Description

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

‘Lifescapes is the universe in miniature’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

It is soul that I go looking for. Or, to put it another way, real life.

‘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

This thought-provoking and beautifully written book blends memoir with poetry and biography in search of what elements can evoke the character of a person * Financial Times, *Books of the Year* * ‘I think of my work as catching souls,’ writes Ann Wroe, the obituaries editor of The Economist, at the start of this book… How she goes about capturing them all is a fascinating business * Sunday Times, *Books of the Year* * Seamlessly merges scenes from the author’s life with the overflow from her admirably humane Economist obituaries… This glimpse of Wroe at work, enriched with stories from her private notebooks, is a treat akin to, borrowing her words, ‘wild plums fallen in the grass’ * Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year* * Beautifully written, the prose witty, twisting and sensuous, but it is sharp, too * The Times * What a treat it is to read a writer at the top of her game… Astonishing… Lifescapes is the universe in miniature * Daily Telegraph *