Kant's little Prussian head and other reasons why I write : an autobiography in essays / Claire Messud.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Messud, Claire, 1966- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Messud, Claire, 1966-.

Messud, Claire.

Novelists, American--20th century--Biography.

Novelists, American.

Novelists, American--21st century--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Essays.

Physical Description:

xxi, 306 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2020]

Summary:

"A glimpse into a beloved novelist's inner world, shaped by family, art, and literature. In her fiction, Claire Messud "has specialized in creating unusual female characters with ferocious, imaginative inner lives" (Ruth Franklin, New York Times Magazine). Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write opens a window on Messud's own life: a peripatetic upbringing; a warm, complicated family; and, throughout it all, her devotion to art and literature. In twenty-nine intimate, brilliant, funny, and sharp essays, Messud reflects on a childhood move from her Connecticut home to Australia; the complex relationship between her modern Canadian mother and a fiercely single French Catholic aunt; and a trip to Beirut, where her pied-noir father had once lived, while he was dying. She meditates on Albert Camus, Teju Cole, and Valeria Luiselli, and tours her favorite paintings at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Crafting a vivid portrait of a life in celebration of the power of literature, Messud proves once again "an absolute master storyteller" (Rebecca Carroll, Los Angeles Times)"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. ONE Reflections

Then

Nostalgia

The Road to Damascus

Two Women

Mother's Knee

Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write

Our Dogs

How to be a Better Woman in the Twenty-First Century

Teenage Gibls

The Time For Art Is Now

pt. TWO Criticism: Books

Three Essays on Camus and His Legacy Camus And Algeria: The Moral Question

A New L'Etranger

The Brother of the Stranger: Kamel Daoud

Kazuo Ishiguro

Jane Bowles

Italo Svevo

Teju Cole

Magda Szabo

Rachel Cusk

Saul Friedlander

Yasmine El Rashidi

Valeria Luiselli

pt. THREE Criticism: Images

Alice Neel

Marlene Dumas

Sally Mann

A Home From Home: Boston's Museum Of Fine Arts.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781324006756

1324006757

OCLC:

1152354832