Deirdre Bair

A The Times & Sunday Times Book of the YearFascinating... Wonderfully entertaining and absorbingSunday TimesGripping... A story well told.New York Times Book ReviewFinalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography 2020In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist with a recently acquired PhD who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could write his biography despite never having written - or even read - a biography herself. The next seven years of intimate conversations, intercontinental research, and peculiar cat-and-mouse games resulted in Samuel Beckett: A Biography, which went on to win the National Book Award and propel Deirdre to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir. The catch? De Beauvoir and Beckett despised each other - and lived essentially on the same street. While quite literally dodging one subject or the other, and sometimes hiding out in the backrooms of the great cafes of Paris, Bair learned that what works in terms of process for one biography rarely applies to the next. Her seven-year relationship with the domineering and difficult de Beauvoir required a radical change in approach, yielding another groundbreaking literary profile.Drawing on Bairs extensive notes from the period, including never-before-told anecdotes and details that were considered impossible to publish at the time, Parisian Lives is full of personality and warmth and gives us an entirely new window on the all-too-human side of these legendary thinkers.

From National Book Award winner Deirdre Bair, the definitive biography of Saul Steinberg, one of The New Yorkers most iconic artists. The issue date was March 29, 1976. The New Yorker cost 75 cents. And on the cover unfolded Saul Steinbergs vision of the world: New York City, the Hudson River, and then...well, its really just a bunch of stuff you neednt concern yourself with. Steinbergs brilliant depiction of the world according to self-satisfied New Yorkers placed him squarely in the pantheon of the magazinesand the erasmost celebrated artists. But if you look beyond the searing wit and stunning artistry, youll find one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. Born in Romania, Steinberg was educated in Milan and was already famous for his satirical drawings when World War II forced him to immigrate to the United States. On a single day, Steinberg became a US citizen, a commissioned officer in the US Navy, and a member of the OSS, assigned to spy in China, North Africa, and Italy. After the war ended, he returned to America and to his art. He quickly gained entree into influential circles that included Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, Willem de Kooning, and Le Corbusier. His wife was the artist Hedda Sterne, from whom he separated in 1960 but never divorced and with whom he remained in daily contact for the rest of his life. This conveniently freed him up to amass a coterie of young mistresses and lovers. But his truly great love was the United States, where he traveled extensively by bus, train, and car, drawing, observing, and writing. His body of work is staggering and influential in ways we may not yet even be able to fully grasp, quite possibly because there has not been a full-scale biography of him until now. Deirdre Bair had access to 177 boxes of documents and more than 400 drawings. In addition, she conducted several hundred personal interviews. Steinbergs curious talent for creating myths about himself did not make her job an easy one, but the result is a stunning achievement to admire and enjoy.The electronic version of this title does not contain the 35 Saul Steinberg illustrations that are available in the print edition.

A PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTA Publishers Weekly Best Book of the YearNational Book Award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair explores her fifteen remarkable years in Paris with Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir, painting intimate new portraits of two literary giants and revealing secrets of the biographical art.In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist and recently minted Ph.D. who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could be his biographer despite her never having writtenor even reada biography before. The next seven years comprised of intimate conversations, intercontinental research, and peculiar cat-and-mouse games. Battling an elusive Beckett and a string of jealous, misogynistic male writers, Bair persevered. She wrote Samuel Beckett: A Biography, which went on to win the National Book Award and propel Deirdre to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir. The catch? De Beauvoir and Beckett despised each otherand lived essentially on the same street. Bair learned that what works in terms of process for one biography rarely applies to the next. Her seven-year relationship with the domineering and difficult de Beauvoir required a radical change in approach, yielding another groundbreaking literary profile and influencing Bairs own feminist beliefs. Parisian Lives draws on Bairs extensive notes from the period, including never-before-told anecdotes. This gripping memoir is full of personality and warmth and gives us an entirely new window on the all-too-human side of these legendary thinkers.

El Al Capone humano tras el Al Capone de leyenda: entre la crónica y el documento, una biografía íntima e innovadora.En 1964, en un ensayo recogido en el volumen Política y delito, Hans Magnus Enzensberger hacia una terrible comparacion entre la mafia de Estados Unidos y el mundo empresarial. Los mafiosos no atracaban bancos, no robaban la nomina de las compañias: eran comerciantes que negociaban con mercancias ilicitas, imponian precios a los minoristas y de vez en cuando mataban a un competidor. Eran la prueba de que toda empresa capitalista, llevada a sus ultimas consecuencias, se convertia en una organizacion criminal. El primer gangster que quiso poner orden en el hampa local y organizarla como una gran compañia fue Al Capone; su feudo era Chicago. Lucky Luciano perfecciono su metodo, organizando el trust de familias de Nueva York.Desde los años treinta, el cine de gangsters que ha querido retratar a Al Capone lo ha presentado siempre del mismo modo: como un monstruo sin escrupulos que dirigia una organizacion de salvajes, y que al final cayo gracias a la tenacidad de Eliot Ness y sus Intocables. Los biografos serios hace tiempo que derribaron el mito de Eliot Ness, un funcionario que no tuvo nada que ver con la detencion de Capone. El presente estudio de Deirdre Bair socava el otro mito, el que dice que Al Capone era un psicopata sediento de sangre, y nos presenta a un personaje complejo, despiadado para los negocios, humano y sensible para los asuntos familiares, que abrio comedores sociales durante la Depresion y que, a diferencia de los mafiosos de Nueva York, ni siquiera era racista.Entre la cronica de sucesos y el documento antropologico, la biografia de Bair, basada en su mayor parte en entrevistas con descendientes de Al Capone, es una obra innovadora que prefiere profundizar en los sentimientos y los vinculos entre las personas.

