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Literature biography, Biography
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Drawing on new archival material, original research, and interviews, this spellbinding book is the first major biography of James Baldwin…
in three decades, revealing how profoundly his personal relationships shaped his life and work. Baldwin: A Love Story , the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer's personal relationships shaped his life and work. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining intimate and artistic relationships: with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin's last great love is explored in these pages for the first time. Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships—geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic— and alchemized them into novels, essays, and plays that speak truth to power and had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history. Richly immersive, Baldwin: A Love Story follows the writer's creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence
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Literature biography
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A New York Times Bestseller “Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms…
with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. ... Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it’s moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief.” — Los Angeles Times “A rich account of marriage and mourning.” — Washington Post A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk. After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf. Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death. A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life
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Women biography, Literature biography, Journals and memoirs, Canadian authors (Non-fiction)
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How does one of the greatest storytellers of our time write her own life? The long-awaited memoir from one of…
our most lauded and influential cultural figures."Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes. Though everything written must have passed through their minds, or mind, they are not the same."Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents—entomologist father, dietician mother—Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated (on her eighth birthday: "It sounds forlorn. It was forlorn. It gets more forlorn."), but also thrilling and beautiful.From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel year that spawned Cat’s Eye to the Orwellian 1980s of East Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings, her magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel.As we travel with her along the course of her life, more and more is revealed about her writing, the connections between real life and art—and the workings of one of our greatest imaginations.
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Journals and memoirs, Literature biography, Women biography
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How does the greatest writer of our time tell her own story? Raised by scientifically minded parents, Margaret Atwood spent…
most of each year in the wild forests of northern Quebec, where her entomologist father and independent, resourceful mother created an unfettered and nomadic childhood, sometimes isolated but also thrilling and beautiful. From this unconventional start, Margaret unfolds the story of her life, linking key moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel school year that would inspire Cat’s Eye to the unease of 1980s Berlin, where she began The Handmaid’s Tale . In pages alive with the natural world, reading and books, major political turning points, and her lifelong love for the charismatic writer Graeme Gibson, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood stars, and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel. As she explores her past, Margaret reveals more and more about her writing, the connections between real life and art—and the workings of one of our very greatest imaginations
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Literature biography, European history, Criticism
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Poor boy. Spy. Transgressor. Genius. In repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened into dull conventionality; foreigners are suspect; popular entertainment…
largely consists of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings. Into this crude world of government censorship and religious authoritarianism comes an ambitious cobbler’s son from Canterbury with a daring desire to be known—and an uncanny ear for Latin poetry. A torment for most schoolboys, yet for a few, like Christopher Marlowe, a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous skepticism. What Marlowe seizes in his rare opportunity for a classical education, and what he does with it, brings about a spectacular explosion of English literature, language, and culture. His astonishing literary success will, in turn, nourish the talent of a collaborator and rival, William Shakespeare. Dark Renaissance illuminates both Marlowe’s times and the origins and significance of his work—from his erotic translations of Ovid to his portrayal of unfettered ambition in a triumphant Tamburlaine to Doctor Faustus, his unforgettable masterpiece about making a pact with the devil in exchange for knowledge. Introducing us to Marlowe’s transgressive genius in the form of a thrilling page-turner, Stephen Greenblatt brings a penetrating understanding of the literary work to reveal the inner world of the author, bringing to life a homosexual atheist who was tormented by his own compromises, who refused to toe the party line, and who was murdered just when he had found love. Meanwhile, he explores how the people Marlowe knew, and the transformations they wrought, gave birth to the economic, scientific, and cultural power of the modern world including Faustian bargains with which we reckon still.
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Literature biography, Journals and memoirs, Women biography
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Finalist for the Kirkus Prize A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small…
Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati&’s life both as a woman and a writer.Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy&’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as &“my shelter and my storm.&” &“Heart-smashed&” by her mother Mary&’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and &“more than a little ashamed&” by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, &“not because I didn&’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.&” And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author&’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today. With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.
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Fine arts biography, Biography, Literature biography
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&“A definitive and ideal biography—pound for pound, one of the sleekest and most judicious I&’ve ever read.&” —Dwight Garner, The…
New York Times A critical darling, Crumb is the first biography of Robert Crumb—one of the most profound and influential artists of the 20th century—whose frank, and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists, from Art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel.Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, delivers a &“gripping and essential account&” (The Boston Globe) of how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact. Braiding biography with &“cultural history and criticism...that honors the complexity of [its] subject, even, perhaps particularly, when it gets ugly&” (Los Angeles Times), Crumb is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of post-war America. Including forty-five stunning black-and-white images throughout and a sixteen-page color insert featuring images both iconic and obscure, Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumb&’s highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th-century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumb&’s Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Robert Crumb blazed through it all. Written with Crumb&’s cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb&’s iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his adaptation of The Book of Genesis and &“floats Crumb on the rapids of his times&” (Harper&’s Magazine), capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist.
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Historical biography, Literature biography, History
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The #1 New York Times Bestseller!One of Barack Obama's Summer Reading List Picks&“Comprehensive, enthralling . . . Mark Twain flows…
like the Mississippi River, its prose propelled by Mark Twain&’s own exuberance.&” —The Boston Globe&“Chernow writes with such ease and clarity . . . For all its length and detail, [Mark Twain] is deeply absorbing throughout.&” — The Washington PostPulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark TwainBefore he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America&’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn&’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize.In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation&’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play.Drawing on Twain&’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country&’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain&’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer&’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.