A writer's public life is not -- as is often thought -- a round of glamorous parties, prize-acceptance speeches, and triumphant readings to amphitheatres full of loyal, cheering fans; it is, in fact, a grim treadmill of humiliation and neglect. Mortification sets the record straight, once and for all. A collection of seventy specially commissioned contributions -- true stories of public indignity by some of our finest living writers -- this is a celebration of defeat, and a chance to indulge in that most malicious of pleasures: schadenfreude.
You will read about dashed hopes and collapsing bowels, thwarted desire and unimpeded drinking; of fans queuing up for Stephen King's blood; Margaret Drabble bidding at a mock slave auction in Dallas; Louis de Bernières and the S&amp;M prostitute; A. L. Kennedy's disintegrating trousers; William Boyd endorsing Shake 'n' Vac; Margaret Atwood's on-air brush with the Colostomy Association; about an author wanting to kill a member of her audience or another succeeding (accidentally) in killing his host's beloved pet.
These are the best kind of stories: those told against the teller. While readers may be transfixed by the baroque twists of fate, the toe-curling embarrassments, the body's betrayals, and the mind's vanishing acts, they will also wonder at these writers' brave acknowledgment of their own vulnerability and the willingness to expose their shame, a second time, before the public.

Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame

Literature & Fiction

ROBERTSON, ROBIN

Essays & Correspondence

Harper

A wonderful tight clean copy,a first edition protected in a new brodart wrapper, no inscriptions, unclipped dustjacket, this is not an Ex-Lib or a BCE/BOMC edition.\n\nA writer's public life is not -- as is often thought -- a round of glamorous parties, prize-acceptance speeches, and triumphant readings to amphitheatres full of loyal, cheering fans; it is, in fact, a grim treadmill of humiliation and neglect. Mortification sets the record straight, once and for all. A collection of seventy specially commissioned contributions -- true stories of public indignity by some of our finest living writers -- this is a celebration of defeat, and a chance to indulge in that most malicious of pleasures: schadenfreude. \n\nYou will read about dashed hopes and collapsing bowels, thwarted desire and unimpeded drinking; of fans queuing up for Stephen King's blood; Margaret Drabble bidding at a mock slave auction in Dallas; Louis de Bernières and the S&M prostitute; A. L. Kennedy's disintegrating trousers; William Boyd endorsing Shake 'n' Vac; Margaret Atwood's on-air brush with the Colostomy Association; about an author wanting to kill a member of her audience or another succeeding (accidentally) in killing his host's beloved pet.

Mortification

HarperCollins Publishers Canada, Limited

A collection of stories from some of the world's greatest writers about their own public humiliation. Humiliation is not, of course, unique to writers. However, the world of letters does seem to offer a near-perfect micro-climate for embarrassment and shame. There is something about the conjunction of high-mindedness and low income that is inherently comic; something about the very idea of deeply private thoughts -- carefully worked and honed into art over the years -- being presented to a public audience of dubious strangers, that strays perilously close to tragedy. Here, in over eighty contributions, are stories about the writer's audience, the fellow readers, the organiser, the venue, the 'hospitality', or the often interminable journey there and back. Then there are the experiences of teaching and being taught, reviewing and being reviewed, of festivals and writers' retreats, symposia, signing sessions, literary parties and prizes, the trips abroad, with all the attendant joys of translation and, finally, the bright worlds of television and radio that can bring so many more people to share in your shame. reader, apart from the sheer schadenfreude of it all, there is admiration too: for that acknowledgement of human frailty, of punctured pride, but also of the seeming absurdity of trying to bring private art into the public space. Contributions from, amongst others: Simon Armitage, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Louis de Bernieres, Margaret Drabble, Roddy Doyle, AL Kennedy, John Lanchester, Patrick McCabe, Rick Moody, Andrew Motion, Andrew O'Hagan, Colm Toibin, Irvine Welsh, James Wood.

Harper-perennial

Humiliation is not, of course, unique to writers. However, the world of letters does seem to offer a near-perfect micro-climate for embarrassment and shame. There is something about the conjunction of high-mindedness and low income that is inherently comic; something about the very idea of deeply private thoughts - carefully worked and honed into art over the years - being presented to a public audience of dubious strangers, that strays perilously close to tragedy. These seventy contributions prove it is possible to reverse Auden's dictum: that art is born out of humiliation.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Bacchae

A bold new translation of Euripides’ shockingly modern classic work, from Forward Prize-winning poet, Robin Robertson, with a new introduction by bestselling and award-winning writer, critic and translator Daniel Mendelsohn.
Thebes has been rocked by the arrival of Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy. Drawn by the god’s power, the women of the city have rushed to worship him on the mountain, drinking and dancing with frenzied abandon.
Pentheus, the king of Thebes, is furious, denouncing this so-called “god” as a charlatan and an insurgent. But no mortal can deny a god, much less one as powerful and seductive as Dionysus, who will exact a terrible revenge on Pentheus, drawing the king to his own tragic destruction.
This stunning translation by award-winning poet Robin Robertson reinvigorates Euripides’ masterpiece. Updating it for contemporary readers, he brings the ancient verse to fervid, brutal life, revealing a work of art as devastating and relevant today as it was in the fifth century, BC.

Mendelsohn, Daniel

Eurípides

Dramas & Plays

Ecco

In “a first book of extraordinary gifts and assured maturity” (W. S. Merwin), Robin Robertson gives us forty-two poems that “are deep, dark journeys into the soul and psyche of human experience” (NPR’s Weekend Edition). “The reader is almost blinded by the incandescent authority of these poems” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

A Painted Field

Poetry

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Strongly rooted in the wonders of the natural world, this collection of poems strikes a balance along the mind's boundaries, looking outward and inward. Combining a cool gaze with a precise clarity of expression, the verse is muscular and delicate, spare and musical. From "that net of birds / that moves / unloosened / under bridges at dusk" to "the sea / wrecking itself against the rocks," Robertson is a master of evocative depiction. Filled with an irrepressible zest for life, he traces the arc of loss, the search for grace, and the radiance and shadows of life with a subtlety that is at once exhilarating and sensual.

Slow Air: Poems

In these forty-two poems, Robin Robertson demonstrates an astonishing range of style and concerns, in a voice that is utterly original. Whether he is rendering a dramatic new version of Ovid ("The Flaying of Marsyas") or celebrating the ambiguous pleasures of food ("Artichoke"), Robertson's poetry is always lucid, sensuous, and compelling. These are poems that speak of the wounds of memory, the implacable coupling of desire and loss, the fugitive nature of things. Elegant and profound, A Painted Field has proved a stunning debut.

A Painted Field: Poems

Self-Help

Relationships

To "swither" means to suffer indecision or doubt, but there is no faltering in these poems; any uncertainty is not in the lines or the sounds or the images, but only in the themes of flux and change and transformation that thread their way through this powerful third collection. Robin Robertson has written a book of remarkable cohesion and range that calls on his knowledge of folklore and myth to fuse the old ways with the new. From raw, exposed poems about the end of childhood to erotically charged lyrics about the end of desire, from a brilliant retelling of the metamorphosis and death of Actaeon to the final freeing of the waters in "Holding Proteus," these are close examinations of nature--of the bright epiphanies of passion and loss. At times sombre, at times exultant, Robertson's poems are always firmly rooted in the world we see, the life we experience: original, precise, and startlingly clear. (20060713)

Swithering

Genre Fiction

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Books by ROBERTSON, ROBIN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ROBERTSON, ROBIN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame

Mortification

Mortification

Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame

Bacchae

Bacchae

A Painted Field

Slow Air: Poems

A Painted Field: Poems

Swithering