From a National Book Award-winning biographer, the first complete life of legendary gangster Al Capone to be produced with the cooperation of his family, who provided the author with exclusive access to personal testimony and archival documents.From his heyday to the present moment, Al CaponePublic Enemy Number Onehas gripped popular imagination. Rising from humble Brooklyn roots, Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. At the height of Prohibition, his multimillion-dollar Chicago bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling operation dominated the organized-crime scene. His competition with rival gangs was brutally violent, a long-running war that crested with the shocking St. Valentines Day Massacre of 1929. Law enforcement and the media elite seemed powerless to stop the growth of his empire. And then the fall: a legal noose tightened by the FBI, a conviction on tax evasion, Alcatraz. After his release he returned to his family in Miami a much diminished man, living quietly until the ravages of his neurosyphilis took their final toll. But the slick mobster persona endures, immortalized in countless novels and movies. The true flesh-and-blood man behind the legend has long remained a mystery. Unscrupulous newspaper accounts and Capones own tall tales perpetuated his mystique, but through dogged research Deirdre Bair debunks the most outrageous of these myths. With the help of Capones descendants, she discovers his essential humanity, uncovering a complex character that was flawed and sometimes cruel but also capable of nobility. And while revealing the private Al Capone, a genuine family man as remembered by those who knew him best, Bair relates how his descendants have borne his weighty legacy. Rigorous and intimate, Al Capone provides new answers to the enduring questions about this fascinating figure, who was equal parts charismatic gangster, devoted patriarch, and calculating monster.

El Al Capone humano tras el Al Capone de leyenda: entre la crónica y el documento, una biografía íntima e innovadora.El Al Capone humano tras el Al Capone de leyenda: entre la crónica y el documento, una biografia intima e innovadora.En 1964, en un ensayo recogido en el volumen Politica y delito, Hans Magnus Enzensberger hacia una terrible comparacion entre la mafia de Estados Unidos y el mundo empresarial. Los mafiosos no atracaban bancos, no robaban la nomina de las compañias: eran comerciantes que negociaban con mercancias ilicitas, imponian precios a los minoristas y de vez en cuando mataban a un competidor. Eran la prueba de que toda empresa capitalista, llevada a sus ultimas consecuencias, se convertia en una organizacion criminal. El primer gangster que quiso poner orden en el hampa local y organizarla como una gran compañia fue Al Capone; su feudo era Chicago. Lucky Luciano perfecciono su metodo, organizando el trust de familias de Nueva York.Desde los años treinta, el cine de gangsters que ha querido retratar a Al Capone lo ha presentado siempre del mismo modo: como un monstruo sin escrupulos que dirigia una organizacion de salvajes, y que al final cayo gracias a la tenacidad de Eliot Ness y sus Intocables. Los biografos serios hace tiempo que derribaron el mito de Eliot Ness, un funcionario que no tuvo nada que ver con la detencion de Capone. El presente estudio de Deirdre Bair socava el otro mito, el que dice que Al Capone era un psicopata sediento de sangre, y nos presenta a un personaje complejo, despiadado para los negocios, humano y sensible para los asuntos familiares, que abrio comedores sociales durante la Depresion y que, a diferencia de los mafiosos de Nueva York, ni siquiera era racista.Entre la cronica de sucesos y el documento antropologico, la biografia de Bair, basada en su mayor parte en entrevistas con descendientes de Al Capone, es una obra innovadora que prefiere profundizar en los sentimientos y los vinculos entre las personas.Estudio cultural sobre el hijo de unos emigrantes italianos pobres que acabo siendo el rey del hampa de Chicago y el gangster mas celebre de la historia de Estados Unidos (Publishers Weekly).Un fructifero esfuerzo por contrastar con la realidad las leyendas urbanas sobre el gangster y por desenmascarar las falsedades que se han contado (New York Journal of Books).El Capone de Bair es ferozmente humano (Smithsonian).El libro de Bair contiene multitud de datos sobre las actividades delictivas de Capone, pero su principal interes ha sido presentar un recuerdo mas personal sobre el hombre y su familia (Chicago Sun Times).Una investigacion sobre el Enemigo Publico n.º 1 desde el punto de vista de la vida domestica y la familia (The New York Times).