Andrea Barrett – författare

`A great, shivery, seductive read.’ ElleIntelligent, accessible literary fiction of the highest order. Superbly dramatic and beautifully readable.A terrific tale of high endeavour and polar peril, this is the story of a scientific expedition to the Arctic in 1855 and the women the explorers left behind.A brilliant portrait of Victorian society obsessed with mapping and classifying everything under the sun – including the icy Arctic – where theemancipation of women and the evolution of species are the next great revolutions just stirring into life.

A national hardback bestseller in the US – another magnificently imagined and executed book of historical fiction with a contemporary twist, from one of the masters of the form. ‘These stories possess a wonderful clarity and ease, the serene authority of a writer working at the very height of her powers.' New York TimesRanging across two centuries, and from the western Himalayas to an Adirondack village, Servants of the Map travels the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery.A mapper of the highest mountain peaks, engaged on the trigonometrical measurement of British India, realizes his true obsession while in deflationary correspondence with his far-off wife. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett’s most characteristic theme – the happenings in that borderland between science and desire – unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings.

Exceptional tales of emancipation and evolution at the birth of the modern era. Winner of US National Book Award.’Andrea Barrett’s work stands out for its sheer intelligence. The overall effect is quietly dazzling.’ New York TimesSet against the backdrop of the nineteenth century, this elegant collection of stories take their impulse from the world of science. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, they illuminate the secret passions of those driven by a devotion to, and an intimate acquaintance with, the natural world.’Barrett’s stories fascinate…she pulls us into them as into fast-moving water.’ San Francisco Chronicle’Beautiful stories about the wonder and work of science. The title novella describes the horrors of typhus in the newly arrived Irish immigrants to Quebec, and suggests that, in epidemics, medicine is more a piece of politics than a form of science. In Barrett’s hands, science is transformed from hard and known fact into malleable, strange and thrilling fictional material.’ Boston Globe’An extraordinary story collection. Barrett blends a sure grasp of the history and method of science into each of her evocative tales.’ Chicago Tribune’Many of these stories are set in the late nineteenth century, the adolescence of modern science. Barrett’s women are often scoffed at for their love of learning. Some try to use science as a currency with which to buy acceptance in a male-dominated world. But no character relates only to his or her work. Barrett builds her fictions like stones thrown into prose ponds: science is the stone, while human dramas, personal and social, are the concentric rings that radiate beautifully outward.’ Newsday

Exceptional tales of emancipation and evolution at the birth of the modern era. Winner of US National Book Award.’Andrea Barrett’s work stands out for its sheer intelligence. The overall effect is quietly dazzling.’ New York TimesSet against the backdrop of the nineteenth century, this elegant collection of stories take their impulse from the world of science. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, they illuminate the secret passions of those driven by a devotion to, and an intimate acquaintance with, the natural world.’Barrett’s stories fascinate…she pulls us into them as into fast-moving water.’ San Francisco Chronicle’Beautiful stories about the wonder and work of science. The title novella describes the horrors of typhus in the newly arrived Irish immigrants to Quebec, and suggests that, in epidemics, medicine is more a piece of politics than a form of science. In Barrett’s hands, science is transformed from hard and known fact into malleable, strange and thrilling fictional material.’ Boston Globe’An extraordinary story collection. Barrett blends a sure grasp of the history and method of science into each of her evocative tales.’ Chicago Tribune’Many of these stories are set in the late nineteenth century, the adolescence of modern science. Barrett’s women are often scoffed at for their love of learning. Some try to use science as a currency with which to buy acceptance in a male-dominated world. But no character relates only to his or her work. Barrett builds her fictions like stones thrown into prose ponds: science is the stone, while human dramas, personal and social, are the concentric rings that radiate beautifully outward.’ Newsday

A national hardback bestseller in the US – another magnificently imagined and executed book of historical fiction with a contemporary twist, from one of the masters of the form. `These stories possess a wonderful clarity and ease, the serene authority of a writer working at the very height of her powers.' New York TimesRanging across two centuries, and from the western Himalayas to an Adirondack village, Servants of the Map travels the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery.A mapper of the highest mountain peaks, engaged on the trigonometrical measurement of British India, realizes his true obsession while in deflationary correspondence with his far-off wife. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett’s most characteristic theme – the happenings in that borderland between science and desire – unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings.

