William Goyen – författare

William Goyen (1915-1983) was an American original, acclaimed nationally and internationally, and one of the most important writers ever to be associated with the regional culture and literary history of Texas. Called "one of the great American writers of short fiction" by the New York Times Book Review, Goyen also authored the novels The House of Breath, In a Farther Country, Come, the Restorer, and Arcadio, as well as plays, poetry, and nonfiction. His literary works manifest an intimate intensity of feeling and an inimitable tone of voice, reflecting Goyen's lifelong desire to create art that was at once a spiritual quest for universal truths and an evocation of the rhythms of speech and storytelling of his native East Texas. This volume contains all of the uncollected autobiographical writings of William Goyen, including essays previously published in American periodicals and literary journals; interviews published in Paris Review, TriQuarterly, and the French magazine Masques; and previously unpublished materials drawn from Goyen's papers in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The writings span Goyen's entire adult life, from youthful journals to autobiographical sketches to his long sketch for an autobiographical book, Six Women, which profiles women whom Goyen felt had influenced him deeply: Frieda Lawrence, Dorothy Brett, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Margo Jones, Millicent Rogers, and Katherine Anne Porter. The volume also contains late essays on growing up in Houston, writing from life, and illness and recovery. While most of William Goyen's work was autobiographical, writing a traditional autobiography proved to be inimical to his artistic sensibility and style. Thus, the pieces collected in Goyen constitute the most complete autobiography that we will ever have from this highly regarded writer.

Proclaimed "one of the great American writers of short fiction" by the New York Times Book Review, William Goyen (1915-1983) had a quintessentially American literary career, in which national recognition came only after years of struggle to find his authentic voice, his audience, and an artistic milieu in which to create. These letters, which span the years 1937 to 1983, offer a compelling testament to what it means to be a writer in America.A prolific correspondent, Goyen wrote regularly to friends, family, editors, and other writers. Among the letters selected here are those to such major literary figures as W. H. Auden, Archibald MacLeish, Joyce Carol Oates, William Inge, Elia Kazan, Elizabeth Spencer, and Katherine Anne Porter.These letters constitute a virtual autobiography, as well as a fascinating introduction to Goyen's work. They add an important chapter to the study of American and Texas literature of the twentieth century.

Goyen''s final collection of stories, putting together selections from his long career as well as some of his newer works. Published in tandem with a new novel after about a decade of publishing silence. The title story won an O.Henry Prize.

Completed while he was dying, William Goyen''s Arcadio is one of the most affecting and imaginative farewells to life ever written. Arcadio, whose voice is inimitably Goyenesque, is a creature from beyond the normal walk of life. Half man, half woman, raised in a whorehouse and for years the veteran exhibitionist in an itinerant circus sideshow, he has escaped from the show and has been wandering in a quest for his lost family. Speaking intimately to the reader, he tells the bizarre and fantastic tale of his life.

Goyen''s fifth novel is a fable of sexuality, Texas country life in the first half of the twentieth century, religious revivalism, and the money madness and ecological destruction caused by the oil boom. The narrative is composed of the brief linked episodes and tales that are Goyen''s trademark, and is written with an ear for the rhythms of regional speech that was his particular gift.

William Goyen''s second novel finds Marietta McGee-Chavez and her friends and acquaintances populate a world that is as much imagination as it is reality. And within it, they experience dreams and reality, sexual desire and loneliness, triumph and defeat.Subtitles, A Romance, In a Farther Country is an intense performance. Set in a Spanish arts factory in New York City, the novel develops through Marietta''s mixed ancestry (Spanish and Texan). A cast of characters visit and move in to her Spain and by telling each other what they''ve never told others before, each finds the truths of themselves.

Savata--a beautiful, fair-skinned young woman who leaves a career on the night club circuit to become high priestess of her own church in Brooklyn--is the creation of one of America''s most original, evocative, and highly regarded writers. William Goyen offers a wonderful blend of bold satire and dignified pathos in this touching, funny, short novel.

Goyen passes on traditional conventions of plot and character. The House of Breath is an address to the people and places the narrator remembers from his childhood in small Texas town, Charity. The novel is a meditation on the nature of identity and origins, memory, and time''s annihilation of life. This is the restored version, going back to Goyen''s originally published version from 1950 with an afterword from Reginald Gibbons, professor of English at Northwestern University and the former editor of TriQuarterly Magazine.

Part fable and part rhapsodic exploration of desire and loss, Half a Look of Cain bears Goyen''s unmistakable artistic signature on every page. Told as a series of nested episodes, the novel is narrated alternately by a male nurse, his patient, and a lighthouse keeper. As boundaries blur and connections between the men emerge, Half a Look of Cain becomes a meditation on communion and alienation, and an exploration of emotional and physical longing. The novel is both a rediscovered cry against the conformity and suppressed emotions of the 1950s and a celebration of passion. Reginald Gibbons has edited the novel from the author''s multiple manuscripts and has contributed a wonderful afterword.

A non-fiction work by Goyen--his attempt to explain who Jesus Christ was utilizing Christ''s own words.