The writing career of Booker Prize winner John Berger-poet, storyteller,
playwright, and essayist-has yielded some of the most original and
compelling examinations of art and life of the past half century. In
this essential volume, Geoff Dyer has brought together a rich selection
of many of Berger's seminal essays.
Berger's insights make it impossible to look at a painting, watch a
film, or even visit a zoo in quite the same way again. The vast range of
subjects he addresses, the lean beauty of his prose, and the keenness of
his anger against injustice move us to view the world with a new lens of
awareness. Whether he is discussing the singleminded intensity of
Picasso's Guernica, the parallel violence and alienation in the art of
Francis Bacon and Walt Disney, or the enigmatic silence of his own
mother, what binds these pieces throughout is the depth and fury of
Berger's passion, challenging us to participate, to protest, and above
all, to see.