New Releases by Francine Prose

From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Reading Like a Writer and Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris, 1932 comes an utterly original novel inspired by the strange friendship between Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen and set during the summer when Dickens's family life exploded. In the summer of 1857, when British newspapers warned of an approaching comet about to destroy the earth, an unusual-looking stranger arrived at Charles Dickens's home, Gad's Hill, in the countryside outside London. Dickens had met Hans Christian Andersen at a dinner party, a decade before, and, in a moment of desperation, had invited him to visit. The visit did not go well. The eccentric Danish author of classic fairy tales, who barely spoke English, outstayed his welcome and alienated the Dickens household, which included nine children. Even the oblivious, obsessively self-conscious Andersen sensed the increasing tension between Dickens and his unhappy wife, Catherine, but was slow to understand—or to believe—that Dickens had fallen in love with a young actress appearing in his new play. For Andersen, those five weeks were a series of social mistakes and embarrassments but ultimately a lesson in how life's most humbling experiences can be transformed into art. Five Weeks in the Country, a work of imaginative fiction inspired by actual events, is Francine Prose at her dazzling best.

“In this remarkable memoir, the qualities that have long distinguished Francine Prose’s fiction and criticism—uncompromising intelligence, a gratifying aversion to sentiment, the citrus bite of irony—give rigor and, finally, an unexpected poignancy to an emotional, artistic, and political coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s—the decade, as she memorably puts it, when American youth realized that the changes that seemed possible in the ’60s weren’t going to happen. A fascinating and ultimately wrenching book.”—Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million The first memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers--and the year when our country changed. During her twenties, Francine Prose lived in San Francisco, where she began an intense and strange relationship with Tony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around San Francisco, listening to his stories--and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York. What happens to them mirrors the events and preoccupations of that historical moment: the Vietnam war, drugs, women's liberation, the Patty Hearst kidnapping. At once heartfelt and ironic, funny and sad, personal and political, 1974 provides an insightful look at how Francine Prose became a writer and artist during a time when the country, too, was shaping its identity.

A feminist reinterpretation of the myths surrounding Cleopatra casts new light on the Egyptian queen and her legacy “A thoughtful, sympathetic portrait of a legendary historical figure.”—Kirkus Reviews The siren passionately in love with Mark Antony, the seductress who allegedly rolled out of a carpet she had herself smuggled in to see Caesar, Cleopatra is a figure shrouded in myth. Beyond the legends immortalized by Plutarch, Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and others, there are no journals or letters written by Cleopatra herself. All we have to tell her story are words written by others. What has it meant for our understanding of Cleopatra to have had her story told by writers who had a political agenda, authors who distrusted her motives, and historians who believed she was a liar? Francine Prose delves into ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, as well as modern representations of Cleopatra in art, theater, and film, to challenge past narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offer a new interpretation of Cleopatra’s history through the lens of our current era.

“Tender and artful . . . a gently spiritual celebration of life.” —New York Times Book Review Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Francine Prose weaves an ingenious, darkly humorous, and brilliantly observant story that follows the exploits and intrigue of a constellation of characters affiliated with an off-off-off-off Broadway children’s musical Mister Monkey—a screwball children’s musical about a playfully larcenous pet chimpanzee—is the kind of family favorite that survives far past its prime. Margot, who plays the chimp’s lawyer, knows the production is dreadful and bemoans the failure of her acting career. She’s settled into the drudgery of playing a humiliating part—until the day she receives a mysterious letter from an anonymous admirer . . . and later, in the middle of a performance, has a shocking encounter with Adam, the twelve-year-old who plays the title role. Francine Prose’s effervescent comedy is told from the viewpoints of wildly unreliable, seemingly disparate characters whose lives become deeply connected as the madcap narrative unfolds. There is Adam, whose looming adolescence informs his interpretation of his role; Edward, a young audience member who is candidly unimpressed with the play; Ray, the author of the novel on which the musical is based, who witnesses one of the most awkward first dates in literature; and even the eponymous Mister Monkey, the Monkey God himself. With her trademark wit and verve, Prose delves into humanity’s most profound mysteries: art, ambition, childhood, aging, and love. Startling and captivating, Mister Monkey is a breathtaking novel from a writer at the height of her craft.

