Ishmael - Softcover

Quinn, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553375407 ISBN 13: 9780553375404

Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1995

Synopsis

MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES IN PRINT

The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. “You are the teacher?” he asks incredulously. “I am the teacher,” the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time to save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man’s destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him—one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

About this title

Review:

"A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet . . . laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny."--The New York Times Book Review

"[Quinn entraps] us in the dialogue itself, in the sweet and terrible lucidity of Ishmael's analysis of the human condition. . . . It was surely for this deep, clear persuasiveness of argument that Ishmael was given its huge prize."--The Washington Post

"It is as suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction book you are likely to read this or any other year."--The Austin Chronicle

"Deserves high marks as a serious--and all too rare--effort that is unflinchingly engaged with fundamental life-and-death concerns."--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

About the Author:

Daniel Quinn grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and studied at St. Louis University, the University of Vienna, and Loyola University of Chicago. He worked in Chicago-area publishing for twenty years before beginning work on the book for which he is best known, Ishmael. In 1991, this book was chosen from among some 2,500 international entrants in the Turner Tomorrow competition to win the half-million dollar prize for a novel offering "creative and positive solutions to global problems." It has subsequently sold more than a million copies in English, is available in some thirty languages, and has been used in high schools and colleges worldwide in courses as varied as philosophy, geography, ecology, archaeology, history, biology, zoology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology. Subsequent works include Providence, The Story of B, My Ishmael: A Sequel, Beyond Civilization, After Dachau, The Holy, At Woomeroo, The Invisibility of Success, and The Teachings. Daniel Quinn died in 2018.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0553375407
• ISBN 13: 9780553375404
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336