OV Author’s Biblical Book

We were so pleased to hear from OV, Dr Anthony Swindell (Cr 59-69), who has shared the news of his recently published book: Going to Extremes in Biblical Rewritings.

Anthony explains, “My book is about radical retellings of biblical tropes and is part of a wave of new studies which examine the reception of biblical themes and characters in literature, art and music, on the basis that meaning is cumulative. I wrote it in order to help both scholars and general readers navigate this territory. It is an alternative to the old quest of the so-called “original meaning” of a piece of writing and shows how the literary rewriting of biblical material can cover a broad spectrum from works which are pro-theological to those which are not. Most importantly it looks at the genres of prequel, sequel and what you might call “sideways expansion” to discover how they work in writers ranging from Dante to Margaret Atwood.”

Going to Extremes in Biblical Rewritings is published by De Gruyter in Berlin. If you’d like more information about Anthony’s book, please contact us via alumni@ksw.org.uk