Truman Capote Libri

Quando fu pubblicato, nel 1966, "A sangue freddo" suscitò una serie di polemiche di carattere letterario ed etico-sociale. L'autore venne accusato, tra l'altro, di voyeurismo cinico, per aver voluto registrare 'oggettivamente' un fatto di cronaca nera, anzi di violenza gratuita, avvenuto nel cuore del Middle West agricolo: lo sterminio brutale di una famiglia da parte di due psicopatici. L'idea del romanzo-reportage, del romanzo-verità, del romanzo-al-registratore, se da un lato riportava in primo piano il mito dell'imparzialità cronachistica, della realtà come tale, afferrabile soltanto mediante un linguaggio depurato dell'io narrante, dall'altro denunciava l'importanza della forma romanzo a riflettere metaforicamente una realtà contradditoria e complessa come quella della società americana degli anni sessanta. Nel libro, la visione puntuale delle dinamiche della vicenda, ottenuta grazie all'assidua frequentazione dei colpevoli, giustiziati dopo un processo durato sei anni, è filtrata e riscattata attraverso una così sapiente e originale elaborazione stilistica, che questo testo del polimorfo e dotatissimo scrittore costruisce ancor oggi un termine di riferimento di ogni problematica 'oggettualistica', non soltanto narrativa.

Quando «Colazione da Tiffany» venne pubblicato per la prima volta, nel 1958, il «Time» definì la sua eroina Holly Golightly: «la gattina più eccitante che la macchina per scrivere di Truman Capote abbia mai creato. È un incrocio tra una Lolita un po' cresciuta e una giovanissima Zia Mame… sola, ingenua e un po' impaurita». Di tutti i suoi personaggi, disse Capote più tardi, lei era la sua preferita, ed è facile capire perché. Holly è una cover-girl di New York, attrice cinematografica mancata, generosa di sé con tutti, consolatrice di carcerati, eterna bambina chiassosa e scanzonata. È un personaggio incantevole, dotato di una sorprendente grazia poetica. Intorno a lei ruotano tipi bizzarri come Sally Tomato, paterno gangster ospite del penitenziario di Sing Sing; O.J. Berman, il potente agente delle star di Hollywood; il «vecchio ragazzo» Rusty Trawler; Joe Bell, proprietario di bar e timido innamorato... «Holly Golightly», scrisse «The Atlantic», «è bizzarra, simpaticissima, commovente… e reale.»

From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote—also available are Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume), In Cold Blood, and The Complete Stories Perhaps no twentieth-century writer was so observant and graceful a chronicler of his times as Truman Capote. Portraits and Observations is the first volume devoted solely to all the essays ever published by this most beloved of writers. Included are such masterpieces of narrative nonfiction as “The Muses Are Heard” and the short nonfiction novel “Handcarved Coffins,” as well as many long-out-of-print essays, including portraits of Mae West, Humphrey Bogart, and Marilyn Monroe. From his travel sketches of Brooklyn, New Orleans, and Hollywood, written when he was twenty-two, to the author’s last written words, “Remembering Willa Cather,” composed the day before his death in 1984, Portraits and Observations puts on display the full spectrum of Truman Capote’s brilliance. Certainly Capote was, as Somerset Maugham famously called him, “a stylist of the first quality.” But as the pieces gathered here remind us, he was also an artist of remarkable substance.

A reminiscence of a Christmas shared by a seven-year-old boy and a sixtyish childlike woman, with enormous love and friendship between them.

She is a beautiful child. I don't think she's an actress at all, not in any traditional sense. What she has - this presence, this luminosity, this flickering intelligence - could never surface on the stage. It's so fragile and subtle, it can only be caught by the camera. It's like a hummingbird in flight : only a camera can freeze the poetry of it.

Contains twelve of author's celebrated short stories, together with The Grass Harp and Breakfast at Tiffany's. This title also includes various sketches of places from Tangiers to Brooklyn, and insights into the lives of his contemporaries, from Jane Bowles and Cecil Beaton to Marilyn Monroe and Tennessee Williams.

Selected from across Capote's writing life, the stories range from nostalgic portraits of childhood to more unsettling works that reveal the darkness beneath the festive glitter. In the Deep South of Capote's youth, a young boy, Buddy, and his beloved maiden 'aunt' Sook forage for pecans and whisky to bake into fruitcakes, make kites - too broke to buy gifts - and rise before dawn to prepare feasts for a ragged assembly of guests; it is Sook who teaches Buddy the true meaning of goodwill. In other stories, an unlikely festive miracle, of sorts, occurs at a local drugstore; an eccentric young girl dreams of Hollywood; and a lonely woman has a troubling encounter in wintry New York. Brimming with feeling, these sparkling tales convey both the wonder and the chill of Christmas time.

Gathers two novels, interviews, and nonfiction accounts of murder written by the controversial, New Orleans-born author

"Collection of essays, profiles, travel pieces and observations ..."--book jacket

Passionate, perceptive and eloquent, the short stories of Truman Capote are among the greatest works of twentieth century American fiction. This new collection gathers them all together for the first time: from early, eerie Southern Gothic tales such as 'Miriam' and 'The Headless Hawk', to the brilliantly evocative 'Children On Their Birthdays' and the tenderly autobiographical 'A Christmas Memory' - an affectionate portrayal of Capote's own Alabama upbringing. Whether describing the Deep South of his childhood, or considering city life with the penetrating gaze of an outsider - as in 'Among the Paths to Eden' and the hitherto unpublished 'The Bargain' these stories rank among Capote's finest work: acutely observed tales from a unique and brilliant mind.