Deirdre Bair has written biographies of Anais Nin, Carl Jung, Simone de Beauvoir, and Samuel Beckett. She won a National Book Award for the Beckett biography.
Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No...you didn't. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No...we didn't loot.
continue readingIf there is one single word that can set off a group of biographers on a spirited debate, it is compassion. Writing a biography is a complex matter, and those who attempt to capture the elusive otherness of a stranger are often at a loss for words when someone asks what compelled them to do it. I have heard some biographers describe the attraction as akin to entering into an arranged marriage for however long it takes to write the book; by others as signing a binding (in every sense of the word) contract that requires them to probe the inner recesses and hidden depths of someone else’s life, no matter how unsavory they turn out to be; and by still others as having to give up all sense of one’s own true self and take on the trappings of another, no matter how schizophrenic the experience.
continue reading