Joan Didion

The iconic writer whose prose was as influential and as it is unmistakably hers is joined in conversation with Sheila Heti, Hilton Als, Dave Eggers, Hari Kunzru and many more. Some writers define a generation. Some a genre. Joan Didion did both, and much more. Didion rose to prominence with her nonfiction collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and she quickly became the writer who defined the washed-out, acid hangover of the 60s. But the bicoastal writer of fiction and nonfiction, whose writing ranged from profoundly personal essays and raw, intimate memoirs was equally a writer focused on international affairs, political intrigue, and social justice. This collection encompasses it all, in conversations that delve into her underappreciated mid-career works, her influences, the loss of her husband and daughter, and her most infamous essays. Far from the evasive image of a terse minimalist that has come to dominate the image of Joan Didion, what this collection reveals is a warm, thoughtful woman whose well earned legacy promises to live on for readers and writers for many generations to follow.

Joan Didion föddes i Sacramento, Kalifornien 1934 och dog i New York 2021. Hon inledde sin journalistiska bana på Vogue och debuterade som författare med romanen Run River 1963. Mest känd är hon för sina reportage och essäer. Flera samlingar har publicerats i USA; Slouching towards Bethlehem och The White Album hålls idag som klassiker. Att lära sig själv att levaär en samling av hennes mest minnesvärda texter, i urval av journalisten Jan Gradvall som också har skrivit ett efterord. Samlingen utkom för första gången på svenska 2008. Översättning: Ulla Danielsson. ”Oavsett om hon ansåg sig vara en del av en "kvinnorörelse" eller inte, spelade hennes sätt att skriva en avgörande roll i den. Jag fick aldrig tacka henne för det, förutom genom imitation, medveten och omedveten. Även om hon utan tvekan skulle ha funnit idén sentimental och onödigt banal, är jag en del av en stor armé av kvinnliga författare som står i skuld till henne.” – Zadie Smith”Det är enkelt att beskriva Joan Didion som essäist: hon håller huvudet kallt. Eller som Jan Gradvall skriver i sitt efterord till Didions greatest hits-samling på svenska: Hon tittar skeptiskt på när flocken reagerar med instinkt och översvallande känslor. Didion är, bland mycket annat, en av de främsta uttolkarna av amerikansk kultur – hennes texter handlar om allt från John Wayne till hippierörelsen och Irakkriget, om ovanligt vanligt folk med vanligt ovanliga drömmar.”--- Aase Berg, Expressen

Joan Didion föddes i Sacramento, Kalifornien 1934 och dog i New York 2021. Hon inledde sin journalistiska bana på Vogue och debuterade som författare med romanen Run River 1963. Mest känd är hon för sina reportage och essäer. Flera samlingar har publicerats i USA; Slouching towards Bethlehem och The White Album hålls idag som klassiker. Låt mig berätta vad jag menarär Joan Didions sista samling texter. Dessa tolv texter, skrivna mellan 1968 till 2000, visar upp Joan Didions skarpa iakttagelseförmåga, hennes empatiska blick och hennes roll som "välartikulerat vittne till vår tids mest envisa och svårlösta sanningar" (The New York Times Book Review). Översättning: Magdalena Sørensen”Oavsett om hon ansåg sig vara en del av en "kvinnorörelse" eller inte, spelade hennes sätt att skriva en avgörande roll i den. Jag fick aldrig tacka henne för det, förutom genom imitation, medveten och omedveten. Även om hon utan tvekan skulle ha funnit idén sentimental och onödigt banal, är jag en del av en stor armé av kvinnliga författare som står i skuld till henne.” – Zadie Smith”Det är enkelt att beskriva Joan Didion som essäist: hon håller huvudet kallt. Eller som Jan Gradvall skriver i sitt efterord till Didions greatest hits-samling på svenska: Hon tittar skeptiskt på när flocken reagerar med instinkt och översvallande känslor. Didion är, bland mycket annat, en av de främsta uttolkarna av amerikansk kultur – hennes texter handlar om allt från John Wayne till hippierörelsen och Irakkriget, om ovanligt vanligt folk med vanligt ovanliga drömmar.”--- Aase Berg, Expressen

Una colecci n atemporal de algunos de los primeros art culos y cr nicas de la ic nica escritora y periodista norteamericana.«Una excelente introducci n a la aguda mirada de Didion sobre la vida estadounidense. - Bethanne Patrick, The Washington Post «Escribo estrictamente para averiguar qu estoy pensando, qu estoy mirando, qu veo y qu significa. Lo que quiero decir recopila doce art culos y cr nicas in ditas en espa ol de Didion bajo el eje vertebrador de lo que el Nuevo Periodismo llam "el narrador testigo". Redactados en la primera parte de su carrera como periodista, estos concisos e incisivos textos muestran los intereses primarios que la convirtieron en escritora y abarcan un amplio espectro de sus temas habituales, desde el acto de escribir a la cr nica social o pol tica. Por sus p ginas desfilan personajes como Orwell, Hemingway, Mapplethorpe, Nancy Reagan, an nimos de Lud patas An nimos o el propio director de admisiones de la Universidad de Standford, donde fue rechazada. Didion es uno de los iconos culturales de Estados Unidos y una de las figuras clave del periodismo de las ltimas cinco d cadas, y en sus cr nicas, como apunta el pr logo de Elvira Navarro, «refleja, como pocos autores, un mundo, el estadounidense, que, para bien y para mal, ha extendido sus tent culos por todo el orbe, hasta el punto de que hoy resulta imposible comprender la cultura y los acontecimientos pol ticos y econ micos m s recientes de los pa ses occidentales (Espa a entre ellos) sin mirar a Estados Unidos. Leerla es tambi n, por consiguiente, adentrarnos en lo que nos ha sucedido a todos en las ltimas d cadas . ENGLISH DESCRIPTION NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - From one of our most iconic and influential writers, the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion's subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt. These twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (The New York Times Book Review). Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.

Twelve early pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion. Mostly drawn from the earliest part of her astonishing five-decade career, the wide-ranging pieces in this collection include Didion writing about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a visit to San Simeon, and a reunion of WWII veterans in Las Vegas, and about topics ranging from Nancy Reagan to Robert Mapplethorpe to Martha Stewart. Here are subjects Didion has long written about – the press, politics, California robber baronsac, women, the act of writing, and her own self-doubt. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive and, in new light, stunningly prescient.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From one of our most iconic and influential writers, the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking a timeless collection that reveals what would become Joan Didion's subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt. "Didion's remarkable, five decades-long career as a journalist, essayist, novelist, and screen writer has earned her a prominent place in the American literary canon, and the twelve early pieces collected here underscore her singularity."--O Magazine With a forward by Hilton Als, these pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (The New York Times Book Review). Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.

Let Me Tell You What I Mean på polska.

The Year of Magical Thinking på polska.

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience – classics which will endure for generations to come. A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their daughter fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then she was placed on life support. Days later, the Dunnes were sitting down to dinner when John suffered a massive and fatal coronary. This powerful book is Didion’s ‘attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness’. The result is a personal yet universal portrait of marriage and life, in good times and bad, from one of the defining voices of American literature. ‘Beautiful and devastating … Didion has always been a precise, humane and meticulously truthful writer, but on the subject of death she becomes essential’ Zadie Smith

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR - NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - From one of our most iconic and influential writers, the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion's subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt. With a forward by Hilton Als, these twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (The New York Times Book Review). Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.

Un oscuro y enigm tico thriller sobre los complots y conspiraciones de la Guerra Fr a de la mano de Joan Didion, una de las narradoras m s l cidas de las letras norteamericanas. El libro en que se bas la pel cula de Netflix Elena McMahon abandona su trabajo como reportera en The Washington Post y su lujosa vida en California para adentrarse en otra: la de su padre, una existencia repleta de tratos oscuros. Sin apenas darse cuenta, acabar sustituy ndole como traficante de armas para Estados Unidos en alg n punto de Am rica Central. C mo ha podido llegar hasta ese punto? Qu la ha llevado a cambiar una vida acomodada por el mundo criminal? En este thriller moral, hipn tico y provocativo, Elena se enfrentar a las consecuencias de los errores de su padre hasta verse implicada en una conspiraci n gubernamental que pondr en jaque su vida y sus principios. Ambientada en los ochenta y escrita como si se tratara de una investigaci n sobre lo que ocurri durante esos a os de sombras pol ticas, complots e intentos de asesinato, Joan Didion nos presenta una novela trepidante y enigm tica donde vamos descifrando poco a poco la figura de Elena hasta conseguir entender su papel en ese gran tablero que constitu an los ltimos a os de la Guerra Fr a. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION The book that inspired the Netflix Film This intricate, fast-paced story, whose many scenes and details fit together like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, is Didion's incisive and chilling look at a modern world where things are not working as they should and where the oblique and official language is as sinister as the events it is covering up. The narrator introduces Elena McMahon, estranged from a life of celebrity fundraisers and from her powerful West Coast husband, Wynn Janklow, whom she has left, taking Catherine, her daughter, to become a reporter for The Washington Post. Suddenly walking off the 1984 campaign, she finds herself boarding a plane for Florida to see her father, Dick McMahon. She becomes embroiled in her Dick's business though "she had trained herself since childhood not to have any interest in what he was doing." It is from this moment that she is caught up in something much larger than she could have imagined, something that includes Ambassador-at-Large Treat Austin Morrison and Alexander Brokaw, the ambassador to an unnamed Caribbean island. Into this startling vision of conspiracies, arms dealing, and assassinations, Didion makes connections among Dallas, Iran-Contra, and Castro, and points up how "spectral companies with high-concept names tended to interlock." As this book builds to its terrifying finish, we see the underpinnings of a dark historical underbelly. This is our system, the one "trying to create a context for democracy and getting its] hands a little dirty in the process."