Bøger om Underground

"i din brors øje" er en udviklingsroman med den klassiske helvedesfart, som også både Faust og Dante må igennem – i øvrigt uden sammenligning ellers. Romanens hovedperson, Åge, er en ikke-helt – lektor på et gymnasium i provinsen. Via en krise i sit ægteskab går det langsomt op for ham, at samfundet er ved at ændre sig ganske radikalt. Den nye gymnasiereform er det endelige farvel til det humanistiske dannelses-ideal, som han ellers mente var indiskutabelt. Spektakulære hændelser bringer ham i kontakt med nogle barndomsvenner, som er involveret i den københavnske subkultur. De siger, at de med deres kroppe vil opløse fascismen og volden. Kan det virkelig passe, at gestaltning af erotiske tableauer kan være et sorgarbejde? Åge er forvirret og kommer til med sin ambivalens at foranstalte en katastrofe. Men katastrofen bevirker en sindelagsændring i Åge rettet mod tilgivelse og medfølelse … noget radikalt nyt for den forargede pedel!

’Robert Crumb: I Can’t Do Pretty’ er en bog om en ganske unik kunstner – tegneserieskaberen og undergrundsikonet Robert Crumb – der har brugt det meste af sit liv på at konfrontere de dæmoner og det begær, der gemmer sig inde i ham selv og i samfundet i det hele taget.Bogen, der er på engelsk, undersøger, hvad der gør Crumb til Crumb, og hvorfor han, mere end 50 år efter, at hans første tegneserier blev trykt, stadig er så idiosynkratisk og vigtig en kunstner.’Robert Crumb: I Can’t Do Pretty’ er resultatet af Christian Monggaards livslange fascination af Crumbs værk, og bogen tager udgangspunkt i to interview med Crumb, som forfatteren i 2019 lavede på litteraturfestivalen Louisiana Literature, der hvert år afholdes på det smukke kunstmuseum, Louisiana.

The Nickel Boys is Colson Whitehead's follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning bestseller The Underground Railroad, in which he dramatizes another strand of United States history, this time through the story of two boys sentenced to a stretch in a hellish reform school in Jim-Crow-era Florida. Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clearsighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'. In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors. The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions. Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.