Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers’ prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate group of people who are drawn towards his kind, sympathetic nature. The owner of the café where Singer eats every day, a young girl desperate to grow up, an angry drunkard, a frustrated black each pours their heart out to Singer, their silent confidant, and he in turn changes their disenchanted lives in ways they could never imagine.

Here is the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother's wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old male cousin—not to mention her own unbridled imagination—Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be the member of something larger, more accepting than herself. The novel that became an award-winning play and a major motion picture and that has charmed generations of readers, Carson McCullers's classic The Member of the Wedding is now available in small-format trade paperback for the first time. "A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence" (Detroit Free Press), The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best.An alternate-cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers’s best stories, including her beloved novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café.” A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose café serves as the town’s gathering place. Among other fine works, the collection also includes “Wunderkind,” McCullers’s first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist. Newly reset and available for the first time in a handsome trade paperback edition, The Ballad of the Sad Café is a brilliant study of love and longing from one of the South’s finest writers.

A powerful and passionate tale is set on a southern army post --a human hell inhabited by a sexually disturbed officer, his animalistic wife, her lover, and the driven young private who forces the drama to its climax...

Set in Georgia on the eve of court-ordered integration, Clock Without Hands contains McCullers's most poignant statement on race, class, and justice. A small-town druggist dying of leukemia calls himself and his community to account in this tale of change and changelessness, of death and the death-in-life that is hate. It is a tale, as McCullers herself wrote, of "response and responsibility--of man toward his own livingness."

The novelist, dramatist, and poet Carson McCullers was at the peak of her powers as a writer of short fiction.In nineteen stories that explore her signature themes of wounded adolescence, loneliness in marriage, and the tragicomedy of life in the South, McCullers's novellas "The Member of the Wedding" and "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" are also included."[These novellas are] assuredly among the masterpieces of our language," Tennesee Williams said.

When The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was published in 1940, Carson McCullers was instantly recognized as one of the most promising writers of her generation. The novels that followed established her as a master of Southern Gothic. "McCullers' gift," writes Joyce Carol Oates, "was to evoke, through an accumulation of images and musically repeated phrases, the singularity of experience, not to pass judgment on it." McCullers effortlessly conveyed the raw anguish of her characters and the weird beauty of their perceptions. Set in small Georgia towns that are at once precisely observed and mythically resonant, McCullers' novels explore the strange, sometimes grotesque inner lives of characters who are often marginal and misunderstood. Above all, McCullers possessed an unmatched ability to capture the bewilderment and fragile wonder of adolescence. In The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, an enigmatic deaf-mute draws out the haunted confessions of an itinerant worker, a young girl, a black doctor, and the widowed owner of a small-town café. Two shorter works, Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) and The Ballad of the Sad Café (1943), use melodramatic scenarios and freakish characters to explore the disfiguring violence of desire. The Member of the Wedding (1946), on which the play and film were based, tells of a young girl's fascination with her brother's wedding and is perhaps McCullers' most moving and accomplished novel. In Clock Without Hands (1960), the story of a terminally ill druggist, McCullers produces some of her most forceful and indignant social criticism. Edited by Carlos Dews.

His hand sought the adjacent flesh and sorrow paralleled desire in the immense complexity of love.Contains: The Haunted Boy, The Sojourner, and A Domestic DilemmaThese moving stories by one of the great masters of Southern gothic portray love, sorrow and our search for happiness and understanding.

The Member of the Wedding—which became an award-winning play and a major motion picture—showcases McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and best.

An absorbing look at the early beginnings of one of America’s finest writers, The Mortgaged Heart is an important collection of Carson McCullers’s work, including stories, essays, articles, poems, and her writing on writing. These pieces, written mostly before McCullers was nineteen, provide invaluable insight into her life and her gifts and growth as a writer. The collection also contains the working outline of “The Mute,” which became her best-selling novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. As new generations of readers continue to discover her work, Carson McCullers’s celebrated place in American letters survives more surely than ever. Edited by McCullers’s sister and with a new introduction by Joyce Carol Oates, The Mortgaged Heart will be an inspiration to writers young and old.

