The Genius of Language : Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongues (Paperback)
by Wendy Lesser

In Stock.

FREE Express Shipping for Club Members

  • Online Price
    $13.95
 

Connect with BAM!

Share this with a friend

See what others are saying

 

0 Ratings

 
 
 

Quick Links:
Overview
Details
Customer Reviews
Discussion
eBook
Online Price: $11.99		Download
This item is available only to U.S. billing addresses.

New & Used Marketplace 17 copies from $2.99
 
 
 
Overview
Fifteen outstanding writers answered editor Wendy Lesser's call for original essays on the subject of language-the one they grew up with, and the English in which they write.
Despite American assumptions about polite Chinese discourse, Amy Tan believes that there was nothing discreet about the Chinese language with which she grew up. Leonard Michaels spoke only Yiddish until he was five, and still found its traces in his English language writing. Belgian-born Luc Sante loved his French Tintin and his Sartre, but only in English could he find "words of one syllable" that evoke American bars and bus stops. And although Louis Begley writes novels in English and addresses family members in Polish, he still speaks French with his wife-the language of their courtship.
As intimate as one's dreams, as private as a secret identity, these essays examine and reveal the writers' pride, pain, and pleasure in learning a new tongue, revisiting an old one, and reconciling the joys and frustrations of each.

 
 
 
Details
  • ISBN-13: 9781400033232
  • ISBN-10: 1400033233
  • Publisher: Anchor Books
  • Publish Date: July 2005
  • Page Count: 241

Related Categories

Books > Literary Criticism > English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
 
 
 
Customer Reviews

 
 

DISCUSSION