Sabina and the Mystery of the Ogre is a fast-paced thriller that winds through tales of encounters of mysteries and near-misses, underlining Sabina's unusual courage in the face of overwhelming sentiment of deeply-rooted traditional practices. ***** "Ogre! Ogre! Ogre!" women shouted. "Here comes the ogre!" voices rose. A vibrating snarl rent the air, sending Sabina into a tremble. Heavy footsteps came down on the ground outside with a force that shook the hut, like the initial tremors of an earthquake. Sabina wanted to scream, but her mouth became dry. She trembled violently. Her lips quavered and bit the earthen floor. Will she survive? Will she endure the bite of that ogre? No, she won't. Will she run away? But where will she run to? What will her mother say? What will people say about what would be considered abominable in the community? She would become a laughing stock and shunned by her community. She would be referred to as a cowardly girl. Her parents would be derogatively referred to as parents of " egesagane," a stinking lass. No, she won't run away. She won't embarrass her parents. She won't let her community down. She will brave herself. She will stay at that initiation stone and endure the bite of the dreaded ogre if only for the sake of her parents, friends and the village. "Tie her! Tie the ogre! " a babel of voices rose again. "She will kick us! Tie her please!" one woman shouted. "Oh, God!" Sabina whispered to herself, terror-crazed, pressing tightly onto the earthen floor underneath. ***** Sabina and the Mystery of the Ogre was the winner of the Burt Award for Literature 2015 (Kenya) .

The alarm and the horror that characterized the years 2020 and 2021 are fading fast, gone, or about to go, while the gentle footsteps of the Guardian spirit can be heard yonder. Images of spring, sunlight, blazing candles, brilliant flowers, and moonlit nights are taking center stage in our minds. There is hope for a better life, and a healthy situation in the world in 2022 as people start to gather on the streets, hugging and kissing; their mask-less faces display laughter, giggles, and beauty. In incredible abundance, life has come or is soon coming back, rushing in, bending down to pick up its old cloth. This anthology, Coming Out of Isolation: Poems on Resilience, Triumph & Hope, features poems written by poets after their endless days in lockdown and self-isolation. The poems herein express the poets' feelings and thoughts in a new way with a healing tonal quality, brighter and pleasant imageries, and new lively metaphors.

Capturing society's realities as played by characters rendered in these stories, this collection's recurring theme is the role of women in society, their longing for equity, and their triumphNoften depicted by heroines catapulted by circumstances rather than deliberate action of society to engineer their success.

The poems in this book are published in their native language and in American English. The collection's theme is spring: the season or the idea of spring in a metaphorical sense, i.e., seeing people or things changed or in transition, making them better. This poetry collection contains poems from 60 poets and 20 countries on five out of seven continents.

Jodorowsky’s memoirs of his experiences with Master Takata and the group of wisewomen--magiciennes--who influenced his spiritual growth • Reveals Jodorowsky turning the same unsparing spiritual vision seen in El Topo to his own spiritual quest • Shows how the author’s spiritual insight and progress was catalyzed repeatedly by wisewoman shamans and healers In 1970, John Lennon introduced to the world Alejandro Jodorowsky and the movie, El Topo, that he wrote, starred in, and directed. The movie and its author instantly became a counterculture icon. The New York Times said the film “demands to be seen,” and Newsweek called it “An Extraordinary Movie!” But that was only the beginning of the story and the controversy of El Topo, and the journey of its brilliant creator. His spiritual quest began with the Japanese master Ejo Takata, the man who introduced him to the practice of meditation, Zen Buddhism, and the wisdom of the koans. Yet in this autobiographical account of his spiritual journey, Jodorowsky reveals that it was a small group of wisewomen, far removed from the world of Buddhism, who initiated him and taught him how to put the wisdom he had learned from his master into practice. At the direction of Takata, Jodorowsky became a student of the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, thus beginning a journey in which vital spiritual lessons were transmitted to him by various women who were masters of their particular crafts. These women included Doña Magdalena, who taught him “initiatic” or spiritual massage; the powerful Mexican actress known as La Tigresa (the “tigress”); and Reyna D’Assia, daughter of the famed spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. Other important wisewomen on Jodorowsky’s spiritual path include María Sabina, the priestess of the sacred mushrooms; the healer Pachita; and the Chilean singer Violeta Parra. The teachings of these women enabled him to discard the emotional armor that was hindering his advancement on the path of spiritual awareness and enlightenment.