Writing about outcasts, dreamers and misfits in the Deep South, Carson McCullers was acclaimed for her sympathetic depictions of loneliness, the need for understanding and the search for love. These four masterly stories of eccentrics, failed prodigies, injustice and hope, written when she was in her twenties, explore the human condition with humour and pathos. This book includes "Wunderkind", "The Jockey", "Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland", "A Tree, A Rock and A Cloud".

More than thirty years after it was written, the autobiography of Carson McCullers, Illumination and Night Glare , will be published for the first time. McCullers, one of the most gifted writers of her generation—the author of Member of the Wedding, Reflections in a Golden Eye, and The Ballad of Sad Cafe —died of a stroke at the age of fifty before finishing this, her last manuscript. Editor Carlos L. Dews has faithfully brought her story back to life, complete with never-before-published letters between McCullers and her husband Reeves, and an outline of her most famous novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter .Looking back over her life from a precocious childhood in Georgia to her painful decline from a series of crippling strokes, McCullers offers poignant and unabashed remembrances of her early writing success, her family attachments, a troubled marriage to a failed writer, and friendships with literary and film luminaries (Gypsy Rose Lee, Richard Wright, Isak Dinesen, John Huston, Marilyn Monroe), and the intense relationships of the important women in her life.

“Like all writers of original genius, Miss McCullers convinces us that we have missed something which was plainly to be seen in the real world . . . She is a master of peculiar perception and an incomparable storyteller.” —V. S. PritchettUpon publication of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter , Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its compassionate glimpses into its characters’ inner lives, her story gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated. In The Member of the Wedding , McCullers tells the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother’s upcoming marriage. It is a coming-of-age story that showcases McCullers at her most sensitive and enduring best.

A transient stops at an all-night cafe and explains to the owner and a paperboy how the science of love helped him to recover after his wife left him.

Carson McCullers transmitió con una maestría insuperable la grandeza y la tragedia del alma humana. Su obra ha seducido a generaciones de lectores, mientras la crítica la encumbraba en el pedestal de los clásicos del siglo XX. El aliento del cielo comprende la totalidad de sus cuentos, trece de ellos inéditos en nuestro idioma, y sus tres novelas cortas, Reflejos en un ojo dorado, La balada del café triste y Frankie y la boda. Rodrigo Fresán enriquece esta imprescindible edición con un revelador retrato de la singularísima vida y la obra de McCullers.Por estas páginas transitan el amor, la violencia, la soledad y el fracaso. Dotadas de una insólita musicalidad, desprenden una fuerza y una pasión que sacuden a quien las lee. En su narrativa breve, McCullers se erige en portavoz privilegiada de ese sur norteamericano que sólo unos pocos tuvieron el talento de plasmar en toda su profundidad.

Do your students enjoy a good laugh? Do they like to be scared? Or do they just like a book with a happy ending? No matter what their taste, our Creative Short Stories series has the answer.We've taken some of the world's best stories from dark, musty anthologies and brought them into the light, giving them the individual attention they deserve. Each book in the series has been designed with today's young reader in mind. As the words come to life, students will develop a lasting appreciation for great literature.The humor of Mark Twain...the suspense of Edgar Allan Poe...the danger of Jack London...the sensitivity of Katherine Mansfield. Creative Short Stories has it all and will prove to be a welcome addition to any library.

The Jockey is a short story set among the horse racing circles of Depression era America.Published in The New Yorker, August 23, 1941.

Carson McCullers transmitió con una maestría insuperable la grandeza y la tragedia del alma humana. Su obra ha seducido a generaciones de lectores, mientras la crítica la encumbraba en el pedestal de los clásicos del siglo XX. ¿Quíen ha visto el viento? comprende la totalidad de sus cuentos, por los que transitan el amor, la violencia, la soledad y el fracaso. Dotados de una insólita musicalidad, desprenden una fuerza y una pasión que sacuden a quien los lee.

