La premio Pulitzer y candidata al Nobel Annie Dillard ha dedicado su vida a examinar el mundo a su alrededor con los ojos bien abiertos, bebiendo la vida de manera intensa e implacable. Ya sea observando un sublime eclipse lunar o una polilla consumida en la llama de una vela, el temblor de los nenúfares en un estanque o cientos de mirlos de alas rojas que huyen, el asombro de Dillard ante la fragilidad del mundo natural rejuvenece e inspira placer y angustia.
Precisa en el lenguaje y profundamente meditativa en espíritu, esta es una colección histórica de una de las maestras de Estados Unidos.
"Per què voldria ningú llegir un llibre en comptes de mirar persones enormes movent-se per una pantalla? Perquè un llibre pot ser literatura. És una cosa subtil; una cosa insignificant, però és la nostra. Segons la meva opinió, com més literari sigui el llibre —com més purament verbal, treballat frase per frase, com més imaginatiu, raonat i profund sigui—, més probable és que la gent el llegeixi."
En aquesta col·lecció d'assajos curts, Annie Dillard posa el focus en la dedicació, l'absurditat, el coratge i la voluntat de risc que caracteritzen la vida d'un escriptor. Ple d'anècdotes i reflexions il·luminadores, Viure escrivint recull l'experiència de la mateixa escriptora i explora els alts i baixos de la creació artística, les maneres d'enfrontar-se al fracàs i a l'èxit, de treballar un text i de corregir-lo, i ens ofereix una mirada íntima i profunda sobre un dels oficis més antics i enlluernadors.
<P><B>Winner of the New England Book Show Award</B></P><P>It's been a pilgrimage for Annie Dillard: from Tinker Creek to the Galapagos Islands, the high Arctic, the Pacific Northwest, the Amazon Jungle—and now, China. This informative narrative is full of fascinating people: Chinese people, mostly writers, who encounter American writers in various bizarre circumstances in both China and the U.S. There is a toasting scene at a Chinese banquet; a portrait of a bitter, flirtatious diplomat at a dance hall; a formal meeting with Chinese writers; a conversation with an American businessman in a hotel lobby; an evening with long-suffering Chinese intellectuals in their house; a scene in the Beijing foreigners' compound with an excited European journalist; and a scene of unwarranted hilarity at the Beijing Library. In the U.S., there is Allen Ginsberg having a bewildering conversation in Disneyland with a Chinese journalist; there is the lovely and controversial writer Zhang Jie suiting abrupt mood changes to a variety of actions; and there is the fiercely spirited Jiange Zilong singing in a Connecticut dining room, eyes closed. These are real stories told with a warm and lively humor, with a keen eye for paradox, and with fresh insight into the human drama.</P>
In 1975 Annie Dillard took up residence on an island in Puget Sound in a wooden room – one enormous window, one cat, one spider and one person. For the next two years she asked herself questions about time, reality, sacrifice and death. In Holy the Firm she writes about a moth consumed in a candle flame, about a seven-year-old girl burned in an aeroplane accident, about a baptism on a cold beach. But behind the moving curtain of what she calls 'the hard things – rock mountain and salt sea', she sees, sometimes far off and sometimes as close by as a veil or air, the power play of holy fire.
Holy the Firm is a profound and breath-taking book about the natural world by a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the most influential figures in contemporary non-fiction.
In this dazzling collection, Annie Dillard explores the world over, from the Arctic to the Ecuadorian jungle, from the Galapagos to her beloved Tinker Creek. With her entrancing gaze she captures the wonders of natural facts and human meanings: watching a sublime lunar eclipse, locking eyes with a wild weasel, or beholding mirages appearing over Puget Sound through summer.
Annie Dillard is one of the most respected and influential figures in contemporary non-fiction and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Teaching a Stone to Talk illuminates the world around us and showcases Dillard in all her enigmatic genius.
An American Childhood is the electrifying memoir of the wide-eyed and unconventional upbringing that influenced the lifetime love of nature and the stunning writing career of Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard. From her mother's boundless energy to her father's low-budget horror movies, jokes and lonesome river trips down to New Orleans to get away, the events of Dillard's 1950s Pittsburgh childhood loom larger than life.
An American Childhood fizzes with the playful observations and sparkling prose of this American master, illuminating the seemingly ordinary and yet always thrilling, dizzying moments of a childhood and adolescence lived fearlessly.
Annie Dillard has spent a lifetime examining the world around her with eyes wide open, drinking in all things intensely and relentlessly. Whether observing a sublime lunar eclipse or a moth consumed in a candle flame, the trembling of lily pads on a pond or hundreds of red-winged blackbirds taking flight, Dillard's awe at the fragility of the natural world rejuvenates and inspires pleasure and heartache. Precise in language and deeply meditative in spirit, this is a landmark collection from one of America's masters.