‘Wow wow wow. Finished in one day... Twists to make me gasp out loud!... Read it, thank me later!’ NetGalley reviewer, 5 stars Don’t miss the next gripping thriller from the bestselling author of Three Days Missing!

One-time lovers who share libertarian ideals find themselves on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain in the 1960s. They continue to seek a path to liberation and their letters record the repression and satisfactions they experience under different manifestations of the modern state. A beautiful, tender and inspiring collection. In all actuality, a collection of work from Fredy Perlman.

A dramatic, thought-provoking portrait of one of the most compelling figures in early Christianity which explores two thousand years of history, art, and literature to provide a close-up look at Mary Magdalen and her significance in religious and cultural thought.

In this landmark book, Seven Stories Press presents a powerful collection of literary, philosophical, and political writings of the masked Zapatista spokesperson, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Introduced by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, and illustrated with beautiful black and white photographs, Our Word Is Our Weapon crystallizes "the passion of a rebel, the poetry of a movement, and the literary genius of indigenous Mexico." Marcos first captured world attention on January 1, 1994, when he and an indigenous guerrilla group calling themselves "Zapatistas" revolted against the Mexican government and seized key towns in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas. In the six years that have passed since their uprising, Marcos has altered the course of Mexican politics and emerged an international symbol of grassroots movement-building, rebellion, and democracy. The prolific stream of poetic political writings, tales, and traditional myths that Marcos has penned since January 1, 1994 fill more than four volumes. Our Word Is Our Weapon presents the best of these writings, many of which have never been published before in English. Throughout this remarkable book we hear the uncompromising voice of indigenous communities living in resistance, expressing through manifestos and myths the universal human urge for dignity, democracy, and liberation. It is the voice of a people refusing to be forgotten the voice of Mexico in transition, the voice of a people struggling for democracy by using their word as their only weapon.

The award-winning life story of Wales national poet and vicar R.S. Thomas is “a biography touched by genius.” (Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday) R.S. Thomas is widely considered as one of the twentieth-century’s greatest English language poets. His bitter yet beautiful collections on Wales, its landscape, people and identity, reflect a life of political and spiritual asceticism. Indeed, Thomas is a man who banned vacuum cleaners from his house on grounds of noise, whose first act on moving into an ancient cottage was to rip out the central heating, and whose attempts to seek out more authentically Welsh parishes only brought him more into contact with loud English holidaymakers. To Thomas’s many admirers this will be a surprising, sometimes shocking, but at last humanising portrait of someone who wrote truly metaphysical poetry. “A masterpiece.” —Daily Express “A striking, vivid and tender reading of the man . . . Excellent.” —Observer “Riotiously funny.” —Rowan Williams, Sunday Times “It is precisely Byron Rogers’ darkly comic sense of the ridiculous that melts the frost from the head of R.S. Thomas and humanizes a remote and bleakly beautiful writer.” —The Times “A chatty, disorderly but extremely good [biography] . . . A wonderfully comprehensive picture of the man.” —Daily Telegraph “As revealing an account of a severely private person that anyone could hope to achieve.” —Alan Brownjohn, Times Literary Supplement “Engagingly high-spirited and daring.” —Andrew Motion, Guardian Book of the Week “Charming and deftly written. . . . A very funny book.” —Literary Review “As readable and rounded a life of the man as could be written.” —Tablet Winner of the James Tait Black prize for biography