{"product_id":"last-radiance-radical-lives-bright-deaths-9783988321763","title":"Last Radiance: Radical Lives, Bright Deaths","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cstrong\u003eA bracing and true book that teaches us new ways to be alive\u003c\/strong\u003e.\" Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize winning author, \u003cem\u003eThe End of the Myth\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCancer looms over this memoir like a modern god of petrochemical reckoning, but its brutality is softened-again and again-by the luminosity of love and artistic creation. After the protagonist's violent and seductive father dies a harrowing cancer death, she leaves home determined to become an artist. Her path takes her through the reckless, libertine world of the New York avant-garde and into the deeply committed realm of the ecofeminist pacifist left. There, she bears witness to the bright deaths of Julian Beck and Barbara Deming, and finds her life partner: the brilliant actor-producer George Bartenieff.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTogether, they create boundary-pushing theatre that confronts the biggest issues of our time-war, climate change, collective historical trauma-while unearthing George's past as a hidden child in Nazi Germany. Even as they battle the ferocity of cancer, they continue to make vital, final works of transformation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis memoir traces lives lived at full intensity: radical love, fearless art, deep community, and the painful beauty of last things. It invites readers into the underworld of grief and dying, offering lessons in presence, remembrance, and the urgent need to confront a failing medical system with courage and care.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMalpede, Karen:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Karen Malpede is the author\/director of twenty-two plays produced in the United States and Europe. Her plays have been translated into Albanian, Arabic, French and German. She co-founded New Cycle Theater in 1978 and co-founded Theater Three Collaborative in 1995 with George Bartenieff and Lee Nagrin. Play anthologies: 4 by Malpede plus an Intervention, Plays in Time: The Beekeeper's Daughter, Prophecy, Another Life, Extreme Whether, A Monster Has Stolen the Sun and Other Plays. Editor\/contributor: Acts of War: Iraq and Afghanistan in Seven Plays, Women in Theater: Compassion and Hope, Three Works by the Open Theater, People's Theater in Amerika. Her short fiction, nonfiction and drama is published in many periodicals, including: The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, Theatre Quarterly, American Theater, Theater Topics, Confrontations, Torture Magazine, The Typescript, Kairos, Courtship of Winds, and The New York Times. OBIE award I Will Bear Witness. McKnight National Playwrights fellow. CAPS, New York State, playwriting fellowship. She has taught theater, playwriting, ecofeminism, and environmental justice at Smith College, New York University, and John Jay College-CUNY. MFA Columbia University. Visit: www.theaterthreecollaborative.org.","brand":"Vine Leaves Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51676132933906,"sku":"9783988321763","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_acb7f0f8-e0b3-4356-b9c8-e79c46058501.jpg?v=1761045096","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/last-radiance-radical-lives-bright-deaths-9783988321763","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}