1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910822302003321

Titolo

Truth in nonfiction : essays / / edited by David Lazar

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Iowa City, : University of Iowa Press, c2008

ISBN

1-58729-731-0

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (213 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

LazarDavid <1957->

Disciplina

809/.93592

Soggetti

Autobiography

Biography as a literary form

Truth in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgments; An Introduction to Truth; A Weedy Garden - Paul Lisicky; Truth in Personal Narrative - Vivian Gornick; Bride in Beige - Mark Doty; The Forest of Memory - Kathryn Harrison; ¿La Verdad? Notes on the Writing of Silent Dancing, a Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood (a Memoir in Prose and Poetry) -  Judith Ortiz Cofer; Whose Truth? - Phyllis Rose; The Ethics of Betrayal: Diary of a Conundrum - Nancy K. Miller; Gowers' Memory - Oliver Sacks; Mer-Mer: An Essay about How I Wish We Wrote Our Nonfictions- John D'Agata; Reality, Persona - David Shields

Trying Truth - Nancy MairsThe Observer Observing: Some Notes on the Personal Essay - Leonard Kriegel; Occasional Desire: On the Essay and the Memoir - David Lazar; The Rape of Rusty - Wayne Koestenbaum; The Bed of the Fairy Princess - Joanna Frueh; The Kazakh Eagle - Alphonso Lingis; The True Frame of the Prose Poem - Ray González; Tender Fictions - Barbara Hammer; Seeing (through) Red - Su Friedrich; What's Wrong with This Picture? - Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer; Contributors; Permissions

Sommario/riassunto

From Elie Wiesel to Benjamin Wilkomirski to David Sedaris, the veracity of writers' claims has been suspect. In this fascinating and timely collection of essays, leading writers meditate on the subject of truth in literary nonfiction. As David Lazar writes in his introduction, "How do we verify? Do we care to? (Do we dare to eat the apple of knowledge



and say it's true? Or is it a peach?) Do we choose to? Is it a subcategory of faith? How do you respond when someone says, 'This is really true'? Why do they choose to say it then?"