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Ida y vuelta. La vida de Jorge Semprún
Par Soledad Maura. 2016
Nueva edición de la biografía definitiva de Jorge Semprún, un personaje de leyenda que atravesó el siglo XX español y…
europeo en primera línea, revisada y con un nuevo prólogo de Paul Preston. La vida de Jorge Semprún es prácticamente la historia de Europa en el siglo XX, y quizá sea el español que más se acerque a «los desarraigados viajeros del siglo», como Tony Judt describió a los intelectuales. Sin duda, junto a Picasso y García Lorca, es el español del siglo XX con mayor proyección y relevancia internacional. En esta absorbente biografía Soledad Fox sigue la increíble trayectoria de Semprún, desde su nacimiento en 1923, en una familia de la alta burguesía madrileña; el trauma de la guerra civil y el exilio; el paso por el maquis y la deportación a Buchenwald; la militancia comunista; su reinvención como escritor y guionista tras la tumultuosa salida del PCE; y su paso por el Ministerio de Cultura español en el gobierno de Felipe González. Fox ha invertido cinco años y una impecable labor de investigación en archivos de Francia y España y más de cincuenta entrevistas para conseguir la excelente biografía que un personaje como Semprún merece. La crítica ha dicho: «Jorge Semprún fue uno de estos héores discretos gracias a los cuales el mundo en que vivimos no está peor de lo que está y queda siempre margen para la esperanza.» Mario Vargas Llosa «Un testigo excepcional del siglo XX.»César Antonio MolinaBeirut 2020: The Collapse of a Civilization, a Journal
Par Charif Majdalani. 2020
'The author's home town is falling apart. Lebanon's capital [...] has morphed into a symbol of devastation and hatred and…
madness. Majdalani is a survivor who still finds in himself the elegance to smile and hope' Amin Maalouf, Prix Goncourt winner'It is rare to capture the moment when it first occurs, in real time, with these seemingly humble details that describe the instant in all its depth' Alexandra Schwartzbrod, Libération'A short narrative that strikes straight at the heart' Gaëtane Morin, Le ParisienWhen Charif Majdalani begins to walk the streets of his city, and to write down what he sees, the first hints of unrest within a vibrant culture creep to the fore. Majdalani's reportage through the months of 2020 bears witness to the ways in which an ancient civilization slowly, then rapidly, descends into the abyss: corruption and vice infect the corridors of power; currency plummets into freefall, rats scurry between piles of rotting rubbish that grow higher along the pavements. Born from the rancour of existential pestilence, violence erupts and Beirut's citizens find themselves in high-voltage stand-offs with law enforcement.Then, the unexpected, Beirut collapses under the explosive force of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. The blast kills hundreds and injures thousands. But through the rubble and the sirens, a people finds its strength to survive and its heart to unite. The city becomes the metaphor for each of our cultural capitals throughout the world.Capote: A Biography (Books Into Film Ser.)
