Imatge de l'autor

Deirdre Bair (1935–2020)

Autor/a de Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography

10 obres 1,588 Membres 19 Ressenyes 1 preferits

Sobre l'autor

Deirdre Bair received the National Book Award for Samuel Beckett: A Biography. She has been a literary journalist and university professor of comparative literature. Her biographies of Anais Nin and Simone de Beauvoir were also prize finalists, and she was awarded fellowships from (among others) mostra'n més the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations and the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. She divides her time between New York and Connecticut mostra'n menys

Obres de Deirdre Bair

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Nom oficial
Bartolotta, Deirdre (birth name)
Bair, Deirdre
Data de naixement
1935-06-21
Data de defunció
2020-04-17
Gènere
female
Nacionalitat
USA
Lloc de defunció
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Causa de la mort
heart failure
Educació
University of Pennsylvania (BA, 1957)
Columbia University (MA, 1968; PhD, 1972)
Professions
biographer
scholar of comparative literature
university professor
journalist
Organitzacions
The New Haven Register
Newsweek
University of Pennsylvania
Premis i honors
National Book Award (1981)
Gradiva Award (2004)
Biografia breu
Award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair also writes frequently about feminist issues and culture. She is a former professor of comparative literature.

Membres

Ressenyes

When journalist turned biographer Deirdre Bair decided to expand on her doctoral thesis to write a biography of Samuel Beckett she surprised herself by garnering his agreement. Beckett said he “would neither help nor hinder” her efforts to write “this business of my life,” as he referred to the biography. Although he agreed to be interviewed repeatedly Beckett wouldn’t allow her to take notes or record their conversations. The book won a National Book Award in 1981 and took seven years to research, write and publish. It also took a toll on her personal and professional life, eliciting jealousy and hostility from “Becketteers” and others who felt she wasn’t the right person for the job.

Bair also wrote a biography of Simone de Beauvoir, a ten year effort. She got to know Beauvoir’s friends, family and many other feminists in that decade. Her descriptions of the interview, writing and travel process for both books, as well as how it all affected the other areas of her life as a professor, wife and mother, are fascinating. Bair provides true insight to the life and methods of a biographer.

Bair writes of the difficulties of being taken seriously as a woman, journalist and biographer, both in academia and the literary world. She feels it was an “almost unbelievable privilege to know and write about these two giants of contemporary culture.” She describes the experience well in this book.
… (més)
½
 
Marcat
Hagelstein | Hi ha 5 ressenyes més | Oct 21, 2022 |
One of the best biographies I ever read. It is very thoroughly researched and well written story of an exceptional life.
 
Marcat
Marietje.Halbertsma | Hi ha 3 ressenyes més | Jan 9, 2022 |
How does an author go about writing a biography of a well known subject, while refraining from judgement, creating controversy, maintaining a good working relationship with the subject and the people around them? In this "bio-memoir Deirdre Bair relates her experiences, struggles and reactions while first compiling the biography of Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir.
It was a revelation for me to see how much time, money, effort and negotiating goes into the research for a biography. This is a book about Bair herself, not about Beckett or de Beauvoir. I read it as a personal memoir , and as such it is engaging, honest and important.

I received this book in a giveaway, and I am glad to have read it.
… (més)
 
Marcat
Marietje.Halbertsma | Hi ha 5 ressenyes més | Jan 9, 2022 |
More a memoir than an autobiography, the author discusses her experiences writing first the biography of Samuel Beckett, because she decided as a young graduate student doing a dissertation on him that he needed a biography and she was the one to write it. Having never written a biography, and not having read biographies, she nonetheless sent a letter to Beckett in Paris. The bulk of the book discusses the seven years she worked with him and his circle, and the aftermath of writing a biography of a man so revered, with so many scholars who believed they knew his work better than anyone else, and all that by a young woman, in an age where biographies written by women were not usually read by men. Flushed with the success at achieving what at times seemed unachievable, she sends a letter to Simone de Beauvoir, and in spite of being told by publishers that no one wants to read the biography of an old French feminist, she proceeds to spend the next ten years working on the book. She found a publisher, and it became a bestseller, unlike the Beckett book, which had decent success. What is most striking to me is the difference between the two strong-willed individuals and their circle of friends. The weird coldness of Beckett's world is contrasted with the warmth of Beauvoir's world, and the circle of friends who do some of the jockeying for position, but none of the odd and possibly psychotic behavior she encountered with Beckett. Not a how to book on biography; you will not learn how to do that here. Not a biography of either subject, but a memoir of the author's time with them. She takes you tantalizingly close to answers she was seeking from the subjects, but leaves you hanging in the end, possibly with the hope that you will run out and buy the biographies.… (més)
 
Marcat
Devil_llama | Hi ha 5 ressenyes més | Jul 1, 2021 |

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Estadístiques

Obres
10
Membres
1,588
Popularitat
#16,243
Valoració
3.9
Ressenyes
19
ISBN
71
Llengües
11
Preferit
1

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