Three Carson McCullers novels in one book.

Con tan sólo 23 años, Carson McCullers publicó El corazón es un cazador solitario , una de las obras capitales de la narrativa contemporánea. Estas páginas presentan, por primera vez en nuestra lengua, el esbozo inicial de la novela –titulada en un principio «El mudo»– y revelan el proceso de creación del personaje más emblemático de la autora, el sordomudo John Singer. Los textos que siguen, también inéditos en castellano, conceden al lector el privilegio de compartir los pensamientos sobre literatura de Carson el despertar de su vocación de escritora, su pasión por la lectura, su admiración por Isak Dinesen o los paralelismos entre la escritura sureña y los realistas rusos.«Los siete ensayos que completan este libro [...] regresan una y otra vez a esos días en los que una joven solitaria y única y convaleciente leía todo lo que caía en sus manos y en sus ojos (novelas rusas, cuentos góticos) y se soltaba del teclado de un piano para colgarse del teclado de una máquina de escribir para así experimentar cómo germinaba en ella el sueño despierto de su primera pero no última "misteriosa creación". Óiganla —léanla— florecer.» Rodrigo Fresán

A three act play follows Phillip Lovejoy and his ex-wife Mollie Lovejoy over a ten day period in a small town outside New York City in the 1950s.

McCullers' last published book – a collection of poems for children.

Reúnem-se aqui doze contos de Carson McCullers numa selecção feita por Ana Teresa Pereira. Embora seja conhecida pelos seus romances, Carson McCullers foi uma notável contista, inserindo-se na tradição sulista da literatura norte-americana. Carson McCullers dedicou-se aos contos desde os 17 anos, ano em que escreveu «Sucker», tendo muitos deles começando por aparecer em revistas literárias. As suas capacidades de observação e o seu estilo revelam uma assumida filiação em autores tão diversos como Flaubert e Dostoievski. Julie Harris considerou-a mesmo «uma mulher encantadora e misteriosa que escrevia como um anjo». Carson McCullers foi reconhecida pelos grandes escritores da sua época. Graham Greene declarou preferi-la a Faulkner, e Tennessee Williams disse que a sua obra «não se eclipsará com o tempo, mas irradiará cada vez mais fulgor». Contos Escolhidos de Carson McCullers CRÍTICAS DE IMPRENSA «Pode dizer-se que há dois tópicos fundamentais que atravessam esta selecçã as vivências da infância e da adolescência e as relações no casamento.» Gonçalo Mira, Público

As a novelist, Carson McCullers created such classics of Southern literature as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and The Ballad of the Sad Café. But she began her career writing short stories, and never stopped. This Library of America volume offers a landmark gathering of McCullers’s shorter works, including all her published stories, complete here for the first time, plus plays, essays, poems, and an unfinished autobiography.McCullers had a special genius for crafting concise, indelible portraits of characters struggling to feel at home in the world. From precocious early efforts such as “Sucker,” the first work she dared show her family, and “Wunderkind,” the tragicomic tale of a piano prodigy published when she was just nineteen, to her final published work of fiction, the previously uncollected civil rights allegory “The March,” which appeared in Redbook just months before her death in 1967, her stories display her characteristic sensitivity and haunting strangeness. In “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.” an aging drifter tells a twelve-year-old boy about the peculiar “science” he has fashioned to cope with lost love. “The Sojourner” follows an expatriate’s return to America, where he comes face to face with his ex-wife’s happy second marriage and his own uncertain path at middle age.McCullers’s dramatic works are represented here by the play The Member of the Wedding (1950), adapted from her 1946 novel at the urging of her close friend Tennessee Williams. Like Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, it is a great American poem for the stage. At its center is tomboy Frankie Addams, a motherless adolescent neglected by her father and utterly bored with life in small-town Georgia until romantic longing is ignited by her older brother’s wedding. A hit on Broadway, running for more than five hundred performances, it won the Drama Critics’ Circle Award and soon inspired a film. Also included are the long out-of-print The Square Root of Wonderful, her neglected Broadway comedy of 1958, and an adaptation of her story “The Sojourner” for the television program Omnibus, presented here in a text based on a previously unpublished typescript by McCullers and accompanied, as an appendix, by a transcription of the significantly different version broadcast in December 1953.The volume is rounded out by twenty-two essays—among them childhood reminiscences, travel pieces, reflections on life during wartime in the 1940s, and observations on other writers and on the writer’s craft. Gathered as well are McCullers’s poems and the fascinating Illumination and Night Glare, an unfinished autobiography from late in her life, first published in a scholarly edition in 1999 and here newly edited for the general reader.

