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The former girlfriend of rap star Nas and mother of his daughter discusses their relationship, her part in his famous feud with rival rapper Jay-Z, and her struggle to maintain independence and find love as a single mother in the projects.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER (The Globe and Mail) A Globe and Mail Best Book [2011] A Quill & Quire Book of the Year [2011] A National Post Best Book [2011] A BBC Radio Book of the Week [October 2011] One of the CBC’s 15 Memoirs by Canadian Women Worth Reading [2015] Six-year-old Carmen Aguirre fled to Canada with her family following General Augusto Pinochet's violent 1973 coup in Chile. Five years later, when her mother and stepfather returned to South America as Chilean resistance members, Carmen and her sister went with them, quickly assuming double lives of their own. At 18, Carmen became a militant herself, plunging further into a world of terror, paranoia and euphoria. Something Fierce takes the reader inside war-ridden Peru, dictator-ruled Bolivia, post-Malvinas Argentina and Pinochet's Chile in the eventful decade between 1979 and 1989. Dramatic, suspenseful and darkly comic, it is a rare first-hand account of revolutionary life and a passionate argument against forgetting.

In a lively, anecdotal manner, the authors show how to balance old-world values with contemporary North America, whether the issue is juggling career and family demands, turning the traditional marriage into a partnership, awakening and accepting one’s own sexuality, seeking help with emotional problems outside the family, or learning to stand up for one’s feelings and rights. Filled with real-life success stories and wise, compassionate advice, The Maria Paradox details how any Latina can enjoy the best of both worlds and become her own person at last.

A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties. In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it's that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope--haunted houses, erotica, bildungsroman--in which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations about the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships. Machado's dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, Star Trek and Disney villains, fairy tales, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.

“Humanity, take a good look at yourself. Inside, you’ve got heaven and earth, and all of creation. You’re a world – everything is hidden in you.” –Hildegard of Bingen She was a Benedictine abbess, artist, composer, dietician, naturalist, poet, travelling preacher, mystic, and political consultant. She was a self-doubter with acute certainty in a merciful and mysterious God; a gifted healer who suffered from illness her whole life. Meet the incomparable Hildegard of Bingen. Nourishing, challenging, and idea-bursting, her writings will stir and awaken your soul. This essential reader captures the vibrant spirit and intelligence of Hildegard with selections from her songs, theological texts, liturgical music, and letters. Combined with an introduction to Hildegard’s life and era, a map of Hildegard’s Germany, chronology, and a thorough bibliography/discography, Hildegard of Bingen provides the ideal introduction to the thought of this fascinating medieval mystic.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FICTION PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2018 'Brilliantly inventive and blazingly smart' Garth Greenwell 'Impossible, imperfect, unforgettable' Roxane Gay 'A wild thing ... covered in sequins and scales, blazing with the influence of fabulists from Angela Carter to Kelly Link and Helen Oyeyemi' New York Times In her provocative debut, Carmen Maria Machado demolishes the borders between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. Startling narratives map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited on their bodies, both in myth and in practice. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the mysterious green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague spreads across the earth. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery about a store's dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted house guest. Bodies become inconsequential, humans become monstrous, and anger becomes erotic. A dark, shimmering slice into womanhood, Her Body and Other Parties is wicked and exquisite.

This volume of the Collected Writings of Modern Western Scholars on Japan brings together the work of Carmen Blacker, who wrote extensively on religion, myth and folklore.

Carmen Tafolla’s New and Selected Poems continues TCU Press’s series of collections by the Poets Laureate of Texas. Named the first-ever Poet Laureate of San Antonio in 2012, Tafolla was named Poet Laureate of Texas in 2015. This collection displays her mastery of the art of bilingual code switching, mining the riches of two languages—Spanish and English—to produce works that celebrate the beauty and vigor of a Hispanic heritage that has enriched American culture for generations. Called “a world-class writer” by Alex Haley and a “pioneer of Chicana literature” by Ana Castillo, in 1999 Tafolla was presented with the Art of Peace Award for writings that contribute to “peace, justice, and human understanding.” Her works “thematically cross cultures and move into questions of human survival on this earth”—Dr. Wolfgang Karrer.