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Friday, October 26, 2012

FROM BEOWULF TO PRUFROCK



Adams Booksellers Musgrave Centre and Solo Collective will launch Peter Strauss’s history of English literature From Beowulf to Prufrock: One Thousand Years of English Writing on October 31.

By juxtaposing an account of the background with examples of the work of each particular era, this book tells the story of how the great writers of the past responded to the deeper, underlying changes of history. The book aims to answer the questions which avid readers will have been putting to themselves. As one reader said, “What was once a fuzzy blur has at last become clear.” The style is conversational, the point of view personal and undogmatic. A fascinating read, it covers an extraordinarily wide range”.

Peter Strauss was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1941. He attended Maritzburg College, studied at the University of Natal (PMB) and at Downing College, Cambridge. He taught English literature at the Durban branch of UKZN for over 30 years. He has written a book on poetry entitled Talking Poetry (David Philip) and three volumes of verse, Photographs of Bushmen (Bateleur Press), Bishop Bernward’s Door and other poems (David Philip) and The Owl and the Moon (Carapace). He has received the Pringle Award three times - twice for literary articles on Spenser and Ted Hughes and once for the poem Bishop Bernward’s Door.

Considered to be a great help to teachers, From Beowulf to Prufrock retails at R360 from Adams Musgrave.