Dreams

By Olive Schreiner

Book Overview

Dreamsis a work that defies conventional categorization; however, one might best capture its unique formal structure by construing it as a series of prose poems or narrative paintings, a starkly modern text inflected by the far older tradition of the medieval dream-vision poem. Though a work of prophecy, it proceeds with a light touch. The sequence of eleven dreams, loosely interlinked, leaves us to wrestle with our doubts; it takes up thorny questions that challenge a culture right where it may tend to be its proudest. The landscape of the work shifts as it moves among the African savannah, congested late-industrial London, and the olive tree-studded hillsides of Italy. The intersectionality of Schreiner's writing--its concern with gender, sexual orientation, class, nation, and race--makes her a particularly salient voice for today's students. The appendices to this edition provide an accessible representation of Schreiner's key contexts, South African and British as well as American. The introduction features a biographical overview of a writer wrestling with questions of social justice pertinent to her own era yet relevant to our contemporary moment.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1554815649
• ISBN13: 9781554815647
• Release Date: October 2020
• Publisher: Broadview Press Inc
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Most beloved book; lifechanging.

I found this book as a young child in my grandparents' library. It is composed of poetic, powerfully symbolic short stories that grapple with basic issues: what is truth, love, freedom, justice, heaven and hell? What enobles or destroys relationships? I read and reread them then. And I still do. The language is of an older time, though easily understood and lovely. Glad to see this finally available in print. Highly recommended.

"Dreams" by Olive Schreiner

I was thrilled to find this book has been reprinted and is available in a new copy. It is also great to find the company that publishes these reprints -- and keeps this book, and others, alive.