Carole Angier Knihy

The first biography of W. G. Sebald: a robust, intricate, landmark portrait of one of the most significant and lauded cultural figures of the twentieth century

"W. G. Sebald was one of the most extraordinary and influential writers of the twentieth century. Through books including 'The Emigrants', 'Austerlitz' and 'The Rings of Saturn', he pursued an original literary vision that combined fiction, history, autobiography and photography and addressed some of the most profound themes of contemporary literature: the burden of the Holocaust, memory, loss and exile. The first biography to explore his life and work, 'Speak, silence' pursues the true Sebald through the memories of those who knew him and through the work he left behind. This quest takes Carole Angier from Sebald's birth as a second-generation German at the end of the Second World War, through his rejection of the poisoned inheritance of the Third Reich, to his emigration to England, exploring the choice of isolation and exile that drove his work. It digs deep into a creative mind on the edge, finding profound empathy and paradoxical ruthlessness, saving humour, and an elusive mix of fact and fiction in his life as well as work. The result is a unique, ferociously original portrait."--Publisher's web page, https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/speak-silence-9781526634795

"An acute literary intelligence ...the reader comes to trust instinctively Angier's assessments." ("New York Times"). Jean Rhys (1890-1979) had a long life of great difficulty. So inept was she in its management that her authority as the writer of five beautifully shaped and controlled novels appears mysterious: how could someone so bad at living be so good at writing about it? Carole Angier answers this question. Jean Rhys never denied that she used her own experience in her writings, but no one hitherto has understood so well the nature of, and reasons for, this use. On her way to understanding, Carole Angier discovered more about the life than seemed possible. Jean Rhys' childhood, her momentous first love affair, her three marriages, the disasters which befell her husbands, her drinking and its consequences: all are shown with unsparing clarity. Equally clearly, and more importantly, we see the dynamics of her personality as it underwent, and sometimes provoked, these experiences. Sometimes what is revealed is shocking; but Carole Angier's sympathy and compassion dispel dismay, and her brilliant demonstrations of how art was made of events and emotions restores admiration on foundations which are stronger than ever. Jean Rhys did not want anyone to write about her, but this first full biography put beyond question her standing as a great writer of our time, written with an intensity and clarity which mirrors her own. It is a work of exceptional intimacy, sensitivity and power. "Remarkable, the definitive biography. It is deeply researched, subtle, sympathetic." (Claire Tomalin "Independent on Sunday"). "Mesmerising." ("Washington Post").

Perhaps the most important writer to emerge from the death camps, Primo Levi spent sixty-five of his sixty-seven years in Turin, Italy, where he worked as a chemist by day and wrote at night in a study that had been his childhood bedroom. This biography illuminates the design of Levi's interior life.

„Carole Angier gelingt es, Sebald ehrlich in die Augen zu schauen und sich zugleich ihre Bewunderung zu bewahren.“ Observer W.G. Sebald zählt zu den einflussreichsten Schriftstellern des 20. Jahrhunderts, seine Arbeit beeinflusst Schreibende bis heute und löst noch immer internationale Debatten aus. Nun hat Carole Angier seine erste große Biografie geschrieben. Anhand seines Werks und der Erinnerungen zahlreicher Wegbegleiter und der letzten Zeitzeugen zeichnet sie das Porträt eines Autors, der sich den existenziellen Themen seiner Zeit auf besonders eindringliche Weise näherte. 1944 geboren, lebte und schrieb Sebald unter dem Eindruck von Holocaust und Krieg. Flucht, Exil und Verlust, das Erinnern und Vergessen wurden zu seinen zentralen Motiven. Carole Angier spürt diesen Motiven nach. Sie zeigt: Sebalds Leben und seine literarische Kunst zwischen Fiktion und Geschichte sind auf das Engste miteinander verknüpft.