Racconti

by Ian McEwan, Stefania Bertola (Translator)

Overview

In un solo volume tutta la produzione «breve» di Ian McEwan - ovverosia le short stories comprese nelle raccolte Primo amore, ultimi riti (1975) e Fra le lenzuola (1978) - per offrire al lettore l'intera gamma della scrittura (e degli incubi) dell'allora giovanissimo scrittore inglese. I primi racconti attraversano ossessioni e atmosfere inquietanti, rapporti familiari morbosi, amori torbidi, bambini tormentati da inaudite crudeltà fisiche e psicologiche. Negli altri, il ritmo incalzante e la forte tensione ci introducono in un universo in bilico tra visioni oniriche e desolante realtà, allucinazioni solitarie e sempre vani tentativi di comunicare: uno scimmione che si lascia dominare da una scrittrice inaridita; un manichino con sembianze femminili che prima appaga e poi distrugge le piú folli speranze feticistiche; la violenza che esplode in una serie di ambigui oggetti lucenti (spade, lucchetti, bisturi)...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788858416679
Publisher:	EINAUDI
Publication date:	10/14/2014
Sold by:	GIULIO EINAUDI EDITORE - EBKS
Format:	eBook
File size:	963 KB
Language:	Italian

About the Author

One of the most distinguished novelists of his generation, Ian McEwan was born in England and spent much of his childhood traveling with his father, an army officer stationed in the Far East, Germany, and North Africa. He graduated from Sussex University in 1970 with a degree in English Literature and received his MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.

McEwan burst upon the literary scene in the mid-1970s with two short story collections that highlighted with equal clarity his early predilection for disturbing, somewhat shocking subject matter and his dazzling prose style. Similarly, his 1978 debut novel, The Cement Garden, attracted as much attention for its unsettling storyline as for its stylistic brilliance. But even though his early work was saturated with deviant sex, violence, and death (so much so that he earned the nickname "Ian MacAbre"), he was never dismissed as a mere purveyor of cheap thrills. In fact, two of his most provocative works (The Comfort of Strangers and Enduring Love) were shortlisted for major U.K. awards.

As he has matured, McEwan has moved away from disquieting themes like incest, sadism, and psychotic obsession to explore more introspective human dramas. In an interview with The New Republic he described his literary evolution in this way:

"One passes the usual milestones in life: You have children, you find that whether you like it or not, you have a huge investment in the human project somehow succeeding. You become maybe a little more tolerant as you get older. Pessimism begins to feel something like a badge that you perhaps do not wear so easily. There is something delicious and reckless about the pessimism of being 21. And when you get older you feel maybe a little more delicate and hope that things will flourish. You don't want to take a stick to it."

Among many literary honors, McEwan has been awarded the Somerset Maugham Award for First Love, Last Rites (1976) and the Whitbread Prize for The Child in Time (1987). Nominated three times for the Booker Prize, he finally won in 1998 for Amsterdam. He has also received the WH Smith Literary Award and National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award for Atonement (2001) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Saturday (2005).

Hometown:

Oxford, England

Date of Birth:

June 21, 1948

Place of Birth:

Aldershot, England

Education:

B.A., University of Sussex, 1970; M.A., University of East Anglia, 1971

Website:

http://www.ianmcewan.com