PAUL WEST
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"McPherson & Co. isn’t just an indie publisher, it’s long been a supporter of innovative contemporary writers, such as the late Paul West, once a frequent contributor to Book World. Fortunately, West’s essays from various publications have been assembled in four volumes bearing the general title 'Sheer Fiction.' In 'Sheer Fiction: Volume Four' (2007), which I hadn’t read till now, this proponent of coloratura prose sums up his own style as simply 'intense phrasing.' He certainly chooses just the right adjectives to describe Samuel Beckett’s 'fastidious, morose sentences,' while pointedly lamenting elsewhere that too many writers 'aspire to an art of no mistakes, a low aspiration.' "—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post, 10/19/2023
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"Sheer pleasure."
— Kirkus Reviews "Sheer joy." — The New York Times "Compared to his, most literary criticism is a genteel snooze"— Publishers Weekly |
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British by birth, American citizen since 1971, Mr. West authored an array of imaginative novels — including Rat Man of Paris, Lord Byron's Doctor, The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests, The Tent of Orange Mist — along with such non-fiction works as A Stroke of Genius and Words for a Deaf Daughter. His essays and reviews appeared regularly in the pages of the New York Times and The Washington Post. He lived in Ithaca, NY, traveled widely giving talks and readings, was one of the fiction judges of the 1990 National Book Award, and received many prizes and awards. Mr. West died on October 18, 2015. Fiction Love's Mansion Lord Byron's Doctor The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests The Universe, and Other Fictions Rat Man of Paris The Very Rich Hours of Count Stauffenberg Gala Colonel Mint Caliban's Filibuster I'm Expecting to Live Quite Soon Bela Lugosi's White Christmas Alley Jaggers Tenement of Clay Non-Fiction Portable People Sheer Fiction (Volumes One to Four) Out of My Depths: A Swimmer in the Universe Words for a Deaf Daughter The Snow Leopard The Modern Novel The Wine of Absurdity Byron and the Spoiler's Art I, Said the Sparrow Born: Eckington, Derbyshire, England, 1930; moved to the United States, 1961; became citizen, 1971. Education: The University of Birmingham, 1947-50, B.A. (1st class honours) 1950; Oxford University, 1950-52; Columbia University, New York, M.A. 1953. Military Service: Served in the Royal Air Force, 1954-57: flight lieutenant. Career: Assistant professor, 1957-58, and associate professor of English, 1959-62, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's. Associate professor, 1962-68, professor of English and comparative literature, and senior fellow, 1968-94, and since 1994, emeritus professor of English, Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Visiting professor of comparative literature, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1965-66; Pratt Lecturer, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1970; Crawshaw Professor of Literature, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, Fall 1972; Virginia Woolf Lecturer, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1973; Melvin Hill Visiting Professor, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, Fall 1974; writer-in-residence, Wichita State University, Kansas, 1982, and University of Arizona, Tucson, 1984; visiting professor, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1986. Contributor to New Statesman, London, 1954-62. Since 1962 regular contributor to New York Times Book Review and Washington Post Book World. Awards: Canada Council Senior fellowship, 1960; Guggenheim fellowship, 1962; Aga Khan prize (Paris Review), 1974; National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, 1980, 1985; Hazlett Memorial award, 1981; American Academy award, 1985; Pushcart prize, 1987, 1991; New York Public Library Literary Lion award, 1987; Best American Essays award, 1990; Outstanding Achievement medal, Pennsylvania State University, 1991; Grand Prix Halpérine-Kaminsky for Best Foreign Book, 1992; Lannan prize, for fiction, 1993; Distinguished Teaching award, Joint Graduate Schools of the Northeast, 1993. Homage to Paul West — The Cosmic Range of an Eccentric Genius, by Vincent Czyz
OCTOBER 18, 2016 Editorial prefatory note by Bill Marx: I have written often about Paul West, who died at the age of 85 last year [2015] on October 18th. In A Thousand Words for Paul West, I argue that he is among America’s finest writers, a proud maximalist who pressed language to its limits. And I stand by what I wrote about him in the late 1980s in an article for The Boston Phoenix: “No contemporary American prose writer can touch him for sustained rhapsodic invention — he creates a hyperbolic hymn to joy, a swashbuckling swirl of sentences. West stands as an authentic voice in the wilderness, a visionary who plugs the ghosts of history and morality into his textual dream machines.” On the one-year anniversary of West’s death, it feels necessary to hear his rampaging voice once again, making good on its lordly claim to supply “horn-of-plenty bravura.” The author of over 50 books, he rarely failed to boggle the mind, and he kicks up some stardust in this interview with Arts Fuse writer (and fellow West admirer) Vincent Czyz. A version of this piece was published in the Summer 1999 issue of New Millennium Writings. |
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