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Autobiography Of Red
  • Published: 15 August 1999
  • ISBN: 9780224059732
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $44.99

Autobiography Of Red

Formats & editions
Paperback
29 Oct 2024
Tr. Paperback
15 Aug 1999
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`Anne Carson is, for me, the most exciting poet writing in English today. Autobiography of Red is a wonderful, mongrel work, a strange and ambitious bridge between classical texts and contemporary autobiographical poetry' - Michael Ondaatje

In this extraordinary epic poem, Anne Carson bridges the gap between classicism and the modern, poetry and prose, with a volcanic journey into the soul of a winged red monster named Geryon.

There is a strong mixture of whimsy and sadness in Geryon's story. He is tormented as a boy by his brother, escapes to a parallel world of photography, and falls in love with Herakles - a golden young man who leaves Geryon at the peak of infatuation. Geryon retreats ever further into the world created by his camera, until that glass house is suddenly and irrevocably shattered by Herakles' return. Running throughout is Geryon's fascination with his wings, the colour red, and the fantastic accident of who he is.

Autobiography of Red is a deceptively simple narrative layered with currents of meaning, emotion, and the truth about what it's like to be red. It is a powerful and unsettling story that moves, disturbs, and delights.
  • Published: 15 August 1999
  • ISBN: 9780224059732
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $44.99
Categories:

About the author

Anne Carson

Anne Carson was born in Canada and has been a professor of Classics for over thirty years. Her awards and honours include the T. S. Eliot Prize, a Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Prize, on two occasions, fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, and the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2020. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2026.
AC

Also by Anne Carson

Beware the Man Whose Handwriting Sways Like a Reed in the Wind
Wrong Norma
H of H Playbook
Red Doc>
Decreation
The Beauty Of The Husband
Men In The Off Hours
See all

Praise for Autobiography Of Red

Anne Carson is, for me, the most exciting poet writing in English today. Autobiography of Red is a wonderful, mongrel work, a strange and ambitious bridge between classical texts and contemporary autobiographical poetry

Michael Ondaatje

Her work is full of moments of startling originality and beauty. The poems play with character and plot, myth and magic; they are rich with attitude and wit and the undertow of grief. If she was a prose writer she would instantly be recognised as a genius

Colm Tóibín, Times Literary Supplement

Anne Carson is a daring, learned, unsettling writer. Autobiography of Red, which perhaps comes closest to representing the range of her voice and gifts, is a spellbinding achievement

Susan Sontag

I'm a big fan of her work... There's a joy in encountering a mind that takes nothing for granted... She pinpoints the collision of oracle and anachronism

Teju Cole

For a long time, Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson was like my bible

Ralf Webb

I read it when I was a teenager and it totally changed my life

Olly Alexander

One of the greatest writers of our time

Édouard Louis

Infinite genius

Yiyun Li

Carson writes in language any poet would kill for: sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender, brilliantly lighted

Ruth Padel

I have never and will never read anything like Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Hanya Yanagihara

Like all of Anne Carson's writing, this book is amazing - I haven't discovered any writing in years that's so marvellously disturbing. I just feel so happy that she's around

Alice Munro

Her work is full of moments of startling originality and beauty. The poems play with character and plot, myth and magic; they are rich with attitude and wit and the undertow of grief. If she was a prose writer she would instantly be recognised as a genius

Colm Tóibín, Times Literary Supplement

Anne Carson has created, from fragments of the Greek poet Stesichoros, a profound love story...forty-seven compulsively readable long-lined poems of intense cinematic detail. Carson writes in language any poet would kill for: sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender, brilliantly lighted

Ruth Padel, New York Times Book Review

Anne Carson is a daring, learned, unsettling writer. Autobiography of Red, which perhaps comes closest to representing the range of her voice and gifts, is a spellbinding achievement

Susan Sontag