Written Lives

Biography & Memoir, Literary
Cover of the book Written Lives by Javier Marías, New Directions
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Javier Marías ISBN: 9780811219365
Publisher: New Directions Publication: May 17, 2007
Imprint: New Directions Language: English
Author: Javier Marías
ISBN: 9780811219365
Publisher: New Directions
Publication: May 17, 2007
Imprint: New Directions
Language: English

An affectionate and very funny gallery of twenty great world authors from the pen of "the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature" (The Boston Globe).

In addition to his own busy career as "one of Europe's most intriguing contemporary writers" (TLS), Javier Marías is also the translator into Spanish of works by Hardy, Stevenson, Conrad, Faulkner, Nabokov, and Laurence Sterne. His love for these authors is the touchstone of Written Lives. Collected here are twenty pieces recounting great writers' lives, "or, more precisely, snippets of writers' lives." Thomas Mann, Rilke, Arthur Conan Doyle, Turgenev, Djuna Barnes, Emily Brontë, Malcolm Lowry, and Kipling appear ("all fairly disastrous individuals"), and "almost nothing" in his stories is invented.

Like Isak Dinesen (who "claimed to have poor sight, yet could spot a four-leaf clover in a field from a remarkable distance away"), Marías has a sharp eye. Nabokov is here, making "the highly improbable assertion that he is 'as American as April in Arizona,'" as is Oscar Wilde, who, in debt on his deathbed, ordered up champagne, "remarking cheerfully, 'I am dying beyond my means.'" Faulkner, we find, when fired from his post office job, explained that he was not prepared "to be beholden to any son-of-a-bitch who had two cents to buy a stamp." Affection glows in the pages of Written Lives, evidence, as Marías remarks, that "although I have enjoyed writing all my books, this was the one with which I had the most fun."

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

An affectionate and very funny gallery of twenty great world authors from the pen of "the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature" (The Boston Globe).

In addition to his own busy career as "one of Europe's most intriguing contemporary writers" (TLS), Javier Marías is also the translator into Spanish of works by Hardy, Stevenson, Conrad, Faulkner, Nabokov, and Laurence Sterne. His love for these authors is the touchstone of Written Lives. Collected here are twenty pieces recounting great writers' lives, "or, more precisely, snippets of writers' lives." Thomas Mann, Rilke, Arthur Conan Doyle, Turgenev, Djuna Barnes, Emily Brontë, Malcolm Lowry, and Kipling appear ("all fairly disastrous individuals"), and "almost nothing" in his stories is invented.

Like Isak Dinesen (who "claimed to have poor sight, yet could spot a four-leaf clover in a field from a remarkable distance away"), Marías has a sharp eye. Nabokov is here, making "the highly improbable assertion that he is 'as American as April in Arizona,'" as is Oscar Wilde, who, in debt on his deathbed, ordered up champagne, "remarking cheerfully, 'I am dying beyond my means.'" Faulkner, we find, when fired from his post office job, explained that he was not prepared "to be beholden to any son-of-a-bitch who had two cents to buy a stamp." Affection glows in the pages of Written Lives, evidence, as Marías remarks, that "although I have enjoyed writing all my books, this was the one with which I had the most fun."

More books from New Directions

Cover of the book The Foreign Legion by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Tres (Bilingual Edition) by Javier Marías
Cover of the book This Great Unknowing: Last Poems by Javier Marías
Cover of the book The Assistant by Javier Marías
Cover of the book On the High Wire by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Little Labors by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Symposium: A Novel by Javier Marías
Cover of the book The German Lesson by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 - 1972 by Javier Marías
Cover of the book The Cardboard House by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Concluding by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Now, Now, Louison by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Mac's Problem by Javier Marías
Cover of the book A Breath of Life by Javier Marías
Cover of the book Spring and All (Facsimile Edition) by Javier Marías
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy