Linwood Messina Literary Agency is a boutique agency based in Paris representing rights on behalf of French and English language publishers, agencies and authors. Our list is quite diverse covering mostly every genre except for SF and children's books.
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A bold, new history of British Jewish life since the Second World War. Historian Gavin Schaffer wrestles Jewish history away from the question of what others have thought about Jews, focusing instead on the experiences of Jewish people themselves. Exploring the complexities of inclusion and exclusion, he shines a light on groups that have been marginalised within Jewish history and culture, such as queer Jews, Jews married to non-Jews, Israel-critical Jews and even Messianic Jews, while offering a fresh look at Jewish activism, Jewish religiosity and Zionism. Weaving these stories together, Schaffer argues that there are good reasons to consider Jewish Britons as a unitary whole, even as debates rage about who is entitled to call themselves a Jew. Challenging the idea that British Jewish life is in terminal decline. An unorthodox history demonstrates that Jewish Britain is thriving and that Jewishness is deeply embedded in the country's history and culture.
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'Reading Walter Benjamin' explores the persistence of absolute in Benjamin's work by sketching-out the relationship between philosphy and theology apparent in his diverse writings, from the early youth-movement essays to the later books, essays and fragments. The book examines Benjamin from two main perspectives: a history-of-ideas approach situating Benjamin in relation to the new German-Jewish thinking at the turn of the twentieth-century, as well as the German youth movements, Surrealism and the 'Georgekreis'; and a conceptual approach examining more critical issues in relation to Benjamin and Kant, modern aesthetics and narrative order. Chapters cover: 'Kulturpessimismus' and the new thinking; metaphysics of youth: Wyneken and 'Rausch'; history: surreal Messianism; Goethe and the 'Georgekreis'; Kant's experience; casting the work of art; disrupting textual order; and exile and the time of crisis. The book uses new translations of Benjamin's essays, fragments and his 'Arcades Project', and makes substantial reference to previously untranslated material. Lane's text allows the non-specialist entry into complex areas of critical theory, simultaneously offering original readings of Benjamin and twentieth-century arts and literature. ;
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As an educated gentleman and naval officer, Richard Brothers dramatically altered eighteenth-century expectations and perceptions of what prophets were and the nature of prophecy itself. The messianic messages delivered to Londoners by the self-styled prophet are central to the religious politics and culture of the 1790s, mockingly referred to by one contemporary critic as the 'age of prophecy'. The Paddington Prophet is the first book-length study which probes deep under the skin of Brothers's apparently idiosyncratic writings and religious 'enthusiasm'. Close textual analysis of Brothers's writings shows the extent to which his Biblical, 'prophetic imagination' arose out of the same theological, political and cultural context that spurred 'radicals' like Tom Paine whilst inspiring poets and artists such as William Blake. Tracing the contours of his visionary experiences, this book exposes the intensity and vibrancy of Brothers's faith, the power of his prophetic imagination and the internal logic of his theology. ;
While the relationship between Second Temple Jewish exegesis and early Christian exegesis as demonstrated in the New Testament is universally recognized, the reasons for their similarities and differences are often elusive. Donald H. Juel in Messianic Exegesis seeks to unknot this tangled web of interpretation. Juel’s thesis is simple: Christianity’s origins are rooted in the earliest Christian interpretations of Israel’s Scriptures. The difficulty resides in showing how these distinctive interpretations arose. Juel argues that the events of Jesus’ life form the fulcrum for the Christian re-reading of Jewish Scripture. In particular, Juel shows how Christian belief in a crucified and risen Messiah guided both the selection and appropriation of Old Testament texts—texts like 2 Samuel 7, Daniel 7, and Psalms 2 and 110. With the confession "Jesus is the Messiah" as the central claim of Christianity, Juel is able to show the fluidity of contemporary Jewish exegesis while also making the anomalous uses of Scripture within the early Christian community understandable. Christians proclaimed Jesus as Messiah throughout their exegesis and thereby defined their emerging community through the way they read Scripture.
