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Informationen zum Autor Jamie James Klappentext A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice " Pagan Light is mesmerizing. Every detail is compelling. I felt I was reading a family history of a family far more interesting than mine." --Edmund White, author of Our Young Man A rich, intimate embrace of Capri, which was a magnet for artistic renegades and a place of erotic refuge Isolated and arrestingly beautiful, the island of Capri has been a refuge for renegade artists and writers fleeing the strictures of conventional society from the time of Augustus, who bought the island in 29 BC after defeating Antony and Cleopatra, to the early twentieth century, when the poet and novelist Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen was in exile there after being charged with corrupting minors, to the 1960s, when Truman Capote spent time on the island. We also meet the Marquis de Sade, Goethe, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Compton Mackenzie, Rilke, Lenin, and Gorky, among other astonishingly vivid characters. Grounded in a deep intimacy with Capri and full of captivating anecdotes, Jamie James's Pagan Light tells how a tiny island served as a wildly permissive haven for people-queer, criminal, sick, marginalized, and simply crazy-who had nowhere else to go.
About the author
Jamie James is the author of
The Snake Charmer,
Rimbaud in Java, and other books. He has contributed to
The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal,
Vanity Fair, and
The Atlantic, among other publications. He regularly reviewed art exhibitions and contributed features to
The New Yorker and served as the American arts correspondent for
The Times (London). He has lived in Indonesia since 1999, and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Grant.