Per quale ragione «L’ho sposato, lettore mio» è una delle frasi più celebri e citate della letteratura inglese? La risposta, tutt’altro che ovvia, risiede nel capolavoro da cui è tratta: Jane Eyre (1847), la storia di un’orfana che, grazie alla sola intelligenza e caparbietà, riesce a convolare a nozze con il nobile signor Rochester. Per affermare il suo successo, e il cambiamento della propria condizione sociale, invece di dichiarare «mi ha sposata, lettore mio» – com’era da aspettarsi nella maschilista società vittoriana – Jane dice: «l’ho sposato, lettore mio». Una sfumatura nella forma verbale che ha lo scopo di rimarcare la coscienza femminile della protagonista, e quella dell’autrice Charlotte Brontë, e che si ergerà a manifesto, ispirazione e stimolo per tutte le scrittrici a venire. Quando Tracy Chevalier ha chiesto alle migliori autrici in lingua inglese di raccontare una storia ispirata a quella celebre battuta, non l’ha fatto solo per festeggiare i duecento anni della nascita di Charlotte Brontë, ma anche per ridare significato a quelle parole, per renderle di nuovo vive e attuali nella società odierna. «In alcuni racconti sono le nozze stesse a essere drammatiche, a causa di una dolorosa scheggia di vetro in Coppia mista di Linda Grant, o di un mutamento improvviso in Il matrimonio di mia madre di Tessa Hadley, o di un rapporto clandestino durante una cerimonia in Zambia, in Uomini doppi di Namwali Serpell, o di un incontro gotico nel fango della brughiera in Tenersi per mano di Joanna Briscoe», dice Chevalier. In altri, come La prima volta che vidi il tuo viso di Emma Donoghue, la frase di Jane Eyre diventa il trampolino di lancio per viaggiare indietro nel tempo, fino alla Germania di fine Ottocento, dove Miss Hall e Mary Benson, la moglie dell’arcivescovo di Canterbury, si macchiano del peccato di un amore saffico. Se in Lo scambio Audrey Niffenegger colloca Jane nel mondo contemporaneo, in un paese dilaniato dalla guerra, la penna originale ed eccentrica di Helen Dunmore si diverte a raccontare Jane Eyre dal punto di vista della governante ingelosita, mentre Tracy Chevalier – con la maestria che l’ha resa una delle scrittrici più lette e amate d’Italia, «in grado di donare il soffio della vita al romanzo storico» (Independent) – dipinge la relazione sentimentale di una coppia male assortita, «come margherite e gladioli, come pizzo e cuoio». Il risultato è una collezione di ventuno storie d’amore, diversissime per sensibilità, scrittura e intenzioni, che ruotano attorno a una medesima eroina dai mille volti: una donna determinata e coraggiosa, che combatte per vincere i pregiudizi e gli ostacoli della società. E che non ha paura di affermare la propria identità dicendo, a testa alta, con un sorriso affaticato ma fiero: io «l’ho sposato, lettore mio». Ventuno storie per celebrare Charlotte Brontë e Jane Eyre Racconti di: Tracy Chevalier, Tessa Hadley, Sarah Hall, Helen Dunmore, Kirsty Gunn, Joanna Briscoe, Jane Gardam, Emma Donoghue, Susan Hill, Francine Prose, Elif Shafak, Evie Wyld, Patricia Park, Salley Vickers, Nadifa Mohamed, Esther Freud, Linda Grant, Lionel Shriver, Audrey Niffenegger, Namwali Serpell, Elizabeth McCracken

Per festeggiare i 200 anni della nascita di Charlotte Brontë, Tracy Chevalier ha chiesto alle migliori autrici in lingua inglese di scrivere una storia ispirata alla celebre battuta di Jane Eyre: «L’ho sposato, lettore mio». Questo racconto fa parte della raccolta dedicata a Charlotte Brontë: L’ho sposato, lettore mio a cura di TRACY CHEVALIER