The Ludlum Prediction It’s the year 2018. North Platte, Lincoln County is a place noted for declining employment prospects at the once famous railroad depot ... and little else. For Ed Ludlum, he could reside anywhere and still earn a good living as a ‘Data Miner’ ... someone who cannot only tell you what you’ll shop for next Wednesday at three o’clock, but which shop you’ll use ... and what shelf you’ll find it on. However, a powerful, wealthy and well connected US based secretive religious sect, the Messianic Tribes of Yashoa, known by many simply as the MTY, wish to avail themselves of Ed Ludlum’s unique services ... and they are willing to pay well for it. They want to extract a date and a place from hundreds of terabytes of data, collected over many years from the darkest depths of some ancient sciences and leftover mysterious hieroglyphs, abandoned by long lost civilisations. But what is all this high tech computer based research for? The work of Ed Ludlum soon comes to the attention of some of the most powerful Intelligence Agencies in the world, such as the CIA, the British SIS and the much feared Israeli Mossad, becoming known as ‘The Ludlum Prediction’ ... a prophesy that if fulfilled, could possibly change the world as we know it ... forever! Sitting on the sidelines, surrounded by Vatican based Cardinals whose common survival plan is based on ignorance and self serving edicts, is one man with the power and determination to thwart the best laid plans of highly professional State Intelligence Agents. He knows that if ‘The Ludlum Prediction’ is in any way linked to the expected appearance of a new prophet, or religious deity, then the Catholic Church could be led to the edge of a credibility precipice. Has Ed Ludlum got it right? With the surprise discovery of 3000 year old tablets linking two great civilisations and key religious beliefs together ... half a world apart ... he thinks he has. However, the very best of carefully executed plans can fail, as they did, so horrifically in the chilling final hours of what was to be the end game adventure, played out on a remote Tibetan plateau ... only miles from the militarily sensitive Chinese border. Will this bring an end to all the speculation and questions of legitimacy surrounding ‘The Ludlum Prediction’, or trigger a new series of events that could inevitably lead to the beginning of a new world crisis? Perhaps there is something even more sinister afoot, urging Ludlum down a path ... to a place ... from which there will be no possible return! Could The Ludlum Prediction in fact be reality? Is it about to happen ... or, more concerning ... could it have happened already? You decide..!
At the center of “Hungry Generations” is the great European piano virtuoso Alexander Petrov, one of the émigré geniuses who lived in the incredible community of gifted Europeans in Los Angeles during the Second World War. Fleeing from Nazi Germany, the legendary classical pianist – like Schoenberg, Stravinsky, the Werfels, and the Manns – settled in L.A. and attempted to raise a family there on the edge of the Pacific. In September of 1972, Jack Weinstein – a young composer and a distant relation of Petrov – is newly arrived in L.A., living near Venice beach and seeking a job in the movie studios. Jack develops a friendship with the émigré virtuoso, who is nearing seventy and struggling to maintain his psychic and physical health in the midst of intense conflicts with his wife and his adult children. The renowned pianist tells the young man stories of his life from the thirties to the present, and soon Jack is absorbed into the family life of the Petrovs. Jack becomes a catalyst for confrontations among the Petrovs, as he intrudes on the family’s delicate balances. He falls in love with the pianist’s daughter, Sarah, who becomes Jack’s troubled muse, and in one climax, the father erupts in jealousy and desperation, assaulting his daughter’s lover. The son Joseph Petrov is a gifted, cynical, intense pianist himself, who also befriends Jack; resentments – new and old – build between son and father, and these too erupt in destruction and self-destructiveness. Also, Joseph is gay, and after a surreal New Year’s Eve party at the Polo Lounge, he makes a pass at drunk, dismayed Jack. Then there is Petrov’s wife, Helen, and her confession to Jack is one of the final assaults on the young composer. The remarkable expatriates living in Los Angeles during World War II figure both in Petrov’s stories and in Jack’s inner struggle to resurrect himself in the face of his experience of the Petrovs, of music, of sex, of the movie studios, of L.A. itself. During the year 1972-73, Jack composes a piano sonata infused with his love of Petrov’s famed recording of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata as well as the music of Stravinsky and Schoenberg – those composers even begin to enter Jack’s dreams, simultaneously blessing and critiquing him as he works in his Venice apartment. Hungry Generations paints a vivid portrait of the conflicts and struggles which erupt in L.A.’s singular expatriate community. At the center of the novel is finally the confrontation between émigré parents who survived the Holocaust at the peculiar remove of Los Angeles and their grown children. Each “hungry generations” reveals its yearning for meaning, love, and transcendence.