Par Gerald Clarke. 2013
The national bestselling biography and the basis for the film Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in an Academy Award–winning turn.…
One of the strongest fiction writers of his generation, Truman Capote became a literary star while still in his teens. His most phenomenal successes include Breakfast at Tiffany&’s, In Cold Blood, and Other Voices, Other Rooms. Even while his literary achievements were setting the standards that other fiction and nonfiction writers would follow for generations, Capote descended into a spiral of self-destruction and despair. This biography by Gerald Clarke was first published in 1988—just four years after Capote&’s death. In it, Clarke paints a vivid behind-the-scenes picture of the author&’s life—based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the man himself and the people close to him. From the glittering heights of notoriety and parties with the rich and famous to his later struggles with addiction, Capote emerges as a richly multidimensional person—both brilliant and flawed. &“A book of extraordinary substance, a study rich in intelligence and compassion . . . To read Capote is to have the sense that someone has put together all the important pieces of this consummate artist&’s life, has given everything its due emphasis, and comprehended its ultimate meaning.&” —Bruce Bawer, The Wall Street Journal &“Mesmerising . . . [Capote] reads as if it had been written alongside his life, rather than after it.&” —Molly Haskell, The New York Times Book ReviewThe Burgess Shale: The Canadian Writing Landscape of the 1960s (The CLC Kreisel Lecture Series)
Par Margaret Atwood. 2017
“Atwood provides a window into her own early writing days . . . a treasure for readers interested in Canadian literature because…
this is where it all began.” —Prairie Fire Review of Books“The outburst of cultural energy that took place in the 1960s was in part a product of the two decades that came before. It’s always difficult for young people to see their own time in perspective: when you’re in your teens, a decade earlier feels like ancient history and the present moment seems normal: what exists now is surely what has always existed.”In this short work, Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and “Canada’s most famous writer” (The New Yorker), compares the Canadian literary landscape of the 1960s to the Burgess Shale, a geological formation that contains the fossils of many strange prehistoric life forms. The Burgess Shale is not entirely about writing itself, however: Atwood also provides some insight into the meager writing infrastructure of that time, taking a lighthearted look at the early days of the institutions we take for granted today—from writers’ organizations, prizes, and grant programs to book tours and festivals.“Allows the reader a brief glimpse into the mind of a great writer and her perspective and experience living through what would now seem to many the Stone Age of the Canadian writing scene . . . invaluable and very readable.” —Canadian LiteratureA Death in Malta: An Assassination and a Family's Quest for Justice
Par Paul Caruana Galizia. 2023
A journalist&’s spellbinding account of the shocking murder of his muckraking mother and a quest for justice that has reverberated…
far beyond their tiny homelandAn archipelago off the southern coast of Italy, Malta is a picturesque gem eroded by a climate of corruption, polarization, inequality, and a virtual absence of civic spirit. In this unpromising soil, a fearless journalist took root. Daphne Caruana Galizia fashioned herself into the country&’s lonely voice of conscience, her muckraking and editorializing sending shock waves that threatened to topple those in power and made her at once the island&’s best-known figure and its most reviled. In 2017, a campaign of intimidation against her culminated in a car bombing that took her life. Daphne was also he devoted and inspiring mother to three sons, who with their father have carried on the quest for justice and transparency after her death. Spellbindingly narrated by the youngest of them, the award-winning journalist Paul Caruana Galizia, A Death in Malta is at once a study in heroism and the powerful story of a family&’s crusade for accountability in a society built on lies, with reverberations far beyond their homeland.The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture
Par Courtney Thorsson. 2023
One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at…
June Jordan’s Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves “The Sisterhood,” the group—which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others—would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation.The Sisterhood tells the story of how this remarkable community transformed American writing and cultural institutions. Drawing on original interviews with Sisterhood members as well as correspondence, meeting minutes, and readings of their works, Courtney Thorsson explores the group’s everyday collaboration and profound legacy. The Sisterhood advocated for Black women writers at trade publishers and magazines such as Random House, Ms., and Essence, and eventually in academic departments as well—often in the face of sexist, racist, and homophobic backlash. Thorsson traces the personal, professional, and political ties that brought the group together as well as the reasons for its dissolution. She considers the popular and critical success of Sisterhood members in the 1980s, the uneasy absorption of Black feminism into the academy, and how younger writers built on the foundations the group laid. Highlighting the organizing, networking, and community building that nurtured Black women’s writing, this book demonstrates that The Sisterhood offers an enduring model for Black feminist collaboration.In the Sierra Madre