Zwei Erzählungen über liebenswürdige Exzentriker: Mit Madame Zilensky als neuer Lehrkraft für Musik und Komposition kann das Ryder College hochzufrieden sein, allen voran der Leiter Mr. Brooks, der sie eingestellt hat. Sie ist eine engagierte und leidenschaftliche Lehrerin. Doch was hat es mit ihren Geschichten über den König von Finnland auf sich?In Ein Baum, ein Felsen, eine Wolke erklärt ein rätselhafter Mann in einem Nachtcafé einem zwölfjährigen Jungen, wie Liebe anfangen sollte."

- The Ballad of the Sad Café- Wunderkind- The Jockey- Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland- The Sojourner- A Domestic Dilemma- A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud- Reflections in a Golden Eye- The Member of the Wedding

Al llarg de la seva vida, a banda de novel·les i contes, una obra de teatre i alguns poemes, Carson McCullers va escriure textos i articles per a diverses revistes literàries americanes. Aquests assaigs, publicats de manera dispersa al llarg dels anys, no s’havien publicat mai en català: en aquesta edició els apleguem tots per primera vegada, traducció d’Alba Dedeu. Hi ha records d’infantesa, retalls de la vida a Brooklyn, històries sobre la guerra que prenen sovint forma de novel·les curtes i –molt especialment– reflexions sobre altres escriptors i sobre l’art d’escriure. Escrits amb el seu estil característic i la seva particular mirada, aquests textos ens obren una porta a les passions vitals i literàries de l’escriptora, i una finestreta a la seva manera de treballar, i de viure el món de l’escriptura. Una petita joia.

Dit boek bevat de twee romans die als hoogtepunten in het werk van Carson McCullers worden gezien.‘De ballade van het trieste café’ gaat over een driehoeksverhouding die ontstaat tussen juffrouw Amelia, die een winkel en later een café heeft in het zuiden van de Verenigde Staten, een mannelijk familielid die komt aanwaaien en Amelia’s ex-man, met wie zie zeer kort getrouwd is geweest. Het zijn alle drie bijzondere persoonlijkheden, vooral Amelia, die een teruggetrokken bestaan leidt.In ‘Spiegelingen in een gouden oog’ is de nogal simpele soldaat Williams onbewust de spil van een carrousel vol hartstochten in een kleine legerplaats, aldus de flaptekst van het boek.The original titles and publications years are:The ballad of the sad café - 1951;Reflections in a golden eye - 1914. JM

Carson McCullers schreef vijf romans en negentien verhalen. Haar eerste toen ze nog geen twintig was; negen daarna toen ze creative writing studeerde aan New York University. Een daarvan, ‘Wunderkind’, werd meteen gepubliceerd in een vooraanstaand literair tijdschrift.Haar belangrijkste thema’s zijn al zichtbaar in de verhalen: onbeantwoorde liefde, afwijzing, vervreemding, eenzaamheid: onderwerpen die ook in haar eigen leven een rol speelden. McCullers heeft de gave om dat alles met haar lyrische, invoelende stijl een zekere lichtheid te geven, door haar verrassende beelden, ironie en lichte spot, en haar altijd rake beschrijvingen.Afgezien van twee toneelstukken, enkele gedichten en een bundel kinderversjes is met deze uitgave haar complete fictie voor de Nederlandstalige lezer beschikbaar.