A deluxe Harper Perennial Legacy Edition, with an introduction from Francine Prose, award-winning and New York Times best-selling author of Reading Like a Writer George Eliot’s beloved classic novel—hailed by Virginia Woolf as “masterful”—follows the life, loves, foibles, and politics of the residents of a fictional English town set amid the social unrest during the Industrial Revolution. A sprawling work set in a provincial English town, Middlemarch boasts a large cast of characters whose stories interweave against a backdrop of political upheaval. Instead of choosing to wed a wealthy landowner and settle for a comfortable life, Dorothea Brooke decides to marry Edward Casaubon—a dull scholar who is her senior by a few decades. Dorothea hopes the union will afford her with the opportunity to share in her husband’s intellectual pursuits, but even her best efforts can’t save the disastrous marriage. Meanwhile, idealistic doctor Tertius Lydgate has progressive ideas about the medical field, and he believes the village of Middlemarch is the place that will embrace his beliefs. But when he weds Rosamond Vincy, the mayor’s beautiful daughter, his ideals come into stark contrast with his new bride’s materialism and vanity, dooming their marriage from the start. Lastly, Rosamond's brother, Fred, is reluctantly destined for the Church. But his childhood sweetheart Mary Garth refuses to accept him until he settles into a more suitable career and one that interests him. But when circumstances lead to Fred losing a sizeable fortune that sets off a calamitous turn of events, he must reevaluate the choices he has made. As The Guardian notes, Middlemarch “looms above the mid-Victorian literary landscape like a cathedral of words,” offering readers a pivotal shaping of literary realism. Middlemarch is a masterwork of fiction that is as timely today as when it was first published.

One of twentieth-century America’s most influential patrons of the arts, Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) brought to wide public attention the work of such modern masters as Jackson Pollock and Man Ray. In her time, there was no stronger advocate for the groundbreaking and the avant-garde. Her midtown gallery was the acknowledged center of the postwar New York art scene, and her museum on the Grand Canal in Venice remains one of the world’s great collections of modern art. Yet as renowned as she was for the art and artists she so tirelessly championed, Guggenheim was equally famous for her unconventional personal life, and for her ironic, playful desire to shock. Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a singular reading of Guggenheim’s life that will enthrall enthusiasts of twentieth-century art, as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries, to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs, and Prose delivers a colorful portrait of a defiantly uncompromising woman who maintained a powerful upper hand in a male-dominated world. Prose also explores the ways in which Guggenheim’s image was filtered through the lens of insidious antisemitism.

A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself. Paris in the 1920s shimmers with excitement, dissipation, and freedom. It is a place of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the club’s loyal denizens, including the rising Hungarian photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol; and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine. As the years pass, their fortunes—and the world itself—evolve. Lou falls desperately in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with startlingly vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting portrait of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis—sparked by tumultuous events—that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more.

Terry Winters' prints explore an enormous range of themes, from botany and biology to math and information technology. He has worked in nearly every mode of printmaking, including etching, screen-printing, lithography, and wood engraving. Frequently organized in serial groupings, Winters' prints display free floating cellular structures or clusters of spirals, knots, grids, and networks. His forcefully made works are rich in ambiguity and allusion. This book features fifty beautiful reproductions, accompanied by insightful texts and comparative paintings and drawings. The complete catalog of Winters' prints made between 1999 and 2014 is also included here, along with an essay by novelist and critic Francine Prose. AUTHOR: Michael Semff is Director of the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. Elizabeth Finch is the Lunder Curator of American Art at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine. 80 illustrations

