{"product_id":"notes-on-the-death-of-culture-9781250094742","title":"Notes on the Death of Culture","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA provocative essay collection that finds the Nobel laureate taking on the decline of intellectual life\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the past, culture was a kind of vital consciousness that constantly rejuvenated and revivified everyday reality. Now it is largely a mechanism of distraction and entertainment. \u003ci\u003eNotes on the Death of Culture \u003c\/i\u003eis an examination and indictment of this transformation--penned by Mario Vargas Llosa, who is not only one of our finest novelists but one of the keenest social critics at work today. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTaking his cues from T. S. Eliot--whose essay \"Notes Toward a Definition of Culture\" is a touchstone precisely because the culture Eliot aimed to describe has since vanished--Vargas Llosa traces a decline whose ill effects have only just begun to be felt. He mourns, in particular, the figure of the intellectual: for most of the twentieth century, men and women of letters drove political, aesthetic, and moral conversations; today they have all but disappeared from public debate. A necessary gadfly, the Nobel laureate Vargas Llosa provides a tough but essential critique of our time and culture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMario Vargas Llosa\u003c\/b\u003e was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 \"for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat.\" He has also won the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's most distinguished literary honor. His many works include \u003ci\u003eThe Feast of the Goat\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Bad Girl\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAunt Julia and the Scriptwriter\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn King\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor of Latin American cultural history at the University of Warwick, England. He is the coeditor, with Efra?n Kristal, of \u003ci\u003eThe Cambridge Companion to Mario Vargas Llosa\u003c\/i\u003e, and he has edited and translated several volumes of Vargas Llosa's essays, including \u003ci\u003eMaking Waves\u003c\/i\u003e (FSG, 1996) and \u003ci\u003eTouchstones\u003c\/i\u003e (FSG, 2007).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Picador Paper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50927901966610,"sku":"9781250094742","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f8575550-14b2-41f5-846a-72d4acd66056.jpg?v=1738987465","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/notes-on-the-death-of-culture-9781250094742","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}