyl

So begins The Doctor, a provocative, illuminating novel based on a true story about a brilliant female physician who is compelled to live as a man under the name James Miranda Barry. Patricia Duncker traces Barry's incredible life over the course of five decades and across three continents, from his cross-dressing child genius days to medical school in Edinburgh, Scotland; from his glorious career as a military surgeon to his adventures as a celebrated duelist and social figure known throughout the world. This richly inventive and entertaining tale of dark family secrets, adultery, and colonial history is a transforming contemplation on the substance of gender, the power of will, and an unforgettable portrait of a brilliant mind.

A Novel

The Doctor

Die Germanistin.

a novel

The strange case of the composer and his judge

Roman

James Miranda Barry

This novel is a disturbing tale of Oedipal passion. It concerns 18 year-old Toby Hawk whose world remains a small, closed round of school, domesticity and surfing the Net at night. But then his mother, only 15 years older than he is, takes up with a fascinating but enigmatic scientist.

The Deadly Space Between

A solitary boy in a family of independent, unconventional women, Toby Hawk lives in a small, closed world that consists of school and surfing the Internet. His mother, Isobel, a painter on the brink of commercial success, is only fifteen years his senior and the two share an unusually intimate bond. But everything changes when Isobel takes up with Roehm, a fascinating and enigmatic scientist. As he begins his slow dance of courtship and seduction, alienating mother from son, their world becomes unstable and duplicitous. Toby turns to the Web for clues about his mother’s hauntingly irresistible, predatory lover -- and the answers he finds transform his life. An eerie psychological ghost story with echoes of Faust, Freud, and Frankenstein, The Deadly Space Between is a disturbing tale of Oedipal passions -- a rich and dark exploration of sexual ambiguity and longing.

Александр Борисенко

Виктор Сонькин

Семь сказок о сексе и смерти

Toby Hawk is a solitary boy in a family of Amazons. His mother, only fifteen years older than him, is a painter on the brink of commercial success. His great-aunt is a wealthy textile designer; her partner, Liberty, a barrister. Meanwhile, eighteen-year-old Toby's world remains a small, closed round of school, domesticity and surfing the Net at night. But everything changes when his mother takes up with a fascinating but enigmatic scientist, Roehm. Patricia Duncker's gripping novel is a disturbing tale of Oedipal passion. It is also an eerie psychological ghost story in the European tradition, whose sources - Freud, Faust and Frankenstein - haunt the pages.

Reissued

A captivating first novel of love and madness, Hallucinating Foucault tells of a devoted reader's quest to find and liberate Paul Michel, enfant terrible of French Letters, who is schizophrenic and incarerated in an asylum. As its builds towards a startling conclusion, the novel unravels and probes the intriguing connections between writer Paul Michel and philosopher Michel Foucault, and the elusive bond that exists between writer and reader.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, ten-year-old James Miranda Barry enrolled as a medical student in Edinburgh, the start of a glorious career as a military surgeon. Across the Empire, Barry achieved fame not only as a brilliant physician, but also a legendary duellist and a celebrated social figure. But James Miranda Barry was also a woman. Her greatest achievement of all had been to 'pass' for a man for more than fifty years. Patricia Duncker's novel tells Barry's story for the first time, in a richly inventive and entertaining tale of dark family screts, adultery, questioned paternity and colonial history. It confirms her rare talent as a writer of profound ideas and immense storytelling power.

Elizabeth Webster is a spinster pushing seventy. Forced out of her teaching job, she unleashes her sharp tongue and dogmatic opinions on everyone in the English village of Little Blessington. Then, one night, she grinds to a dead halt. To recover from this illness, she travels to North Africa where she has a brush with terrorism - not that she cares about politics. Three weeks after Miss Webster has returned home her doorbell rings. There stands a beautiful young Arab man carrying a large suitcase. Who is he, why is he there and what does he want?

Miss Webster and Chérif

Since 1970 the women's movement has produced a rich and varied harvest of feminist fiction. This book introduces the reader to these writers and to the politics and polemic that inform their work.

An Introduction to Contemporary Feminist Fiction

Sisters and Strangers

Jagers stuiten in de Jura op een halve cirkel van levenloze lichamen in de sneeuw Rechter Dominique Carpentier wordt belast met het onderzoek. Met behulp van commissaris André Schweigen vindt ze een in code geschreven boek met astrologische kaarten. Het boek leidt hen naar de Zwitserse componist Friedrich Grosz. Is er een connectie tussen de componist en de slachtoffers? De rechter, beter bekend als de sektejager, ontmaskert bedriegers en charlatans. Maar is ze opgewassen tegen de componist?

De vreemde zaak van de componist en zijn rechter

Re-Imagining the Fairy Tales: Angela Carter's Bloody Chambers

Seven chilling and provocative stories exploring the dark side of the human psyche, from the prize-winning, acclaimed author of Hallucinating Foucault and Sophie and the Sibyl. Illuminating the dark side of the erotic, these interwoven stories explore obsession, violence, and the thin line between sex and death. Under a Mediterranean sun a man searches for the Temple of Zeus as his wife awaits her stalker; a sex worker at an illegal fetish club contemplates her options; a strike spirals out of control with eerie consequences; and a conflict with noisy neighbors reaches theatrical heights. Driven by lust, greed and revenge, chillingly calm or maddened by rage, Patricia Duncker's characters use every tool at their disposal to get what they want. Unapologetically disturbing and provocative like the B movies that inspired them, Seven Tales of Sex and Death holds up a mirror to humanity at its most flawed, ruthless and seductive.

Seven Tales of Sex and Death

"A study in critical readership, this wide-ranging collection of essays challenges accepted theories on everything from classics such as Charlotte Brontds Villette to more contemporary works like Margaret Atwoods Life Before Man. Explored are ideas of sexual subversion and queer politics. Literatures sacred cows are reevaluated, and new ways to explore both reading and writing are offered."

Selected Essays

Writing on the Wall

At the turn of the nineteenth century, ten-year-old James Miranda Barry enrolled as a medical student in Edinburgh, the start of a glorious career as a military surgeon. Across the Empire, Barry achieved fame not only as a brilliant physician, but also a legendary duellist and a celebrated social figure. But James Miranda Barry was also a woman. Her greatest achievement of all had been to 'pass' for a man for more than fifty years. Patricia Duncker's novel tells Barry's story for the first time, in a richly inventive and entertaining tale of dark family secrets, adultery, questioned paternity and colonial history. It confirms her rare talent as a writer of profound ideas and immense storytelling power.

Patricia Duncker

About

Books

Join the club