Artist, poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, icon – there has never been a figure like Leonard Cohen. He was a truly international sensation, entertaining and inspiring the world with his art. From his groundbreaking and bestselling novels, Beautiful Losers and The Favourite Game, to timeless songs such as “Suzanne” and “Hallelujah,” Cohen is one of the world’s most cherished artists. His death in 2016 was felt around the world by the legion of fans and fellow artists who would miss his warmth, humor, intellect, and piercing insights. Leonard Cohen, The Untold Stories follows the great man as he travels the globe developing his style and enigmatic character. This is the story of his early years, from boyhood in Montreal, university, and his growing career in to the 60s that took him to the world’s stage. It probes his public and private life, through the words of those who knew him best: his family and friends, colleagues and contemporaries, rivals, business partners, and his many lovers. From Montreal to Greece, London to Paris and New York, Cohen touched lives everywhere. It's also a snapshot of a golden era – the times that helped foster his talents and successes. In this revealing and entertaining first of three planned volumes, bestselling author and biographer Michael Posner draws on dozens of interviews to present a uniquely true and compelling portrait of Cohen – as if we’re right there beside him, overhearing a private conversation in a New York café.
Londinyia: a Capital in Crisis. Gripped by a species of perversion without parallel in the long, sordid annals of the Alpha Male. As the Decency Tax extends across all districts and zones, the Emancipation Party declares war on the deviant insurgency. Amid the vast armoury of weapons employed, the Proctallator, irSpex and the notorious Schnuffler, stand primed to unleash an avalanche of moral fury. Meanwhile, the Spectre of Deceit looms over the Party HQ, the Pyramex, rocked by dysfunctional mandroids, a Steering Committee mired in scandal and mutiny among the D-Squad ranks. Only Corporal Lillian Scarpello and her loyal beta-adjutant, Sir Lucien Picene, it seems, stand between Londinyia – and the Abyss. The explanation: The Second Penis is a satire on the City of London and its assumptions about behaviour, and supposed patterns of normality, taken to an absurd level. The author: (location unknown) lives in a shed in Myrddin’s Precinct where he communes with drunken spirits and entities, and launches vitriolic assaults against the Satanic Inertias of the Capital, soon to be revisited in The Gnat. A series of endless night-shifts in the Ancient City of London drives him to the terrifying conclusion that its entire existence is a Hoax – a bankrupt Government, media and economy imprisoned in a Tower of Babble. But can a man certified as insane – twice – complete his mission to rescue the intellectual heritage of his Nation? Who knows. For now, he sleeps amid the empty quarts and flasks, waiting to spring forth from his chrysalis...
Anderson's work stands alone by standards of subject, research, composition, and overall scholarship. The revised version maintains the high level of scholarship his work has consistently demonstrated. —David L. Bigler LeRoy Anderson in 1981 first published, under the title For Christ Will Come Tomorrow, his definitive study of a charismatic, millenarian prophet and the Church of Jesus Christ of the Most High. He told there of a Mormon posse's 1862 attack on the Morrisite compound, killing Joseph Morris, and of the continuing Morrisite movement, which survived into the mid-twentieth century. In this newly revised edition, Anderson revisits his subject by examining more recently discovered documents, other scholars' continuing work on Morris's sect and related subjects, and a 1980s messianic sect that claimed a direct connection to the Morrisites. New documentary sources include a holograph "History of George Morris," written by Joseph Morrisýs brother, which Anderson quotes at length. What was once a little-studied subject has since received attention from a number of scholars. Anderson references such current work on Mormon schismatic movements and broader subjects, much of which drew on his work. Perhaps the book's most interesting and unintended influence was on that obscure 1980s messianic sect, in Montana, which learned of Morris through Joseph Morris and the Saga of the Morrisites.
