Men In The Off Hours

Men In The Off Hours

Summary

Following her widely acclaimed Autobiography of Red ('a spellbinding achievement' - Susan Sontag): a new collection of poetry and prose that displays Anne Carson's intoxicating mixture of opposites - the classic and the modern, cinema and print, narrative and verse.

In Men in the Off Hours, Carson re-invents figures as diverse as Oedipus, Emily Dickinson and Audubon. She views the writings of Sappho, St Augustine and Catullus through a modern lens. She sets up startling juxtapositions (Lazarus among video paraphernalia; Virginia Woolf and Thucydides discussing war). And, in a final prose poem, she meditates on the recent death of her mother.

With its quiet, acute spirituality, its fearless wit and sensuality, and its joyful understanding that 'the fact of the matter for humans is imperfection', Men in the Off Hours is profound, provocative and unforgettable.

Reviews

  • The most exciting poet writing in English today
    Michael Ondaatje

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.
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