Bøger af V. S. Pritchett

'I am,' writes Mr. Pritchett, 'an offensive traveller'-meaning not that he is rude to porters, but that his praise of a country has sometimes been taken by its inhabitants as abuse or ridicule. Be that as it may, his book, which is based upon sojourns in Spain, Turkey, Persia, and the Iron Curtain countries, will delight every English reader. Pritchett's alert eye and relaxed manner, his flair for meeting new places and people without any warping preoccupations, produce the most felicitous results, particularly with the 'Peoples' Democracies', which most travellers approach with a bias to left or right. 'The Communist countries are like schools: the population is trained, and like school-children have their own ways of getting round authority.' The low heels and low rents of Czechoslovakia; the high spirits and out-spokenness of the Polish; Bulgaria, where the water is delicious and roses grow everywhere; Romania, so obdurate beneath its Latin sur-face-wherever he goes Pritchett uner-ringly picks out significant details, giving us the genius loci, sharing with us his curiosity about ways of life different from our own, im-parting to us the warmth of his own response to them.

Introduction by JEREMY TREGLOWN"In his daily walks through London,” notes Jeremy Treglown in his Introduction to this collection, "Pritchett watched and listened to people as a naturalist observes wild creatures and birds. He knew that oddity is the norm, not the exception.” This finely attuned sense, coupled with an understanding that nothing in life is mundane, is what makes these stories so immensely enjoyable. Drawing on a vast treasure chest of writings, Treglown has selected sixteen of Pritchett's gems, including "A Serious Question,” which makes its debut in book form here. Featuring some of the best work from a long career, this new compilation of Pritchett's brilliantly compact stories illuminates his legendary skills.