This in-depth analysis discloses the sources, contents, and implications of post-Soviet Russian messianism. Since its rediscovery 150 years ago, writers ranging from Western critics of Moscow’s foreign policy to ardent Russian imperialists have used the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome as ‘evidence’ of Russia’s particularism and expansionism. But for the original author of the formula of the Third Rome, the Orthodox monk Filofei of Pskov, it was a religious concept he referred to when criticizing what he saw as the apostasy of his time. This book is the first to look beyond this dichotomy. Drawing on theories of political myth and concepts of nationalism, Østbø develops a novel analytical perspective. Rather than dismissing political uses of the religious, medieval idea as ‘wrong’, the author analyzes the modern content and ideological function of the myth of the Third Rome. Through case studies of four prominent nationalist intellectuals, Vadim Tsymburskii, Aleksandr Dugin, Nataliia Narochnitskaia and Egor Kholmogorov, the author shows how this messianic myth is used to ‘reinvent’ Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. These writers use their own constructed image of the Russian nation to demonstrate what Russia ‘should be’ and its allegedly rightful place in the world. Existing in radically diverging versions, the myth of the Third Rome routinely conveys rabid anti-Westernism. At ‘best’, it is employed to forge a self-image of the Russians as an essentially isolationist civilization. At worst, it is used to ‘explain’ how the Russians are divinely elected to be the rulers of a world empire.
The first part of the book explains the antecedent probability both of revelation and of God’s institution of a church. It is ecclesiology in the mode of fundamental theology. The second part rounds up what Scripture and Tradition teach about the Church under the heads of the People of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Bride of Christ, and the Body of Christ. The chapters present this thematic material under each head as a unified whole, across the Testaments, with each chapter keyed to one of the “marks” of the Church: the catholicity of the people of God, the apostolicity of the ministers of the messianic temple, the holiness of the Bride of Christ, and the unity of the Body of Christ. This already organizes things in a proto-systematic frame. The third part of the book gives systematic exploration, in reverse order, to the unity of the Church, with attention to non-Catholic ecclesial communities and churches, to the holiness of the Church, objective and subjective, to the apostolicity of the Church and her mediation of revealed truth and grace, and to the catholicity of the Church, with attention to non-Christian religions. The center of the book, on the definition of the Church as the sacrament of communion, renders recent French Dominican ecclesiology in a form more accessible to undergraduates and seminarians, rooting it in the New Testament teachings on communion and mysterion. The book concludes with a strenuous argument for the necessity of the Church and her mission of evangelization. Thus, the trajectory of the book is from the naturally knowable antecedent probability of the Church to its revealed necessity.
My Country, Africa chronicles, in her own eloquent words, the extraordinary life of Andree Blouin, a pivotal figure in Africa’s struggles for independence, who became chief of protocol to Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. In an absorbing and intensely personal account, Andrée traces her evolution from rebellious schoolgirl to "black pasionaria.” Possibly the only woman to emerge a leader of the liberation movements of the 1950s and 1960s, she was at times branded a courtesan and a witch. Slander, expulsion, even attempts against her life did not deter her while she was embroiled in the events that led to the assassination of Lumumba. She won world acclaim as the Madame de Stael of the African Independence Movement as she fought to teach her humiliated and resigned countrywomen a new sense of pride and dignity.
“I was unable to put down [this book]; one that will be used by those interested in the field for a long time to come.”– Dr. Oliver Botar, Hungarian Cultural Studies Insightful essays, monographic texts, and rarely-seen images trace from birth to maturation several generations of Hungarian Modernism, from the avant-garde to neo-avant-garde. Éva Forgács corrects long-standing misconceptions about Hungarian art while examining the work and social milieu of dozens of important Hungarian artists. The book also paints a fascinating image of twentieth-century Budapest as a microcosm of the social and political turmoil raging across Europe up to and beyond the collapse of the Soviet Era.
