Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki - Hardcover

Reich-Ranicki, Marcel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691090408 ISBN 13: 9780691090405

Publisher: Princeton Univ Dept of Art &, 2001

Synopsis

Marcel Reich-Ranicki was born of Polish Jewish parents in the Polish town of Wloclawek in 1920. At the age of nine he moved to Berlin and it was at school there that he discovered his deep passion for literature and the theatre. But in 1938, he was deported back to Poland, where he spent the war. Written with subtlety, intelligence and lucidity, Reich-Ranicki's account of the Warsaw Ghetto and the relations between Poles and Jews, Poles and Germans, Poles and Poles is one of the most compelling and dramatic ever recorded.
As well as being a related narrative of a remarkable and unusual life, this book is also a love letter to literature and the theatre, especially the work of Shakespeare. It is also an indispensable guide to twentieth-century German culture. Reich-Ranicki has known all the eminent post-war German writers and has written about most of them - often sharply criticising their work, but just as frequently praising it.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"This is an extraordinary autobiography written in a unique style that is very smooth, conversational, and frank. Reich-Ranicki is the most important literary critic on the German scene and has had a singular influence on German culture. His life reads like a novel."--Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota

"This is a remarkable book. Reich-Ranicki has produced a beautifully written and sharply observed testament to a lifelong love/hate relationship with the Germany that fascinated him as a youth, destroyed his family and his prewar world, and finally--ambivalently and deeply ironically--anointed him as its pope of literature."--Atina Grossmann, Cooper Union

From the Inside Flap

"This is an extraordinary autobiography written in a unique style that is very smooth, conversational, and frank. Reich-Ranicki is the most important literary critic on the German scene and has had a singular influence on German culture. His life reads like a novel."--Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota

"This is a remarkable book. Reich-Ranicki has produced a beautifully written and sharply observed testament to a lifelong love/hate relationship with the Germany that fascinated him as a youth, destroyed his family and his prewar world, and finally--ambivalently and deeply ironically--anointed him as its pope of literature."--Atina Grossmann, Cooper Union

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton Univ Dept of Art &
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691090408
• ISBN 13: 9780691090405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 407