Set in New England, `The Forms of Water’ is a superb exploration of the complexities of family life, grief and the ties that continue to bind us to the past.At the age of eighty, Brendan Auberon, a former monk, is now confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home. As a last wish, he is desperate to catch a final glimpse of the two hundred acres of woodland on which once stood his parental home. Half a century ago, the owners of the land were evicted from their homes and the land was flooded to create a reservoir which would provide water for the big city.`The Forms of Water’ is the story of what happens when Brendan convinces his staid nephew Henry to hijack the nursing home van to make this ancestral visit. What begins as a joke becomes infinitely more complex as the family roles begin to rearrange themselves.A rich and absorbing look at the complexities of family life, at grief and at the ties that continue to bind us to the past.

A lyrical, moving novel of the choices and confusions that face a married woman whose understanding of herself explodes on first contact with the energies of China and a Chinaman.Grace Hoffmeier is never quite sure where to invest her energies: in her dying marriage to star scientist Walter or in the possible affairs that flare so startlingly before her like fireworks; in her work or in her home; in things or in people; in the past or in the future.On an eye-opening trip to a China that has ripped itself apart, yet again, at its very heart in Tiananmen Square, Grace finds – with guidance from unexpected quarters – that what you can choose between is not always your choice to make. The real China soon crackles into being before Grace; its fire and light illuminate for her paths old and new, and a new life in a new kingdom.

`A great, shivery, seductive read.’ ElleIntelligent, accessible literary fiction of the highest order. Superbly dramatic and beautifully readable.A terrific tale of high endeavour and polar peril, this is the story of a scientific expedition to the Arctic in 1855 and the women the explorers left behind.A brilliant portrait of Victorian society obsessed with mapping and classifying everything under the sun – including the icy Arctic – where theemancipation of women and the evolution of species are the next great revolutions just stirring into life.

Ranging across two centuries, and from the western Himalaya to an Adirondack village, these wonderfully imagined stories and novellas travel the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. Throughout, Barrett's most characteristic theme—the happenings in that borderland between science and desire—unfolds in the diverse lives of unforgettable human beings. Although each richly layered tale stands independently, readers of Ship Fever (National Book Award winner) and Barrett's extraordinary novel The Voyage of the Narwhal, will discover subtle links both among these new stories and to characters in the earlier works.

Andrea Barrett’s novels have received resounding critical acclaim, inspiring comparisons to Gail Godwin and Anne Tyler. In Secret Harmonies, she creates a wonderful portrait of a family struggling to make sense of their lives in the rural hills of western Massachusetts. When childhood sweethearts Reba Dwyer and Luke Wyatt marry, they expect no surprises. But now that Luke—friend of Reba’s childhood, friend of her heart—is her husband, discord enters their lives. Secret Harmonies is the utterly absorbing, moving story of what happens to this couple and to the eccentric constellation of loved ones swirling around them.

At the age of eighty, Brendan Auberon—formerly of the Order of Our Lady of the Valley, now confined to a nursing home—has one last wish: to see his 200 acres overlooking what used to be Paradise Valley, before the villages were drowned to provide water for the city of Boston. Now, Brendan’s memories drift beneath the surface of the Stillwater Reservoir. When Brendan dupes his nephew, Henry, into hijacking the nursing home van for the journey, what begins as a lark becomes an adventure infinitely more complex.

The elegant short fictions gathered hereabout the love of science and the science of love are often set against the backdrop of the nineteenth century. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, they encompass both past and present as they negotiate the complex territory of ambition, failure, achievement, and shattered dreams.In "Ship Fever," the title novella, a young Canadian doctor finds himself at the center of one of history's most tragic epidemics. In "The English Pupil," Linnaeus, in old age, watches as the world he organized within his head slowly drifts beyond his reach. And in "The Littoral Zone," two marine biologists wonder whether their life-altering affair finally was worth it.In the tradition of Alice Munro and William Trevor, these exquisitely rendered fictions encompass whole lives in a brief space. As they move between interior and exterior journeys, "science is transformed from hard and known fact into malleable, strange and thrilling fictional material" (Boston Globe).

In this thoughtful collection of essays, Andrea Barrett draws from her experiences writing some of the most acclaimed historical fiction of our time to explore the mysteries and delights of the genre. Inspiration found in the past, she argues, can illuminate fiction, just as dust scatters light and makes the unseen visible. Delving into some of the largest questions in the genre—How does a writer find meaningful subject matter beyond the confines of their life? How are scraps of history transformed into a fully formed narrative?—Barrett explores how she came to create some of her beloved works and explores lessons gleaned from the work of such masters of historical fiction as including Toni Morrison, Leo Tolstoy, Hilary Mantel and Colm Tóibín. Candid and elegant, Dust and Light is the perfect book for anyone who loves reading fiction set in the past, as well as for anyone aspiring to write it.

