Elias Canetti
Born in Bulgaria (1905–1994) Canetti wrote novels, plays, non-fiction, and memoirs and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981 “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power.”
Canetti invites–indeed, compels–judgment. His exacting presence honors literature.
— George Steiner, The New Yorker
Party In The Blitz
Elias Canetti’s Party in the Blitz captures the “torture” and “needless humiliations” of his years in exile in wartime London. Well known throughout mainland Europe, Canetti was ignored by British intellectuals, and he scorned them in turn. By force of will alone, he accumulated followers, but not before being christened “the godmonster of Hampstead.” Party in the Blitz, like an X-ray, displays Canetti’s brief, scathing, brimstone sketches of the various people in his social circle: T.S. Eliot, Iris Murdoch, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Herbert Read, Bertrand Russell. Gorgeously translated by Michael Hofmann, Party in the Blitz lives up to Canetti’s injunction that “when you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about.”
Party In The Blitz
Elias Canetti’s Party in the Blitz captures the “torture” and “needless humiliations” of his years in exile in wartime London. Well known throughout mainland Europe, Canetti was ignored by British intellectuals, and he scorned them in turn. By force of will alone, he accumulated followers, but not before being christened “the godmonster of Hampstead.” Party in the Blitz, like an X-ray, displays Canetti’s brief, scathing, brimstone sketches of the various people in his social circle: T.S. Eliot, Iris Murdoch, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Herbert Read, Bertrand Russell. Gorgeously translated by Michael Hofmann, Party in the Blitz lives up to Canetti’s injunction that “when you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about.”
Canetti invites–indeed, compels–judgment. His exacting presence honors literature.
— George Steiner, The New Yorker
This is the fourth and final volume of Elias Canetti’s memoirs. Its predecessors…were poised, richly detailed and slightly dull; Party in the Blitz, however, is chaotic…and horribly fascinating.
— John Banville, Nation
