Imperial

William T. Vollmann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846880963 ISBN 13: 9781846880964

Publisher: Alma Books Ltd, 2010

For generations of migrant workers Imperial County has held the promise of paradise and the reality of hell. Sprawling across a stinking artificial sea, across the deserts, date groves and labour camps of south-eastern California, it is a land beautiful and harsh, enticing and deadly, rich in history and heartbreak. Across the border, the desert is the same, but there are different secrets. In Imperial, award-winning writer William T. Vollmann takes us deep into the heart of this haunted region, and by extension into the dark soul of American imperialism. Known for his penetrating meditations on poverty and violence, Vollmann has spent ten years doggedly investigating every facet of this bi-national area, raiding archives, exploring polluted rivers, guarded factories and Chinese tunnels, strip clubs, churches and sweatshops, talking with everyone from farmers to border patrolmen in his search for the fading American dream and its Mexican equivalent.

Review:

In an age of trash punditry, Twitter, and gnatlike attention spans, Vollmann's curiousity, forthrightness, lyricism, capaciousness, and empathy are revolutionary --Booklist, July, 2009

One of the twenty best writers in America --The NewYorker

The sheer brazen scope of the thing commands respect
and admiration --The Daily Telegraph on Europe Central

Highly serious, extremely ambitious --The Times on Europe Central

Vollmann is a master storyteller and bravura stylist... one of the most fascinating writers of our time --The Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

William T. Vollmann is the author of seventeen books, including Europe Central, winner of the National Book Award. He has also won the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Center / USA West Award, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.