{"product_id":"writing-for-dark-times-hadji-bakara-9780226847825","title":"Writing for Dark Times: A Literary History of Human Rights","description":"\u003cb\u003eA history of human rights that places writers and their ideas at its center.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e At Amnesty International's headquarters in London hangs a large copy of Seamus Heaney's \"From the Republic of Conscience,\" a poem that touches on neither imprisonment nor torture but instead suggests that acts of literary creation are themselves a form of human rights work, important for bringing new things into the world rather than removing evil from it. Why does a poem about the power of creation stand at the center of an organization known for publicizing atrocity? What can it tell us about human rights? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Hadji Bakara's \u003ci\u003eWriting for Dark Times\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of the writer's distinct place in the history of human rights. It argues that the relationship between the creative work of writing and the pursuit of universal rights is an important but misunderstood dimension of both literary and human rights history over the past century. Following a diverse cast of characters from the First World War through the end of the Cold War, including Bertolt Brecht, H.G. Wells, Archibald MacLeish, Albert Camus, Czeslaw Milosz, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'O, Muriel Rukeyser, Nadine Gordimer, and J.M. Coetzee, Bakara shows how many writers took up questions about human rights, from refugees in the early century to a poet-statesman who helped draft the United Nations declarations of human rights to imprisoned writers and writer-activists who became integral parts of the global human rights movement. But the book also shows that these writers' efforts to theorize and support human rights were bound up with changing ideas about the place of their own work in the world--the work of writing. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e For those who study human rights, \u003ci\u003eWriting for Dark Times\u003c\/i\u003e offers both an archive and a method for better understanding the influence of writers on the historical development of the concept. For those in literary studies, the book provides a new account of how human rights shaped the politics of twentieth-century literature. Few books have made as vivid a case for literature's relevance to our most exalted ideals and institutions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Hadji Bakara\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0226847829\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226847825\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/15\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Hadji Bakara","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48066684813567,"sku":"9780226847825","price":32.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_5a04bd00-ada2-4991-b885-be2739601b66.jpg?v=1768679894","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/writing-for-dark-times-hadji-bakara-9780226847825","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}