Drewey Wayne Gunn

Broschiertes Buch

American and British Writers in Mexico, 1556-1973

Beschreibung

American and British Writers in Mexico is the study that laid the foundation upon which subsequent examinations of Mexico's impact upon American and British letters have built. Chosen by the Mexican government to be placed, in translation, in its public libraries, the book was also referenced by Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz in an article in the New Yorker, "Reflections-Mexico and the United States." Drewey Wayne Gunn demonstrates how Mexican experiences had a singular impact upon the development of English writers, beginning with early British explorers who recorded their impressions for Hakluyt's Voyages, through the American Beats, who sought to escape the strictures of American culture. Among the 140 or so writers considered are Stephen Crane, Ambrose Bierce, Langston Hughes, D. H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Katherine Anne Porter, Hart Crane, Malcolm Lowry, John Steinbeck, Graham Greene, Tennessee Williams, Saul Bellow, William Carlos Williams, Robert Lowell, Ray Bradbury, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac. Gunn finds that, while certain elements reflecting the Mexican experience-colors, landscape, manners, political atmosphere, a sense of the alien-are common in their writings, the authors reveal less about Mexico than they do about themselves. A Mexican sojourn often marked the beginning, the end, or the turning point in a literary career. The insights that this pioneering study provide into our complex cultural relationship with Mexico, so different from American and British authors' encounters with Continental cultures, remain vital. The book is essential for anyone interested in understanding the full range of the impact of the expatriate experience on writers.

Autor

Drewey Wayne Gunn grew up a farmboy in North Carolina. He received his B.A. from Wake Forest University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He taught for two years at Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. In 1968 he joined the faculty at Texas A&I University located in the heart of King Ranch country. He visited Europe for the first time as a Fulbright teacher to Denmark. The next year he met and fell in love with Jacques Murat, a translator for Air France. He taught at the Institut Reine in Versailles and at the Université de Metz. As it became harder for Americans to hold a green card, he returned to A&I in 1977 (it became Texas A&M University-Kingsville in 1993), and he and Jacques began a long-distance marriage made bearable by the generous vacations both received and by large phone bills with AT&T. Jacques died of a heart attack in 1994, the year after he retired. Wayne retired in 2001 and was named Professor Emeritus the following year. While taking care of his mother during the last stages of her cancer, he returned to reading gay mysteries, and a whole new career was formed as he delved more deeply into his gay heritage. Two of his books were finalists for a Lambda Literary Award. The Jernigan Library at Texas A&M University-Kingsville circulates the greater part of its Drewey Wayne Gunn Collection of Gay Literature.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: University of Texas Press
• Seitenzahl: 314
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Januar 1974
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 512g
• ISBN-13: 9780292729438
• ISBN-10: 029272943X
• Artikelnr.: 33253159