9780374199500

Your Satisfaction is Guaranteed:

• 30 Day Return Policy
• Bookseller Guarantee
• Privacy & Security Policy

The memoirs of the late Nobel Laureate, for the first time in one volume. The uncompromising achievement of Elias Canetti is one matched by few writers this century. His novel, Auto-da-Fı, and his work of social theory, Crowds and Power, are modern classics, displaying a voracious intellect and exquisite sensibility that belie their author's polyglot background: a Ladino Jew born in Bulgaria, Canetti was raised in Vienna, Manchester, and Zurich, finally settling in England. Canetti worked brilliantly in many forms, but the three volumes that comprise his autobiography are where his genius is perhaps most evident. The first volume, The Tongue Set Free, presents the events, personalities, and intellectual forces that fed Canetti's early creative development. The Torch in My Ear explores his admiration for the first great mentor of his adulthood, Karl Kraus, and also gives an account of Canetti's first wife. The final volume, The Play of the Eyes, is set in Vienna between 1931 and 1937, with the European catastrophe imminent; here he describes his relationships with Hermann Broch and Robert Musil, among others. The three volumes, read together, make it clear that this spiritual and intellectual autobiography is much more than a compelling account of the development of a great artist--it is a portrait of the tragic character of an entire era.

"Canetti's autobiography is a great work that evokes amusement and disbelief as well as admiration....[They] should warm up Canetti's reputation. They offer a tremendous story of determination and triumph. And, fortunately, Canetti's seriousness doesn't rule out happy moments of admiration and malice."

David Denby, New Yorker, 05/31/1999

The Memoirs of Elias Canetti: The Tongue Set Free, the Torch in My Ear, the Play of the Eyes: Search Results