Par Jeff Biggers. 2006
A stunning history of legendary treasure seekers and enigmatic natives in Mexico's Copper Canyon The Sierra Madre--no other mountain range…
in the world possesses such a ring of intrigue. In the Sierra Madre is a groundbreaking and extraordinary memoir that chronicles the astonishing history of one of the most famous, yet unknown, regions in the world. Based on his one-year sojourn among the Raramuri/Tarahumara, award-winning journalist Jeff Biggers offers a rare look into the ways of the most resilient indigenous culture in the Americas, the exploits of Mexican mountaineers, and the fascinating parade of argonauts and accidental travelers that has journeyed into the Sierra Madre over centuries. From African explorers, Bohemian friars, Confederate and Irish war deserters, French poets, Boer and Russian commandos, Apache and Mennonite communities, bewildered archaeologists, addled writers, and legendary characters including Antonin Artaud, B. Traven, Sergei Eisenstein, George Patton, Geronimo, and Pancho Villa, Biggers uncovers the remarkable treasures of the Sierra Madre.The Poet and the Sailor: The Story of My Friendship with Carl Sandburg
Par Kenneth Dodson. 2006
Two friends, a lifetime of letters, and an intimate look at a literary icon Carl Sandburg first encountered Kenneth Dodson…
through a letter written at sea during World War II. Though Dodson wrote the letter to his wife, Letha, Sandburg read it in tears and told her, "I've got to meet this man." Composed primarily of their correspondence that continued until Sandburg's death in 1967, The Poet and the Sailor is a chronicle of the deep friendship that followed. Ranging over anything they found important, from writing to health and humor, the letters are arranged by Richard Dodson and are accompanied by a foreword from Sandburg's noted biographer, Penelope Niven.The Limits of Love: The Lives of D. H. Lawrence and Frieda von Richthofen
Par Michael Squires. 2023
The Limits of Love: The Lives of D. H. Lawrence and Frieda von Richthofen provides a candid look at two…
illustrious people who tested the capacity—and the limits—of marriage. The Lawrences come alive not as simple quarreling travelers, nor as blissful domestic partners, but as complex personalities who experimented with marriage to see if it would fulfill their needs. Their antagonisms and their sexual experiences informed Lawrence’s fearless novels The Rainbow and Women in Love. Both works also tested the boundaries of public taste and faced harsh receptions.The cost of the Lawrences’ strong but unstable marriage was high. Despite periods of happiness and peace, angry clashes meant separations and uneasy agreements to repair the marital intimacy when it cracked. Fractures of 1916, 1919, 1923, and 1926 healed slowly and with difficulty. In Lawrence’s most calculated and famous work, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, he successfully coded their marital stress and, full of rage, fused two stories of failed marriages.Drawing on many unpublished and recently discovered letters, The Limits of Love offers readers a detailed reconstruction of two complicated lives, written with narrative speed and a forceful style, filled with vivid interpretations of Lawrence’s work, and conveying deep sympathy for people living outside established norms. This new dual biography, based on years of research by Michael Squires, captures the essence of Lawrence and Frieda, making the couple real, alive, and accessible.The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary
Par Sarah Ogilvie. 2023
The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A history and celebration of the many far-flung volunteers who helped define…
the English language, word by word.&“Enthralling and exuberant, Sarah Ogilvie tells the surprising story of the making of the OED. Philologists, fantasists, crackpots, criminals, career spinsters, suffragists, and Australians: here is a wonder book for word lovers.&” —Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not the Only FruitThe Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind&’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others. Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time. The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.Brief Lives: Charlotte Brontë (Brief Lives)
Par Jessica Cox. 2011
Charlotte Brontë is one of the world's best-loved writers. Her extraordinary literary talent manifested itself at an early age when…
she penned a series of imaginative and entertaining tales. Before her untimely death at the age of 38 she produced the masterpieces Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Vilette. Superb and meticulously researched, Jessica Cox's biography provides a beautifully drawn portrait of the creator of some of the world's most remarkable novels.Brief Lives: Marquis De Sade (Brief Lives)