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher A Fork in the Road: Tales of Food, Pleasure and Discovery on the Road 2014 James Beard Award Nominee and 2014 Society of Travel Writers Foundation Thomas Lowell Travel Journalism Bronze Award Winner for Travel Book Join us at the table for this 34-course banquet of original stories from food-obsessed writers and chefs sharing their life-changing food experiences. The dubious joy of a Twinkie, the hunger-sauced rhapsody of fish heads, the grand celebration of an Indian wedding feast; the things we eat and the people we eat with remain powerful signposts in our memories, long after the plates have been cleared. Tuck in, and bon appetit! Featuring tales from: James Oseland, Frances Mayes, Giles Coren, Curtis Stone, Annabel Langbein, Neil Perry, Tamasin Day-Lewis, Jay Rayner, Madhur Jaffrey, Michael Pollan, Josh Ozersky, Marcus Samuelsson, Naomi Duguid, Jane and Michael Stern, Francine Prose, Ma Thanegi, Kaui Hart Hemmings, Rita Mae Brown, Monique Truong, Fuschia Dunlop, David Kamp, Mas Masumoto, Daniel Vaughn, Tom Carson, Andre Aciman, MJ Hyland, Alan Richman, Beth Kracklauer, Sigrid Nunez, Chang Rae Lee, Julia Reed, Gael Greene About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, a suite of inspiring travel pictorials, literature, and references, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travelers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

The story of a troupe of actors in seventeenth- century Italy, from "one of a handful of truly indispensable American writers" (Gary Shteyngart). The Glorious Ones are an unlikely troupe of actors, traveling up and down the seventeenth-century Italian countryside performing commedia dell'arte for kings, for peasants, for anyone with coin. There is Armanda, the cheerful dwarf and ex-nun; chattering Columbina; Pantalone the miser; and the wicked Brighella—all led by Flaminio Scala, the self-proclaimed most courageous man in Christendom. But for all their wild differences, not one of them is prepared for the arrival of Isabella, their mysterious new director, who is about to turn their whole world upside down. Dramatic and imaginative, this tale of adventure, love, and theater is a historical romp from the award-winning, New York Times–bestselling author of novels, including Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, and Household Saints, as well as the literary guide book Reading Like a Writer.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award: A novel of a Polish king and a rebellious rabbi, "full of sudden delights and mocking humor" ( The New York Times). The Polish monarch has outlawed a portion of the Jewish funeral rite, and none of the community's lawyers, judges, or scholars will come forward to defend the custom before the crown. Only one man dares challenge the sovereign: the spindly old Rabbi Eliezer of Rimanov, whose eccentric habits conceal the mind of a dreamer and the curiosity of a child. The rabbi is reduced to laughter at the sight of the king, for the country's ruler is but a boy—and Rabbi Eliezer knows how to speak to youngsters. They make a bet: If the rabbi can convince him that there is more to the universe than meets the eye, the funeral rite will be restored. To make his case, Eliezer launches into the story of Judah ben Simon, a tale of such majesty and wonder that it promises to make a dreamer out of all who hear it, changing them forevermore. Judah the Pious is a lively, early novel set in seventeenth-century Poland by one of today's most accomplished writers, a National Book Award finalist and the New York Times–bestselling author of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man; and Reading Like a Writer.

From the "wonderfully quirky imagination" of the New York Times–bestselling author: A tabloid reporter is surprised to find magic in a mundane world ( The New York Times). Vera Pearl is a staff writer for This Week, a supermarket tabloid which trades in the bizarre and the absurd—though rarely, if ever, the true. No one is better than Vera at imagining these weird, wild stories, because more than anything, she wants them to be real. During one particularly slow week, Vera takes a photograph snapped by a colleague showing two children selling lemonade outside their Brooklyn home and drafts up a scoop to fit the snap, the story of two enterprising children who have discovered—and are profiting off of—the literal Fountain of Youth. By astonishing coincidence—or perhaps by magic—the details she concocts about the children (except for the properties of the tap water) turn out to be true, and hundreds of miracle-seekers descend upon this modern Lourdes-in-Flatbush. The resulting lawsuit sends this master of hoaxes into a very real tailspin: she is fired, her estranged husband flies in from Los Angeles to whisk away their precocious young daughter, and Vera takes off for Arizona to attend a meeting of the Cryptobiological Society, hoping for evidence of their furry quarry, Bigfoot. Just one glance, and Vera's longing to finally transcend the quotidian may come true . . .

