Description

The acclaimed biographer and obituarist for The Economist reflects on a career spent pursuing life and capturing it on the page

***A FINANCIAL TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023***

** SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY**

‘Lifescapes is the universe in miniature’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘She’s a genius, I believe’
HILARY MANTEL, author of Wolf Hall

‘What is life?’ asked the poet Shelley, and could not come up with an answer. Scientists, too, for all their understanding of how life manifests, thrives and evolves, have still not plumbed that fundamental question. Yet biographers and obituarists continue to corral lives in a few columns, or a few hundred pages, aware all the time how fleeting and elusive their subject is.

In this dazzlingly original blend of memoir, biography, observation and poetry, Ann Wroe reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and those of others, through people she has known, studied or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.

Animated by Wroe’s rare imagination, eye for the telling detail, and the wit, beauty and clarity of her writing, Lifescapes is a luminous, deeply personal answer to Shelley’s question.

Publisher Review

She's a genius, I believe, because she lights up every subject she touches -- HILARY MANTEL On the back page of the Economist, the recently departed breathe one last time. Every week I read her first and marvel at the alchemy that produces her beautiful words. Now, thanks to Lifescapes, I begin to understand from whence her shining gift has come -- PETER HENNESSY A rare and beautiful book. Like an aurora borealis or an elusive spherical fish, Ann Wroe's writing performs a merger of substance and form. Reading her, your perception shift to a higher octave. If you want to experience a mystery - how the world's soul moves under the skin of this reality - read this book. -- KAPKA KASSABOVA Ann Wroe is a poet of the particular. Her prose, as tightly woven as a rush basket, frequently breaks into song. Lifescapes is a masterly celebration of the world, and of the peculiar and glorious predicament of its inhabitants. -- JOHN BANVILLE