Par David Carter. 2011
As explicit in his prose as he was in his private life, the Marquis de Sade remains one of the…
most controversial writers of all time. This new biography, by the acclaimed translator and author David Carter, promises to shock as much as it informs. Arrested many times for sexual misdemeanors, the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, where he was writing 120 Days of Sodom and The Misfortunes of Virtue at the time that it was stormed in 1789. After the French Revolution he was again imprisoned and sent to an asylum, where he wrote diaries and plays. This concise biography offers a fresh look at a relentlessly compelling figure with a fascinating life of scandal and imprisonment.Brief Lives: Wilkie Collins (Brief Lives)
Par Melisa Klimaszewski. 2009
Author of the first detective novel in English, Wilkie Collins was one of the most popular authors in Victorian England.…
In this illuminating biography, Melisa Klimaszewski situates the writer within his own milieu and demonstrates how his work sparks new understandings of Victorian life and letters. A close friend and collaborator of Charles Dickens, Collins secured his own fame with sensational novels that feature intricate legal plots, mistaken identities, and complex crimes. Boldly challenging the mores of Victorian society by maintaining two families and shunning the institution of marriage, Collins was also one of the most unconventional public figures of his day. His life story, succinctly told in this elegant biography, promises to instruct and to entertain.Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life
Par Brigitta Olubas. 2007
The first biography of Shirley Hazzard, the author of The Transit of Venus and a writer of “shocking wisdom” and…
“intellectual thrill” (The New Yorker).Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life tells the extraordinary story of a great modern novelist. Brigitta Olubas, Hazzard’s authorized biographer, has drawn, with great subtlety and understanding, on her fiction; on an extensive archive of letters, diaries, and notebooks; and on the memories of surviving friends and colleagues to create this resonant portrait of an exceptional woman. This biography explores the distinctive times of Hazzard’s life, from her youth and middle age to her widowhood and years of decline, and traces the complex and intricate processes of self-fashioning that lay beneath Hazzard’s formidable, beguiling presence. Olubas shows us the places of Hazzard’s life, of which she wrote with characteristic lyricism, accompanied by rare photographs from Hazzard’s collection and elsewhere.Hazzard was the last of a generation of self-taught writers, devotees of a great literary tradition, and her depth of perception and expressive gifts have earned her iconic status. Olubas has brought her brilliantly alive, enhancing and deepening our understanding of the singular woman who created some of the most enduring fiction of the past sixty years. As Dwight Garner wrote in The New York Times, “Hazzard’s stories feel timeless because she understands, as she writes in one of them: ‘We are human beings, not rational ones.’” Here, in Shirley Hazzard, is the story of a remarkable human being.The Real Hergé: The Inspiration Behind Tintin
Par Sian Lye. 2020
&“If you are looking to understand a bit more about the circumstances that inspired The Adventures of Tintin—this book will provide…
a good snapshot.&” —The BookBuff Review Hergé created only twenty-four Tintin books which have been translated into more than seventy languages and sold 230 million copies worldwide.The Real Hergé: The Inspiration Behind Tintin takes an in-depth look at the man behind the cultural phenomenon and the history that helped shape these books. As well as focusing on the controversies that engulfed Hergé, this biography will also look at his personal life, as well as the relationships and experiences that influenced him.&“Tintin is more famous now than when Hergé was actually writing and illustrating his adventures. Sian Mye&’s book is another in the excellent series about the real lives of our most famous authors, and is well worth a look. Brilliant!&” —Books Monthly&“It is certainly possible to enjoy the Tintin books without knowing Hergé. But they are more interesting after learning about this complex, sometimes frustrating, man. We can learn from him, even if we learn from his mistakes.&” —Rose City ReaderGood Times, Bad Times: The Explosive Inside Story of Rupert Murdoch
Par Harold Evans. 1983
A renowned journalist&’s &“vivid&” account of his battle with Murdoch after the global media baron bought the Times of London…
(Chicago Tribune). In 1981, Harold Evans was the editor of one of Britain&’s most prestigious publications, the Sunday Times, which had thrived under his watch. When Australian publishing baron Rupert Murdoch bought the daily Times of London, he persuaded Evans to become its editor with guarantees of editorial independence. But after a year of broken promises and conflict over the paper&’s direction, Evans departed amid an international media firestorm. Evans&’s story is a gripping, behind-the-scenes look at Murdoch&’s ascension to global media magnate. It is Murdoch laid bare, an intimate account of a man using the power of his media empire for his own ends. Riveting, provocative, and insightful, Good Times, Bad Times is as relevant today as when it was first written. With details on the scandalous deal between Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher, this updated ebook edition includes an extensive new preface by Evans, the New York Times–bestselling author of Do I Make Myself Clear?, discussing the Rupert Murdoch phone-hacking scandal.Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe
Par Robert Morgan. 2023
Over 170 years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe remains a figure of enduring fascination and speculation for readers, scholars,…
and devotees of the weird and macabre. In Fallen Angel, acclaimed novelist and poet Robert Morgan offers a new biography of this gifted, complicated author.Focusing on Poe’s personal relationships, Morgan chronicles how several women influenced his life and art. Eliza Poe, his mother, died before he turned three, but she haunted him ever after. The loss of Elmira Royster Shelton, his first and last love, devastated him and inspired much of his poetry. Morgan shows that Poe, known for his gothic and supernatural writing, was also a poet of the natural world who helped invent the detective story, science fiction, analytical criticism, and symbolist aesthetics. Though he died at age forty, Poe left behind works of great originality and vision that Fallen Angel explores with depth and feeling.Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert
Par Brian Herbert. 2023
Everyone knows Frank Herbert's Dune. This science fiction epic combines politics human evolution and ecology and has captured the imagination…
of generations of readers. It is one of the most popular science fiction novels ever written, has won awards, sold millions of copies around the world and spawned multiple motion-picture adaptations. Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's eldest son, tells the provocative story of his father's extraordinary life in this honest and loving chronicle. He has also brought to light all the events in Herbert's life that would find their way into speculative fiction's greatest epic. From his early years in Tacoma, Washington, through his time at university and in the Navy, to the difficult years of poverty while struggling to become a published writer, Herbert worked long and hard before finding success after the publication of Dune in 1965. Brian Herbert writes about these years with a truthful intensity that brings every facet of his father's brilliant, and sometimes troubled, genius to full light. Insightful and provocative, this absorbing biography offers Brian Herbert's unique personal perspective on one of the most enigmatic and creative talents of our time.Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert
Par Brian Herbert. 2023
Everyone knows Frank Herbert's Dune. This science fiction epic combines politics human evolution and ecology and has captured the imagination…
of generations of readers. It is one of the most popular science fiction novels ever written, has won awards, sold millions of copies around the world and spawned multiple motion-picture adaptations. Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's eldest son, tells the provocative story of his father's extraordinary life in this honest and loving chronicle. He has also brought to light all the events in Herbert's life that would find their way into speculative fiction's greatest epic. From his early years in Tacoma, Washington, through his time at university and in the Navy, to the difficult years of poverty while struggling to become a published writer, Herbert worked long and hard before finding success after the publication of Dune in 1965. Brian Herbert writes about these years with a truthful intensity that brings every facet of his father's brilliant, and sometimes troubled, genius to full light. Insightful and provocative, this absorbing biography offers Brian Herbert's unique personal perspective on one of the most enigmatic and creative talents of our time.Country Editor's Boy: A Memoir
Par Hal Borland. 1970
A memoir of youthful years spent in Colorado as the American West was transformed, by the author of High, Wide,…
and Lonesome and The Dog Who Came to Stay. Country Editor&’s Boy picks up where Hal Borland&’s classic memoir High, Wide and Lonesome left off: with Borland, on the cusp of adulthood in the early twentieth century, making his way in an eastern Colorado town that still retained all the flavors of the Old West. Borland&’s father, the editor of a local weekly newspaper, was working to help his publication transition along with the town around him. At the same time, young Hal was experiencing dramatic social and economic change in his own way. In a matter of a decade, Borland&’s Colorado town shifted from a frontier outpost to part of a rapidly urbanizing new America. This memoir shows a boy entering adulthood as the world around him comes of age. Evocative and wholly engrossing, Country Editor&’s Boy is a vividly drawn portrait of western life, by one of the greatest naturalist writers of his age.