The Narwhal has a simple mission: to find the remains—human and material—of a disappeared ship. But its rash and obsessive young commander, Zeke Voorhees, has ulterior motives that may spell doom for the Narwhal and its crew. His soon-to-be brother-in-law, scholar-naturalist Erasmus Darwin Wells, may be the only one aboard who can alter their fate. Back in Philadelphia, the women left behind make journeys of the imagination as they await the Narwhal’s return. Wielding her signature lyrical and precise style, Andrea Barrett unravels the mid-nineteenth-century American romance with the Arctic in a "genuine page turner that long lingers in the mind" (Philip Graham, Chicago Tribune).

In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war—but in the town of Tamarack Lake, the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. From within their isolated community, they grapple with some of the most thrilling scientific discoveries of their time—X-ray technology, chemical and biological weapons, changing theories of atomic structure—and their limitations. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and, sometimes, secret attachments. When the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead instead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice. With The Air We Breathe, Andrea Barrett has crafted a "majestic, breathtaking, [and] thrilling" (San Diego Union-Tribune) novel that brilliantly illuminates the inescapable heartbreak of war.

A young boy comes of age amid an explosion of homespun investigations. A widowed science writer tries to reconcile the influence of emotion on scientific theory. A famous biologist finds himself outpaced by his students, even as he seeks to teach them. As the characters in this "elegant, thought-provoking" (Connie Ogle, Miami Herald) collection witness the world transform around them through groundbreaking discoveries—the flight of an early aeroplane, Darwin’s theory of evolution, developments in genetics and X-ray technology—they grapple with the thrill and loss that accompanies scientific progress, and the personal passions and impersonal politics that shape all human knowledge. Throughout these deftly plotted stories, Andrea Barrett weaves subtle connections among the tales within this collection and characters in her earlier works.

In Natural History, Andrea Barrett completes the beautiful arc of intertwined lives of a family of scientists, teachers, and innovators that she has been weaving through multiple books since her National Book Award–winning collection, Ship Fever. The six exquisite stories in Natural History are set largely in a small community in central New York state and portray some of her most beloved characters, spanning the decades between the Civil War to the present day. In “Henrietta and Her Moths,” a woman tends to an insect nursery as her sister’s life follows a different path. In “Open House,” a young man grapples with a choice between a thrilling life spent discovering fossils and a desire to remain close to home. And in the magnificent title novella, “Natural History,” Barrett deepens the connection between her characters, bringing us through to the present day and providing an unforgettable capstone.Told with Barrett’s characteristic elegance, passion for science, and wonderful eye for the natural world, the psychologically astute and moving stories gathered in this collection evoke the ways women’s lives and expectations—in families, in work, and in love—have shifted across a century and more. Building upon one another, these tales brilliantly culminate to reveal how the smallest events of the past can have large reverberations across the generations, and how potent, wondrous, and strange the relationship between history and memory can be.

Servants of the Map sweeps through two centuries, from the Western Himalayas to the Adirondacks, conjuring characters that travel through the territories of yearning and awakening, of loss and unexpected discovery. A mapper of the highest mountain peaks realizes his true obsession. A young woman afire with scientific curiosity must come to terms with a romantic fantasy. Brothers and sisters, torn apart at an early age, are beset by dreams of reunion. As we move through these richly layered tales, Andrea Barrett weaves subtle connections among the stories within this collection and characters in her earlier works.

The celebrated novelist Andrea Barrett has for decades reached backward to find inspiration from the past, and written acclaimed and prize-winning works of historical fiction. In Dust and Light, her first non-fiction work, Barrett draws from that deep well of experience to explore the mysteries, methods and delights of the form. She reveals how she created some of her own beloved works, taking readers on a fascinating journey into some of the largest questions in the genre.Building on pieces originally published in leading literary magazines, Dust and Light is an elegant exploration of the hazy borderlands of fiction sewn from the materials of history. Filled with profound insights, it will be a delight for any devoted fiction readers, and of great use to aspiring writers too.

