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Named as one of "USA Today's" "most promising books on September
11th."
"Vivid, creative."--"Forecast"
"A smart idea...[drawing from] the incredible talent pool of New
York City writers to consecrate the attack on the World Trade
Center."
--"Kirkus Reviews"
"The wide range of writing styles and viewpoints, as well as Art
Spiegelman's striking cover art, make this anthology a popular
read."
--"Library Journal"
"The works collected here capture both the diversity of the
people of New York and how surreal the catastrophe felt for those
close to Ground Zero. A touching and memorable collection."
--Carlos Orellana, "Booklist," September, 2002
"110 Stories, with an arresting cover image by Art Speigelman,
presents a fractured view of last year's events...What we're left
with is the way the tragedy fits into individual lives, the
impression it makes on impressionable, expressive people."
--"Newsday"
"Effective in producing a wonderful sense of alienation which
allows the reader to perceive language and events afresh."
-- "Politics and Culture"
"[A] heartfelt collection of poems, recollections, and short
works."
-- "School Library Journal"
"A testament to the power of words to transform trauma into
something manageable."
--"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
"Even if you found the event itself sufficiently searing, many
of these pieces provide a new way of approaching the devastation,
loss, bewilderment, the sense of morality-- and immorality--
connections and disconnects that it engendered." "The East Hampton
Star"
"New York University professor UlrichBaer turned to literature
to escape post-9-11 media commentary and political rhetoric...The
book creates a community of writers and a place to collect
memories."--"The Jewish Week"
New York is a city of writers. And when the city was attacked on
9/11, its writers began to do what writers do, they began to look
and feel and think and write, began to struggle to process an event
unimaginable before, and even after, it happened. The work of
journalists appeared immediately, in news reports, commentaries,
and personal essays. But no single collection has yet recorded how
New York writers of fiction, poetry, and dramatic prose have
responded to 9/11.
Now, in 110 Stories, Ulrich Baer has gathered a multi-hued range
of voices that convey, with vivid immediacy and heightened
imagination, the shock and loss suffered in September. From a
stunning lineup of 110 renowned and emerging writers-including Paul
Auster, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Edwidge Danticat, Vivian Gornick,
Phillip Lopate, Dennis Nurkse, Melvin Bukiet, Susan Wheeler-these
stories give readers not so much an analysis of what happened as
the very shape and texture of a city in crisis, what it felt like
to be here, the external and internal damage that the city and its
inhabitants absorbed in the space and the aftermath of a few
unforgettable hours. As A.M. Homes says in one of the book's
eyewitness accounts, "There is no place to put this experience, no
folder in the mental hard drive that says, 'catastrophe.' It is not
something that you want to remember, not something that you want to
forget." This collection testifies to the power of poetry and
storytelling to preserve and give meaning to what seems
overwhelming. It showcasesthe literary imagination in its capacity
to gauge the impact of 9/11 on how we view the world.
Just as the stories of the World Trade towers were filled with
people from all walks of life, the stories collected here reflect
New York's true diversity, its boundless complexity and polyglot
energy, its regenerative imagination, and its spirit of solidarity
and endurance.
The editoras proceeds will be donated to charity. Cover art
donated by Art Spiegelman.
List of Contributors: Humera Afridi, Ammiel Alcalay, Elena
Alexander, Meena Alexander, Jeffery Renard Allen, Roberta Allen,
Jonathan Ames, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Auster, Jennifer Belle,
Jenifer Berman, Charles Bernstein, Star Black, Breyten Breytenbach,
Melvin Jules Bukiet, Peter Carey, Lawrence Chua, Ira Cohen, Imraan
Coovadia, Edwidge Danticat, Alice Elliot, Eric Darton, Lydia Davis,
Samuel R. Delany, Maggie Dubris, Rinde Eckert, Janice Eidus, Masood
Farivar, Carolyn Ferrell, Richard Foreman, Deborah Garrison, Amitav
Ghosh, James Gibbons, Carol Gilligan, Thea Goodman, Vivian Gornick,
Tim Griffin, Lev Grossman, John Guare, Sean Gullette, Jessica
Hagedorn, Kimiko Hahn, Nathalie Handal, Carey Harrison, Joshua
Henkin, Tony Hiss, David Hollander, A.M. Homes, Richard Howard,
Laird Hunt, Siri Hustvedt, John Keene, John Kelly, Wayne
Koestenbaum, Richard Kostelanetz, Guy Lesser, Jonathan Lethem,
Jocelyn Lieu, Tan Lin, Sam Lipsyte, Phillip Lopate, Karen Malpede,
Charles McNulty, Pablo Medina, Ellen Miller, Paul D. Miller/DJ
Spooky, Mark Jay, Tova Mirvis, Albert Mobilio, Alex Molot, Mary
Morris, Tracie Morris, Anna Moschovakis, Richard Eoin Nash, Josip
Novakovich, Dennis Nurkse, Geoffrey O'Brien, Larry O'Connor, Robert
Polito, NellyReifler, Rose-Myriam RA(c)jouis, Roxana Robinson,
Avital Ronell, Daniel Asa Rose, Joe Salvatore, Grace Schulman,
Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Dani Shapiro, Akhil Sharma, Suzan Sherman,
Jenefer Shute, Hal Sirowitz, Pamela Sneed, Chris Spain, Art
Spiegelman, Catharine R. Stimpson, Liz Swados, Lynne Tillman, Mike
Topp, David Trinidad, Val Vinokurov, Chuck Wachtel, Mac Wellman,
Owen West, Rachel Wetzsteon, Susan Wheeler, Peter Wortsman, John
Yau, Christopher Yu.