CARTOGRAPHIES. Inscribed by the author.

Sonenberg, Maya

ISBN 10: 0880012595 / ISBN 13: 9780880012591

Published by The Ecco Press, New York, NY, 1990

About this Item

174 pages of text. Minimal shelfwear to paperback binding. No underlining or highlighting. Inscribed on title page "For Robert. Peace. [signed] Maya Sonenber OSU 2-19-92." Winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in 1989. Size: Octavo (8vo).

Seller Inventory # 003052

Bibliographic Details

• Title: CARTOGRAPHIES. Inscribed by the author.
• Publisher: The Ecco Press, New York, NY
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0880012595
• ISBN 13: 9780880012591
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First thus edition.
• Condition: Near fine condition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Autograph & Manuscript

About this title

Synopsis

This book has the feel of a discovery. Maya Sonenberg writes a compacted, evocative, poet's prose, and has a sense of form that can surprise even as it satisfies. . . . Cartographies introduces a writer of significant accomplishment and fine promise."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

Reviews

Winner of this year's Drue Heinz Literature Prize, this collection of 10 stories heralds the emergence of a powerful new voice. Linked by variously composed definitions of location and sense of place, the stories, while distinguished by their range, share a deeply determined narrative structure. From the title story, which contrasts the account of a love affair with considerations of mapmaking, to "Nature Morte," which describes the first Cubist baby ("His world is solid. He breathes in space that solidifies as it approaches. His body forms planes of space and flesh."), Sonnenberg drives at essential truths from an astonishing variety of approaches. While her prose is so lush and dense that readers may find it difficult at times, comprehending this fluid and graceful writing is ultimately a pleasure. In "Cartographies," Sonnenberg writes about the mapmakers who created the first cave painting: "From their first scratches on the cave wall . . . they have traced lines and lived inside them." The youngest writer to win the Heinz Prize, Sonnenberg, 29, explores the boundaries within and without which lives are lived, and in doing so she has succeeded in putting herself on the map.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is a collection of ten short stories connected by images of places; the "cartographies" of the title are the flattened map images of the places that form people's lives, dreams, and imaginings. The stories concern relationships, loneliness, and memories and have settings that range from stone houses to laundromats, from 15th-century Medici Florence to the California coast--the locale of "Ariadne in Exile," a retelling of the familiar tale. Though the collection is a little uneven, with some of the stories rather contrived and some a little too long, generally the reader will enjoy the beauty of this young writer's tightly defined sense of tone. This, Sonenberg's first short story collection, is the winner of the 1989 Drue Heinz Literature Prize.
- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.