An "irresistibly readable" pair of novellas skewering Americans abroad—by the New York Times–bestselling author and National Book Award finalist ( The New York Times Book Review). "In a style that is bold, witty, richly detailed, and suffused with a wry subtlety," Francine Prose offers penetrating portraits of Americans in Europe who have brought all their baggage—ego, ambition, sexual desire—with them ( Elle). Guided Tours of Hell When the insecure (and rightfully so) playwright Landau travels from New York to Prague to read at the first annual Kafka conference, he's certain this is his chance to prove himself—and his work. But he quickly finds himself upstaged by Jiri Krakauer, a charismatic Holocaust survivor whose claim to fame is a long-ago death-camp love affair with Kafka's sister. On a group tour to the camp-turned-tourist-attraction, Landau sets out to prove that Krakauer is lying—with unexpected results. Three Pigs in Five Days Ambitious young journalist Nina has been stranded in Paris by her editor and sometimes boyfriend, Leo. When he finally shows up, playfully suggesting a romantic tour of the catacombs, prisons, and shadows of the City of Light, the bloom begins to come off the rose for the infatuated Nina—who must ask herself how much of herself she is willing to sacrifice for love.

A dark house. An isolated island. Strange dreams and even stranger visions . . . Jack is spending the summer on a private island far from modern conveniences. No Wi-Fi, no cell service, no one else on the island but a housekeeper and the two very peculiar children in his care. The first time Jack sees the huge black mansion atop a windswept hill, he senses something cold, something more sinister than even the dark house itself. Soon, he feels terribly isolated and alone. Yet he is not alone. The house has visitors—peering in the windows, staring from across the shore. But why doesn't anyone else see them . . . and what do they want? As secrets are revealed and darker truths surface, Jack desperately struggles to maintain a grip on reality. He knows what he sees, and he isn't crazy. . . . Or is he? From nationally acclaimed author Francine Prose comes a mind-bending story that will leave you realizing how subtle the lines that separate reality, imagination, and insanity really are.

In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humor and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart – to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O’Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Brontë’s structural nuance and Charles Dickens’s deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.

“Francine Prose is a world-classsatirist who’s also a world-class storyteller.”—Russell Banks Francine Prose captures contemporary America at itsmost hilarious and dreadful in My New American Life, a darkly humorousnovel of mismatched aspirations, Albanian gangsters, and the ever-elusiveAmerican dream. Following her New York Times bestselling novels BlueAngel and A Changed Man, Prose delivers the darkly humorous storyof Lula, a twenty-something Albanian immigrant trying to find stability andcomfort in New York City in the charged aftermath of 9/11. Set at the frontlines of a cultural war between idealism and cynicism, inalienable rights andimplacable Homeland Security measures, My New American Life is a movingand sardonic journey alongside a cast of characters exploring what it means tobe American.

Though mocked by the rest of the villagers, poor Schmuel the shoemaker turns out to be a very special person.

Ninth-grader Maisie's concepts of friendship, loyalty, self-acceptance, and truth are tested to their limit after a school bus incident with the three boys who have been her best friends since early childhood.

All loved, and were loved by, their artists, and inspired them with an intensity of emotion akin to Eros. In a brilliant, wry, and provocative book, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose explores the complex relationship between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process.

