The Genius of Language: Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongue
by Wendy Lesser
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Description
Fifteen outstanding writers answered editor Wendy Lesser’s call for original essays on the subject of language–the one they grew up with, and the English in which they write.Despite American assumptions about polite Chinese discourse, Amy Tan believes that there was nothing discreet about the Chinese language with which she grew up. Leonard Michaels spoke only Yiddish until he was five, and still found its traces in his English language writing. Belgian-born Luc Sante loved his French show more Tintin and his Sartre, but only in English could he find “words of one syllable” that evoke American bars and bus stops. And although Louis Begley writes novels in English and addresses family members in Polish, he still speaks French with his wife–the language of their courtship. As intimate as one’s dreams, as private as a secret identity, these essays examine and reveal the writers’ pride, pain, and pleasure in learning a new tongue, revisiting an old one, and reconciling the joys and frustrations of each. show lessTags
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Translingualism
191 works; 4 members
Author Information
19+ Works 1,287 Members
Wendy Lesser is the founder and editor of The Threepenny Review and the author of a novel and a number of nonfiction books. She has written for The New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. To complete this biography, she received one of the first National Endowment for the show more Humanities Public Scholar awards. show less
Awards and Honors
Distinctions
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2004
- Dedication
- In memory of Leonard Michaels 1933-2003
- Blurbers
- Aciman, Andre; Grossman, Edith; Allen, Esther
Classifications
- Genres
- Literature Studies and Criticism, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 820.9 — Literature & rhetoric English & Old English literatures English and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) literatures History, description, critical appraisal of works in more than one form
- LCC
- PE1421 .G46 — Language and Literature English language English Modern English
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 147
- Popularity
- 221,982
- Rating
- (3.58)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
