Ρεμπέκα Γουέστ

Η Ντέιμ Σίσιλι Ίζαμπελ Φέρφελντ (Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield, 21 Δεκεμβρίου 1892 – 15 Μαρτίου 1983), γνωστή ως Ρεμπέκα Γουέστ, ήταν Βρετανίδα συγγραφέας, ταξιδιωτική συγγραφέας, κριτικός λογοτεχνίας και δημοσιογράφος. Συνείσφερε σε αρκετά λογοτεχνικά είδη και άσκησε κριτική σε βιβλία για τις εφημερίδες The Times, New York Herald Tribune, Sunday Telegraph και The New Republic. Ήταν ανταποκρίτρια για την εφημερίδα The Bookman. Τα κυριότερα έργα της περιλαμβάνουν τα Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941, αναφέρεται στην ιστορία και τον πολιτισμό της Γιουγκοσλαβίας) ; A Train of Powder (1955, αναφέρεται στις δίκες της Νυρεμβέργης και αρχικά δημοσιεύτηκε στην The New Yorker) ; The Meaning of Treason (1949), αργότερα The New Meaning of Treason (1964, αναφέρεται στην δίκη του Βρετανού φασίστα William Joyce και άλλων) ; The Return of the Soldier (1918, μυθιστόρημα για τον Α' Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο) ; και την τριλογία αυτοβιογραφικών μυθιστορημάτων, The Fountain Overflows (1956), This Real Night (δημοσιεύτηκε μετά τον θάνατό της, το 1984) και Cousin Rosamund (1985). Το περιοδικό Time την αποκάλεσε "την νούμερο ένα γυναίκα συγγραφέα στον κόσμο" το 1947. Έγινε αξιωματικός του τάγματος της βρετανικής αυτοκρατορίας το 1949. Πήρε το ψευδώνυμο "Ρεμπέκα Γουέστ" από την επαναστάτρια νεαρή ηρωίδα στο βιβλίο Rosmersholm του Ερρίκου Ίψεν. Έχει λάβει το μετάλλιο Μπένσον.

Εργογραφία

Φαντασία 

 1914 – Indissoluble Matrimony, ένα αμφιλεγόμενο διήγημα που δημοσιεύτηκε για πρώτη φορά στο Blast No. 1. Το επιμελήθηκε η Γιολάντα Μορατό στον ισπανικό εκδοτικό οίκο Zut, δημοσιεύτηκε επίσης στην ισπανική έκδοση του Blast No. 1 (Μαδρίτη: Juan March Foundation, 2010).  This novella challenges many issues about feminism and women's involvement in politics in pre-war Britain.
 1918 – The Return of the Soldier, the first World War I novel written by a woman, about a shell-shocked, amnesiac soldier returning from World War I in hopes of being reunited with his first love, a working-class woman, instead of continuing to live with his upper-class wife.
 1922 – The Judge, a brooding, passionate novel combining Freudian Oedipal themes with suffragism and an existential take on cosmic absurdity.
 1929 – Harriet Hume, a modernist story about a piano-playing prodigy and her obsessive lover, a corrupt politician.
 1935 – The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels, contains the short story "The Salt of the Earth," featuring Alice Pemberton, whose obsessive altruism becomes so smothering that her husband plots her murder. This was adapted for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour as "The Paragon" starring Joan Fontaine (season 1, episode 20) in 1963. An additional story from the collection, "There is No Conversation", is the tale of a romance as told in hindsight by both parties, one a caddish Frenchman and the other a coarse American woman. This story was adapted for an hour-long radio drama in 1950 on NBC University Theatre and featured a commentary on West's story and writing skills by Katherine Anne Porter.
 1936 – The Thinking Reed, a novel about the corrupting influence of wealth even on originally decent people. Perhaps a disguised self-critique of her own elegant lifestyle.
 1956 – The Fountain Overflows, a semi-autobiographical novel weaving a fascinating cultural, historical, and psychological tapestry of the first decade of the 20th century, reflected through the prism of the gifted, eccentric Aubrey family.
 1984 – This Real Night, sequel to The Fountain Overflows published posthumously
 1985 – Cousin Rosamund, final, unfinished installment of the "Aubrey Trilogy" published posthumously
 1966 – The Birds Fall Down, spy thriller based on the deeds of the historical double agent Yevno Azef.
 1986 – Sunflower, published posthumously, about a tense love-relationship between an actress and a politician, reminiscent of West's relationship with H. G. Wells.
 2002 – The Sentinel, edited by Kathryn Laing and published posthumously, West's very first extended piece of fiction, an unfinished novel about the suffragist struggle in Britain, including grim scenes of female incarceration and force-feeding.

Μη-φαντασία 

 1916 – Henry James
 1928 – The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews, a blend of modernist literary criticism and cognitive science, including a long essay explaining why West disliked James Joyce's Ulysses, though she judged it an important book
 1931 – Ending in Earnest: A Literary Log
 1932 – Arnold Bennett Himself, John Day  
 1933 – St. Augustine, first psycho-biography of the Christian Church Father
 1934 – The Modern Rake's Progress (co-authored with cartoonist David Low)
 1941 – Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, a 1,181-page classic of travel literature, giving an account of Balkan history and ethnography, and the significance of Nazism, structured around her trip to Yugoslavia in 1937
 1949 – The Meaning of Treason , edit new 1964 – The New Meaning of Treason
 1955 – A Train of Powder
 1958 – The Court and the Castle: some treatments of a recurring theme, excellent revisionist interpretations of literary classics, including Hamlet and Kafka's stories
 1963 – The Vassall Affair
 1982 –  1900, cultural history and fascinating "thick description" of this pivotal year
 1982 –  The Young Rebecca, West's early, radical journalism for The Freewoman and Clarion, edited by Jane Marcus
 1987 –  Family Memories: An Autobiographical Journey, West's autobiographical musings which remained unpublished during her life, assembled and edited by Faith Evans
 2000 – The Selected Letters of Rebecca West, edited by Bonnie Kime Scott
 2003 – Survivors in Mexico , posthumous work about West's two trips to Mexico in 1966 and 1969, edited by Bernard Schweizer
 2005 – Woman as Artist and Thinker, re-issues of some of West's best essays, together with her short-story "Parthenope"
 2010 – The Essential Rebecca West: Uncollected Prose,

Κριτικές και βιογραφίες

Παραπομπές

Εξωτερικοί σύνδεσμοι 

 
 
 Rebecca West papers at The University of Tulsa McFarlin Library's Department of Special Collections and University Archives.
Rebecca West Papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
New York Times obituary, 16 March 1983
International Rebecca West Society
Biography of Rebecca West on the Yale Modernism Lab

 
Rebecca West Papers review HItler's Children 

Βρετανοί συγγραφείς