{"product_id":"alfred-kazins-america-critical-and-personal-writings-9780060512767","title":"Alfred Kazin's America: Critical and Personal Writings","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Alfred Kazin chose America as his subject, and his intellectual awakening is itself something of an American legend. . . . Ted Solotaroff's selection of his work is a fitting tribute, a book that will be a starting point for further reading, both of Kazin and of the native writers to whom he devoted himself\" -- \u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver the course of 60 years, Alfred Kazin's writings confronted virtually all of our major imaginative writers, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emily Dickinson to James Wright and Joyce Carol Oates and including such unexpected figures as Abraham Lincoln, William James and Thorstein Veblen. It is fair to say that he succeeded Edmund Wilson as the secretary of American letters. At the same time this son of immigrant Russian Jews wrote out of the tensions of the outsider and the astute, outspoken leftist.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEditor Ted Solotaroff has selected material from Kazin's three classic memoirs to accompany these critical writings. The excerpts include sharply etched portraits of the Brownsville, Greenwich Village, Upper West Side, and Cape Cod literary milieus and of such figures as Saul Bellow, Lionel Trilling, Edmund Wilson, and Hannah Arendt. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAlfred Kazin's America\u003c\/em\u003e provides an ongoing example of the spiritual freedom, individualism, and democratic contentiousness that he regarded as his heritage and endeavored to pass on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKazin, Alfred:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Alfred Kazin was born in Brooklyn in 1915. His first book, \u003cem\u003eOn Native Grounds\u003c\/em\u003e, published in 1942, revolutionized critical perceptions of American literature. It was followed by many more books of essays and criticism, including \u003cem\u003eA Walker in the City\u003c\/em\u003e and, most recently, \u003cem\u003eWriting Was Everything.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cp\u003eKazin has taught at Harvard, Smith, Amherst, Hunter College, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In 1996, he received the Truman Capote Literary Trust's first Lifetime Award in Literary Criticism. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKazin lives in New York City.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSolotaroff, Ted:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTed Solotaroff is a well-known editor and critic. His first memoir, \u003cem\u003eTruth Comes in Blows\u003c\/em\u003e, received the PEN\/Martha Albrand Award. His second, \u003cem\u003eFirst Loves\u003c\/em\u003e, was recently published by Seven Stories Press. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50409401680146,"sku":"9780060512767","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_3fcf6241-b907-4a2b-bad9-4ef47823ffc6.jpg?v=1729286267","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/alfred-kazins-america-critical-and-personal-writings-9780060512767","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}