'The Hotel Swiss-Touring is the refuge for a group of cosmopolitan characters who come together in Switzerland after the Second World War. Their object is to conceal themselves from money-hungry governments and hostile master races. But their common purpose doesn't prevent a microcosm of jealousies, spitefulness, vindictiveness and mistrust from developing among the small group, all under the relentless eye of Madame Bonnard. ' (Publication summary)
'The article offers an overview of Stead’s response to the bourgeois social order, with special emphasis on her satiric commentary after the Second World War. In particular, Stead’s interest in covert statement and the role of Lenin’s seminal theses on the rentier class and imperialism are traced in The Little Hotel to reveal Stead’s unrelenting espousal of communism and her apparent certainty that the capitalist order was facing imminent overthrow.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Christina Stead : A Biography
Port Melbourne
:
Heinemann
,
1993
Z202981
1993
single work
biography
'Like the author herself, Christina Stead’s novels were challenging and engrossing. Raised by a narcissistic father, Stead left for London at the age of twenty-six and soon met William Blake, a writer, broker, and Marxist political economist who became her life partner. His personal ambitions and their politics resulted in a nomadic existence, with Stead sidestepping the traditional feminine role in exchange for a career. She struggled to find an audience for her work, however, only succeeding late in life with the reissue of The Man Who Loved Children. Hazel Rowley’s richly detailed and even-handed biography spans Stead’s life, expertly blending her encoded personal papers with interviews of her closest confidants. Masterfully written and researched, Christina Stead is a fascinating chronicle of one of the twentieth century’s greatest novelists.'
Source: Publisher's blurb (Open Road ed.)
Christina Stead
London
:
Macmillan
,
1987
Z362294
1987
single work
criticism
