We need silence to find out what we think : selected essays / Shirley Hazzard ; edited with an introduction by Brigitta Olubas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hazzard, Shirley, 1931- author.

Contributor:

Olubas, Brigitta, editor, writer of introduction.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English essays--20th century.

English essays.

English essays--21st century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (245 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Spanning the 1960s to the 2000s, these nonfiction writings showcase Shirley Hazzard's extensive thinking on global politics, international relations, the history and fraught present of Western literary culture, and postwar life in Europe and Asia. They add essential clarity to the themes that dominate her award-winning fiction and expand the intellectual registers in which her writings work.Hazzard writes about her employment at the United Nations and the institution's manifold failings. She shares her personal experience with the aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and the nature of life in late-1940s Hong Kong. She speaks to the decline of the hero as a public figure in Western literature and affirms the ongoing power of fiction to console, inspire, and direct human life, despite-or maybe because of-the world's disheartening realities. Cementing Hazzard's place as one of the twentieth century's sharpest and most versatile thinkers, this collection also encapsulates for readers the critical events defining postwar letters, thought, and politics.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Shirley Hazzard - Author, Amateur, Intellectual / Olubas, Brigitta

Part 1. Through Literature Itself

We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think

The Lonely Word

Part 2. The Expressive Word

A Mind Like a Blade: Review of Muriel Spark, Collected Stories I and The Public Image

Review of Jean Rhys, Quartet

The Lasting Sickness of Naples: Review of Matilde Serao, Il Ventre di Napoli

The New Novel by the New Nobel Prize Winner: Review of Patrick White, The Eye of the Storm

Ordinary People: Review of Barbara Pym, Quartet in Autumn and Excellent Women

Translating Proust

Introduction to Geoffrey Scott's The Portrait of Zélide

Introduction to Iris Origo's Leopardi: A Study in Solitude

William Maxwell

Part 3. Public Themes

The Patron Saint of the UN is Pontius Pilate

"Gulag" and the Men of Peace

The United Nations: Where Governments Go to Church

The League of Frightened Men: Why the UN is So Useless

UNhelpful: Waldheim's Latest Debacle

A Writer's Reflections on the Nuclear Age

Part 4. The Great Occasion

Canton More Far

Papyrology at Naples

The Tuscan in Each of Us

Part V. Last Words

2003 National Book Award Acceptance

The New York Society Library Discussion, September 2012

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780231540797

0231540795

OCLC:

933388572