Writers by Barry Gifford
In Writers, great American storyteller Barry Gifford paints portraits of famous writers caught in imaginary vulnerable moments in their lives. In prose that is funny, grotesque, and a touch brutal, Gifford shows these writers at their most human, which is to say at their worst- they are liars, frauds, lousy lovers, and drunks.This is a world in which Ernest Hemingway drunkenly sets explosive trip wires outside his home in Cuba, Marcel Proust implores the angel of death as a delirious Arthur Rimbaud lies dying in a hospital bed, and Albert Camus converses with a young prostitute while staring at himself in the mirror of a New York City hotel room.
In Gifford's house of mirrors, we are offered a unique perspective on this group of literary greats. These stories, meant to be performed as plays, aretender and thoughtful exercises in empathy. Obsessions loom large, especially a preoccupation with death. Gifford asks- What does it mean to devote oneself entirely to art? And as an artist, what defines failure, or success?
This new edition of Writers includes five new pieces, featuring Georges Simenon with Andre Gide, Franz Kafka with Marcel Proust, Flannery O'Connor with William Burroughs, Ivan Turgenev with Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Joseph Conrad with D.H. Lawrence, and Willa Cather with Gypsy Rose Lee.
The author of more than forty works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into over twenty-five languages, BARRY GIFFORD writes distinctly American stories for readers around the globe. From screenplays and librettos to his acclaimed Sailor and Lula novels, Gifford's writing is as distinctive as it is difficult to classify. Born in the Seneca Hotel on Chicago's Near North Side, he relocated in his adolescence to New Orleans. The move proved significant: throughout his career, Gifford's fiction--part-noir, part-picaresque, always entertaining--is born of the clash between what he has referred to as his Northern Side and Southern Side. Gifford has been recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. His novel Wild at Heart was adapted into the 1990 Palme d'Or-winning film of the same name. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781644212868 |
| ISBN 10 | 1644212862 |
| Title | Writers |
| Author | Barry Gifford |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Seven Stories Press,U.S. |
| Year published | 2023-05-02 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |