Jay Parini

In this evocative work of what the author in his Afterword calls ‘autofiction’ or ‘a kind of novelised memoir’, Jay Parini takes us back fifty years, when he fled the United States for Scotland. He was in frantic flight from the Vietnam War and desperately in search of his adult life. There, through unlikely circumstances, he met famed Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. Borges was in his seventies, blind and frail. Parini was asked to look after him while his translator was unexpectedly called away. When Borges heard that Parini owned a 1957 Morris Minor, he declared a long-held wish to visit the Scottish Highlands, where he hoped to meet a man in Inverness who was interested in Anglo-Saxon riddles. As they travelled, the charmingly garrulous Borges took Parini on a grand tour of western literature and ideas while promising to teach him about love and poetry. As Borges’s world of labyrinths, mirrors and doubles shimmered into being, their escapades took a surreal turn. Borges and Me is a classic road novel, based on true events. It’s also a magical tour of an era – like our own – in which uncertainties abound, and when – as ever – it’s the young and the old who hear voices and dream dreams.

An Encounter

Borges and Me

Bir Karsilasma

Borges ve Ben

In this evocative work of what the author in his afterword calls “a kindof novelistic memoir,” Jay Parini takes us back fifty years, when he fled the United States for Scotland—in flight from the Vietnam War and desperately in search of his adult life. There, through unlikely circumstances, he meets the famed Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. Borges—visiting his translator in Scotland—is in his seventies, blind and frail. When Borges hears that Parini owns a 1957 Morris Minor, he declares a long-held wish to visit the Highlands, where he hopes to meet a man in Inverness who is interested in Anglo-Saxon riddles. As they travel, stopping at various sites of historical interest, the charmingly garrulous Borges takes Parini on a grand tour of Western literature and ideas, while promising to teach him about love and poetry. As Borges’s idiosyncratic world of labyrinths, mirrors, and doubles shimmers into being, their escapades take a surreal turn. Borges and Me is a classic road novel, based on true events. It’s also a magical mystery tour of an era, like our own, in which uncertainties abound, and when—as ever—it’s the young and the old who hear voices and dream dreams.

A Travessia de Benjamim

Traditional Chinese edition of The Last Station. The novel is about Leo Tolstoy's last year in which he struggled to live by his principles of poverty and chastity while fame, wealth and luxury encroached on his soul. He tried to run away from it all but found himself slowly dying alone. The moVietnamese adaptation starring Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren was released in 2009. In Traditional Chinese. Distributed by Tsai Fong Books, Inc.

The Last Station

A New York Times Notable Book Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was among the most important intellectuals of this century: a seminal critic and philosopher. He has, in the past three decades, acquired almost cult status in the academic world. In Benjamin's Crossing, Jay Parini tracks Benjamin through his last, terrible months. The story opens with his desperate flight from Paris, on the heels of the Nazi invasion in 1940. It depicts his various, often tragicomic, attempts to flee France, culminating in his frantic escape over the Pyrenees into Spain. Benjamin's Crossing is a lyrical novel of ideas. It is also a love story dramatizing one of the most moving peripheral episodes of the Holocaust.

A Novel

Benjamin's Crossing

William Faulkner was a literary genius, and one of America's most important and influential writers. Drawing on previously unavailable sources -- including letters, memoirs, and interviews with Faulkner's daughter and lovers -- Jay Parini has crafted a biography that delves into the mystery of this gifted and troubled writer. His Faulkner is an extremely talented, obsessive artist plagued by alcoholism and a bad marriage who somehow transcends his limitations. Parini weaves the tragedies and triumphs of Faulkner's life in with his novels, serving up a biography that's as engaging as it is insightful.

A Life of William Faulkner

One Matchless Time

Leo Tolstoy

Presents selected essays, diary entries, letters, and addresses produced in the last three decades of the author's life.

The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy

Last Steps

Ian Scott-Kilvert

Covers writers who have made significant contributions to British, Irish, and Commonwealth literature from the fourteenth century to the present day. Includes in-depth critical and biographical analysis

Supplement

British Writers

Robert Pack

Eight-three poets forge a vision of nature for the post-industrial age.

Contemporary American Nature Poetry

Poems for a Small Planet

Experience New England's landscape and seasons, its cities and towns, its history and people, with 58 poets as your guide.

Contemporary Poetry of New England

Provides critical and biographical essays on English writers from parts of the former British Empire.

World Writers in English

Covers writers who have made significant contributions to British, Irish, and Commonwealth literature from the fourteenth century to the present day. Includes in-depth critical and biographical analysis.