During a recent stint in Rome (on a Rome Prize Fellowship), photographer Tim Davis became drawn to the peculiar status of ancient ruins. "You are standing in a field in Italy, looking at a pile of rocks. You've seen rocks and these are rocks. But someone else--a friend, a guidebook, a scholar--sees a temple . . ." Fascinated with the degree of meaning making that we bring to bear upon such minimal visual cues, Davis tested this perceptual shift on suburban ruins--what he calls "a soon-to-be ancient past"--and found that it was possible to make pictures that "look like archaeology, but might just be the side of the road." The photographs in The New Antiquity trigger in the viewer that wonderful cognitive bafflement of which Davis is a virtuoso: a kind of "seeing as" that allows us to completely reconceive what is actually quite ordinary (albeit beautifully photographed) everyday imagery. The New Antiquity proves that the suburban landscape is uniform and global not only in its pristine props, but also in its decay. And as Davis notes, "The Imperial Romans did the same, shipping marble from Tunis to Turkey. This New Antiquity doesn't come from a centralized authority, but spreads virulently through all fertile capital markets. And its rise and ruin occur quickly . . ."

Paintings of: 50 Cent, Common, Don "Magic" Juan, Duke, Easy Mo Bee, Lil Jon, Marc Ecko, Reverend Run, Russell Simmons, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, Whoo Kid

Un après-midi à Manhattan, Vincent, un jeune néonazi, entre dans les locaux d'une fondation de défense des droits de l'homme fondée par Meyer Maslow, un survivant de l'Holocauste. Il annonce qu'après avoir lu les livres de Maslow, il veut changer radicalement, lui qui est couvert de tatouages nazis proclame qu'il a pour mission de sauver des types comme lui pour les empêcher de devenir des types comme lui. En changeant progressivement pour atteindre ses objectifs, Vincent change aussi ceux qui l'entourent : Maslow qui a peur que l'héroïsme ne devienne un travail de bureau ; Bonnie, chargée de lever des fonds, divorcée et mère seule, dévouée à la croisade de Maslow ; et Danny, l'adolescent qui ouvre les yeux sur le monde. L'humour noir illumine et met à nu ce qui demeure invisible à notre culture consommatrice, droguée et manipulée par les médias. Un homme changé pose des questions essentielles : qu'est-ce qui fait la valeur d'une vie ? Est-il possible de changer ? Qu'est-ce que signifie être humain ? L'effrayante intelligence, l'esprit et l'humanité de ce roman font de Francine Prose un auteur majeur.

After the death of his estranged father in the World Trade Center on 9/11, thirteen-year-old Bart, still struggling with his feelings of guilt, sorrow and loss, wins a scholarship to the local preparatory school and there encounters a vicious bully whose cruelty compounds the aftermath of the tragedy.

Mucho antes de que existieran talleres y cursos de escritura creativa, los aspirantes a escritores aprendían a escribir leyendo a sus predecesores y a sus contemporáneos. Ésta es la propuesta en la que profundiza la novelista y profesora de literatura Francine Prose: volver a emplear la lectura atenta y consciente de los grandes escritores para descubrir sus magistrales mecanismos literarios como técnica de aprendizaje para el escritor en ciernes; en definitiva, aprender a leer como lo hace un escritor. Prose nos invita así a un viaje guiado que desentraña muchas de las herramientas y trucos del oficio empleados por escritores tan perdurables como Dostoievski, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf o Chéjov. Asimismo, sus clarificadores comentarios sobre las decisiones narrativas adoptadas por los escritores se detienen, entre otros, en temas como: la importancia de la elección de palabras en Paul Bowles; la construcción de magníficas frases largas en Philip Roth y de igualmente efectivas frases cortas en Raymond Carver; la calculada y sabia partición en párrafos en Isaak Babel; la brillante creación de personajes en George Elliot; los medidos diálogos generadores de trama por sí mismos en John Le Carré; el uso del detalle revelador en Flannery O’Connor; las sutilezas narrativas en Nabokov o el magistral empleo de los gestos para crear personajes en James Joyce y Katherine Mansfield. Además de abrirnos un basto horizonte para empezar a escribir ficción con eficacia narrativa, Prose nos enseña también a mejorar nuestra agudeza lectora misma, y no sólo a leer sino a escuchar a los demás en la vida real, un añadido del todo generoso en los tiempos que corren, y que se suma a su objetivo principal, que es ofrecer unas verdaderas lecciones privadas sobre el arte de la literatura de ficción.