Memories Look at Me: A Memoir - Softcover

Transtromer, Tomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811220184 ISBN 13: 9780811220187

Publisher: New Directions, 2011

Synopsis

Tomas Tranströmer’s touching memoir.

Written a few years after Transtromer suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak, Memories Look at Me is Tomas Tranströmer’s lyrical autobiography about growing up in Sweden. His story opens with a streak of light, a comet that becomes a brilliant metaphor for “my life” as he tries to penetrate the earliest, formative memories of his past. This childhood life unfolds itself slowly in eight glistening chapters that gradually reveal the most secret of treasures: how Tranströmer discovered poetry.

About this title

About the Author:

Nobel Prize Laureate and beloved Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015) was born in Stockholm and worked as a psychologist. He wrote ten collections of poems that the Nobel Prize Committee praised for their “condensed, translucent images that give us fresh access to reality.” The best-known Scandinavian poet of the postwar period, and the most widely translated, his other books available in English include Selected Poems 1954–1986; The Half-Finished Heaven; For the Living and the Dead; Night Vision; and Windows and Stars. For many years after being seriously debilitated by a stroke, Tranströmer continued write. He was also an avid pianist and released a recording of classical piano pieces performed with his left hand. Tranströmer received numerous public recognitions for his poetry including the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bonnier Award for Poetry, Germany’s Petrarch Prize, the Bellman Prize, the Swedish Academy’s Nordic Prize, the August Prize, and a Lifetime Recognition Award in 2007 from The Griffin Trust. In 2011 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Robin Fulton, a Scottish poet and longtime resident of Norway, has been translating Tranströmer for over thirty-five years.

Review:

“Like so many great poets before him, Tranströmer is forever reminding us that the world is not what it appears to be; that with mindfulness and close attention, you might get a glimpse of something vast and strange.”
- John Freeman, NPR's Monkey See

“The Nobel prize to Mr. Tranströmer is a momentary defeat for ideology and a great victory for poetry.”
- Michael Moynihan, The Wall Street Journal

“Through his condensed, translucent images, Tranströmer gives us fresh access to reality.”
- The Nobel Prize Committee

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0811220184
• ISBN 13: 9780811220187
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64