Details

ISBN-10: 0819570893
ISBN-13: 9780819570895
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Publish Date: 02/07/2017
Dimensions: 9.40" L, 6.70" W, 1.80" H

In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany, Volume I, 1957-1969

Editor: Kenneth R James

Hardcover

Price: $40.00

Overview

The private journals of renowned novelist and critic Samuel R. Delany

For fifty years Samuel Delany has cultivated a special relationship with language in works of fiction, criticism, and memoir that have garnered critical praise and legions of fans. The present volume – the first in a series – reveals a new dimension of his genius. In Search of Silence presents over a decade’s worth of Delany’s private journals, commencing in 1957 when he was still a student at the Bronx High School of Science, and ending in 1969 when he was living in San Francisco and on the verge of reconceiving the novel that would become Dhalgren.

In these pages, Delany muses on the writing of the stories that will establish him as a science fiction wunderkind, the early years of his marriage to the poet Marilyn Hacker, performances as a singer-songwriter during the heyday of the American folk revival, travels in Europe, experiences in a New York City commune, and much more – and crosses paths with artists working in many genres, including poets such as Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, and Marie Ponsot, and science fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, and Joanna Russ. Delany scholar Kenneth R. James presents the journal entries alongside generous samplings of story outlines, poetry, fragments of novels and essays that have never seen publication, and more; James also provides biographical synopses and an extensive set of endnotes to supply contextual information and connect journal material to Delany’s published work.

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Reviews
"The simple fact is that I think Delany is one of the most important American writers, one who ought to be spoken of alongside any great American writer of the second half of the twentieth century ... the recent publication of volume one of Delany's Selected Journals in a gorgeous edition from Wesleyan University Press (brilliantly edited by Kenneth James) is monumental."–Matthew Cheney, The Mumpsimus

"A game changer for Delany studies reveal[s] how one of the most brilliant American science fiction writers of the time (and later a noted literary theorist) came of age."–M.J. Emery, Choice

"Delany himself, having become something of an icon in the urban literary universe."–Alan Contreras, The Gay & Lesbian Review

"Traversing Delany's youth, we see a precocious mind grappling with his own talent he lives on two registers, participating in the world and also observing it, living simultaneously as a kid in NYC and, 'a writer of genius'."–Robert Minto, New Republic

"In Delany, each work is in dialogue with the next, the fiction illuminating the nonfiction, which in turn re-illuminates the fiction. Delany's notebooks add a new voice to this dialogue."–Kenneth R. James, Tor

"The simple fact is that I think Delany is one of the most important American writers, one who ought to be spoken of alongside any great American writer of the second half of the twentieth century the recent publication of volume one of Delany's Selected Journals in a gorgeous edition from Wesleyan University Press (brilliantly edited by Kenneth James) is monumental."–Matthew Cheney, The Mumpsimus

"The first hardcover volume of Samuel Delany's journals, out now from Wesleyan University Press (covering the 1950s and 1960s) is both magisterial and inspirational–and boy, do we need the inspiration now. I am in awe of the work and scholarship involved. In collaboration with his remarkable subject, editor Kenneth James is doing an invaluable service to our field."–Andy Duncan, Nebula and World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Night Cache
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Details

ISBN-10: 0819570893
ISBN-13: 9780819570895
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Publish Date: 02/07/2017
Dimensions: 9.40" L, 6.70" W, 1.80" H
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