Supplement IX

Molly Weigel

Leonard Unger

A. Walton Litz

Lea Bechler

The four volume set consists of ninety-seven of the pamphlets originally published as the University of Minnesota pamphlets on American writers. Some have been revised and updated.

A Collection of Literary Biographies

American Writers

A Collection of Literary Biographies from Philip Roth to Louis Zukofsky and cumulative index for all volumes.

American Writers: Ralph Waldo Emerson to Carson McCullers

el último año en la vida de Tolstoi

La última estación

Becoming an effective teacher can be quite painful and exhausting, taking years of trial and error. In The Art of Teaching, writer and critic Jay Parini looks back over his own decades of trials, errors, and triumphs, in an intimate memoir that brims with humor, encouragement, and hard-won wisdom about the teacher's craft. Here is a godsend for instructors of all levels, offering valuable insight into the many challenges that educators face, from establishing a persona in the classroom, to fostering relationships with students, to balancing teaching load with academic writing and research. Insight abounds. Parini shows, for instance, that there is nothing natural about teaching. The classroom is a form of theater, and the teacher must play various roles. A good teacher may look natural, but that's the product of endless practice. The book also considers such topics as the manner of dress that teachers adopt (and what this says about them as teachers), the delicate question of politics in the classroom, the untapped value of emeritus professors, and the vital importance of a settled, disciplined life for a teacher and a writer. Parini grounds all of this in personal stories of his own career in the academy, tracing his path from unfocused student--a self-confessed "tough nut to crack"--to passionate writer, scholar, and teacher, one who frankly admits making many mistakes over the years. Every year, thousands of newly minted college teachers embark on their careers, most with scant training in their chosen profession. The Art of Teaching is a perfect book for these young educators as well as anyone who wants to learn more about this difficult but rewarding profession.

The Art of Teaching

An intimate, authorized yet totally frank biography of Gore Vidal (1925–2012), one of the most accomplished, visible, and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini’s Empire of Self digs behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal’s colorful career to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truths underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well—a virtual Who’s Who of the twentieth century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Johnny Carson, Leonard Bernstein, and the crème de la crème of Hollywood. Also a generous helping of feuds with the likes of William F. Buckley, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, and The New York Times, among other adversaries. The life of Gore Vidal teemed with notable incidents, famous people, and lasting achievements that call out for careful evocation and examination. Jay Parini crafts Vidal’s life into an accessible, entertaining story that puts the experience of one of the great American figures of the postwar era into context, introduces the author and his works to a generation who may not know him, and looks behind the scenes at the man and his work in ways never possible before his death. Provided with unique access to Vidal’s life and his papers, Parini excavates many buried skeletons yet never loses sight of his deep respect for Vidal and his astounding gifts. This is the biography Gore Vidal—novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, historian, wit, provocateur, and pioneer of gay rights—has long needed.

A Life of Gore Vidal

Empire of Self

Axinn Professor of English Jay Parini

Gore Vidal, known for such best-sellers as The City and the Pillar, Burr, Lincoln, and Myra Breckinridge, is a household name. The controversial Vidal ran for Congress in 1960, and set sparks flying with his public debates challenging William F. Buckley and Norman Mailer. Although one of America's most admired and prolific writers, Vidal has been steadfastly ignored or impugned by many critics. This is partly owing to the vast scope of his writings, which include more than twenty novels, half a dozen plays, dozens of screenplays, countless essays and book reviews, political commentary, and short stories; how do the critics approach such a writer? There has also been backlash against Vidal, whose radical polemics and undisguised contempt for those whom he has called "the hacks and hicks of academe" have hardly endeared him to the critical establishment.Gore Vidal: Writer Against the Grain is the first collection of critical essays to approach this important American writer in an attempt to rectify the unwarranted underestimation of his work. Jay Parini has drawn from the best of previously published criticism and commissioned fresh articles by leading contemporary critics to construct a comprehensive portrait of Vidal's multifaceted and memorable career. Writers as diverse as Harold Bloom, Stephen Spender, Catharine R. Stimpson, Richard Poirier, and Italo Calvino examine Vidal's work in their own highly individual ways, and each finds a different Vidal to celebrate, chide, recollect, or view close up. Also included is a recent interview with Parini in which Vidal discusses his career and his troubled relationship with the reviewers.The Vidal that finally emerges from these essays is a writer of undeniable weight and importance. As readers will agree, Gore Vidal: Writer Against the Grain establishes his rightful role as one of the premier novelists and leading critical observers of this century.

Jay Parini

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