Mehr lesen
Zusatztext Max B. Baker The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Writing in clear-eyed, conversational prose, Price reaffirms his faith in mankind by remembering the healing power of everyday moments, no matter how big or small. Informationen zum Autor Reynolds Price (1933–2011) was born in Macon, North Carolina. Educated at Duke University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Merton College, Oxford University, he taught at Duke beginning in 1958 and was the James B. Duke Professor of English at the time of his death. His first short stories, and many later ones, are published in his Collected Stories . A Long and Happy Life was published in 1962 and won the William Faulkner Award for a best first novel. Kate Vaiden was published in 1986 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Good Priest's Son in 2005 was his fourteenth novel. Among his thirty-seven volumes are further collections of fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and translations. Price is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and his work has been translated into seventeen languages. Klappentext Whether recounting events from his past or examining the details of his current experience as a writer! teacher! traveler! and general witness of the world! Reynolds Price shows us how a writer finds meaning in the day-to-day details of living. In this engaging collection of fifty-two personal essays originally aired on NPR's All Things Considered! Price explores topics that range from family and faith to capital punishment and his adventures while navigating an immensely inaccessible America in a wheelchair. Throughout! Price never loses sight of the origin or spirit of the essay -- in French! essayer means to try or attempt -- and each piece is a well-informed! revealing! often amusing and refreshing foray into a moment unlike any other we've shared with him. Leseprobe Chapter 1: A Christmas in Rome I was twenty-two years old and still hadn't spent a Christmas away from home and family. That day though I was half laid back in unmarred sun on a bench in the one true Colosseum -- Italy, Rome, December 25th 1955. Europe had only begun to believe that the devastation of Hitler's war might be survived, and even in Rome the sight of a winter tourist was rare as a failure of courtesy. I'd left my room and made my way down through the city past ruins posing in vain for their picture -- today they were empty of all but cats and ghosts of assorted psychotic Caesars, woolly Vandals and Visigoths. I'd even walked the length of the Forum and on across to the Colosseum with no sure glimpse of anybody as lost and foreign to the place as I and not a sign of holly and gifts. I'd passed a few couples, sporting that brand of Italian child who easily seems the world's most loved; and some of the parents had bowed at my greeting. But the Colosseum was likewise empty of all but me and one of the bent old ladies who then sold tickets to everything Roman, toilets included. So there, lone as Robinson Crusoe, I had one question -- was I lonely in this grand place on such a high love-feast? It seemed the right question for a journeyman writer. I shut my eyes to the broad arena that drank the blood of so many thousands and let the Mediterranean sun burn its health deep into my bones. The answer was No. I was happy. I'd got the gene from both my parents; and despite a normally bleak adolescence, had been sheepishly happy most of my days -- sheepish because I wondered still if smiles were the kit for an artist's life. Even if I was here today on one of the world's great magnets alone, I knew I was backed with a travel grant; my first short stories were down on paper; more ideas were ticking in me; and -- best -- in only three more weeks I'd join my first requited love who was skiing in Austria. What but love had I...
