From A to X: A Story in Letters - Hardcover

John Berger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844672883 ISBN 13: 9781844672882

Publisher: Verso Books, 2008

Synopsis

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008. In a dusty, ramshackle town lives A ida. Her insurgent lover Xavier has been imprisoned. Resolute, sensuous and tender, A ida s letters to the man she loves tell of daily events in the town, and of its motley collection of inhabitants whose lives flow through hers. But the area is under threat, and as a faceless power inexorably encroaches from outside, so the smallest details and acts of humanity an intimate dance, a shared meal assume for A ida a life-affirming significance, acts of resistance against the forces that might otherwise extinguish them. From A to X is a powerful exploration of how humanity affirms itself in struggle: imagining a community which, besieged by economic and military imperialism, finds transcendent hope in the pain and fragility, vulnerability and sorrow of daily existence.

About this title

Review

John Berger has given us an exquisite thing. This is a book of controlled rage sculpted with tools of tenderness and a searing political vision. Everything he writes about is profound, precise and invoiced: Liberty and the lack of it, hope and the lack of it, power and the lack of it, love and the terrible yearning that takes its place when the loved one has been taken away. --Arundhati Roy.............. From A to X is one of the most tender and poignant books I have read for many years. Its power rests in its economy of means, its account of enduring love surviving oppression. It demonstrates that however foul the forces oppressing us, love and the human spirit are indestructible. --Harold Pinter............... This little book is magic... It is original and graceful, sustained by a quiet rage. --Eileen Battersby, Irish Times, August 9th 2008............... From A to X is best understood, like all Berger's best work, as the record of one restless, committed, brilliant consciousness; a late showcase of a mind and sensibility of astonishing range and depth, which should be read as an epic poem or a lyrical essay as much as a novel. --Melissa Benn, The Independent, August 15th............... This little book is magic... It is original and graceful, sustained by a quiet rage. --Eileen Battersby, Irish Times, August 9th 2008

John Berger has found a voice perfectly fitted to express an emotional sincerity quite rare in fiction at the moment. --Ursula Le Guin, Guardian, August 16th

Superb passages of Berger's writing take on a gripping physicality and a corresponding profundity. --Richard T. Kelly, Financial Times, August 16th

Synopsis

In the dusty, ramshackle town of Suse lives A'ida. Her insurgent husband Xavier has been imprisoned. Resolute, sensuous and tender, A'ida's letters to the man she loves tell of daily events in the town, and of its motley collection of inhabitants whose lives flow through hers. But Suse is under threat, and as a faceless power inexorably encroaches from outside, so the smallest details and acts of humanity - an intimate dance, a shared meal - assume for A'ida a life-affirming significance, acts of resistance against the forces that might otherwise extinguish them. "From A to X" is a powerful exploration of how humanity affirms itself in struggle: imagining a community which, besieged by economic and military imperialism, finds transcendent hope in the pain and fragility, vulnerability and sorrow of daily existence.

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1844672883
• ISBN 13: 9781844672882
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 197