Autumn, 1916. America is preparing to enter WWI, but at Tamarack State Hospital, the danger is barely felt. Here in the crisp, mountain air where wealthy tuberculosis patients recover in private cottages and charity patients, mostly European émigrés, fill the sanatorium, time stands still. Prisoners of routine and yearning for absent families, the inmates take solace in gossip, rumour and secret attachments.One enterprising patient initiates a weekly discussion group, but his well-meaning efforts lead instead to tragedy and betrayal. The war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment. Andrea Barrett pits power and privilege against unrest and thwarted desire in a spellbinding tale of individual lives in a nation on the verge of extraordinary change.

A Kite in the Wind is an anthology of essays by 20 veteran writers and master teachers. While the contributors offer specific, practical advice on such fundamental aspects of craft as characterization, character names, the first person point of view, and unreliable narrators, they also give extended, thoughtful consideration to more sophisticated topics, including “imminence,” or the power of a sense of beginning; creating and maintaining tension; “lushness”; and the deliberate manipulation of information to create particular effects.The essays in A Kite in the Wind begin as personal investigations — attempts to understand why a decision in a particular story or novel seemed unsuccessful; to define a quality or problem that seemed either unrecognized or unsatisfactorily defined; to understand what, despite years of experience as a fiction writer, resisted comprehension; and to pursue haunting, even unanswerable questions.Unlike a how-to book, the anthology is less an instruction manual than it is an intimate visit with twenty very different writers as they explore topics that excite, intrigue, and even puzzle them. Each discussion uses specific examples and illustrations, including both canonical stories and novels and writing less frequently discussed, from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, by both American and international authors.The contributors share their hard-earned insights for beginning and advanced writers with humility, wit, and compassion. The first section of the book focuses on narration, with particular attention paid to various kinds of narrators; the second, on strategic creation and presentation of character; the third, on some of the roles of the visual, beginning with establishing setting; and the fourth, on structural and organizational issues, from movement through time to the manipulation of information to create mystery and suspense.

Der eigenbrötlerische Naturforscher Erasmus Wells verbringt seine Tage zwischen verstaubten Exponaten. Als ihm aber die Teilnahme an einer Arktisexpedition angeboten wird, wagt er sich aus seinem Kokon. Stolz werden große Ziele verkündet, doch je tiefer sie in den Norden vordringen, desto bedrohlicher wird die Umgebung. Unaufhaltsam schließt sich der arktische Winter um das Schiff. Die undurchdringliche Polarnacht, die krachende Kälte, die bläulich graue Kargheit des Eises. Wissenschaftliche Neugier weicht der Angst, eine falsche Entscheidung zu treffen und das Leben aller in Gefahr zu bringen. Barrett erzählt vom Forschen und Scheitern, vom Verstehen und Missverstehen einer anderen Kultur und nicht zuletzt von der Bedeutung der Frauen im Schatten der gefeierten Entdecker.

Der junge Mendel streift durch seine Erbsenpflanzung, ein verwunschener Ort, in dem er das Geheimnis der Erblehre lüften wird und doch bald selbst nicht mehr daran glaubt. Zwei Frauen stellen sich gegen zähe Vorurteile und zweifeln die Lehrmeinungen an. Der alte Carl von Linné hat der Natur eine taxonomische Ordnung übergestreift, doch der Name seiner Tochter entschwindet im Nebel. Das heisere Gezänk nistender Möwen, nachtschwarze Jaguare, Vögel ohne Füße und der Zauber der Chemie befeuern die glühende Faszination an der Natur, den Drang, forschend die Welt zu erfassen. Andrea Barrett erzählt vom versteckten Preis hinter umwälzenden Erkenntnissen, von brennenden Zweifeln und dem, was bleibt, wenn es still wird.

Von den Balkonen des Sanatoriums fällt der Blick auf die nebelumschlungenen Flüsse und Berge, einen einsamen Fuchs und die gewundene Straße zum Dorf. Während Europa im Ersten Weltkrieg versinkt, führen die Patienten der Tuberkuloseklinik hier am Tamarack Lake ihren eigenen Kampf ums Überleben. Als ein Neuankömmling vorschlägt, einmal die Woche für einen Vortrag zusammenzukommen, gerät der Alltag im Hospital aus den Fugen. Leidenschaftlich stürzen sich die Bewohner in ihre Studien, teilen ihr Wissen und erobern – neben der Welt Einsteins und Madame Curies – auch die längst verloren geglaubte Schönheit des Lebens zurück. Barrett erzählt von einer Schicksalsgemeinschaft, in der Erkenntnis zum Lebenselixier gereicht und Wissenschaft zu Poesie wird.