Dannie Abse's latest book: The Presence
Some months after Dannie Abse's wife Joan died in a car accident in June 2005, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief and a portrait of a marriage which lasted more than fifty years. This book is a memoir from one of Britain's most distinguished poets. It deals with loss, grief and love.
It is an extraordinary document, painful but celebratory; funny as well as sad, bursting with joy as well as sorrow and full of a deep understanding of what it means to be human.
The Presence is the winner of the 2008 Wales Book of the Year.
Watch Dannie Abse talking about and reading from The Presence in a short film from the BBC Wales Book of the Year website here.
See Dannie Abse reading for Oxfam below:
The critics:
“A supremely fresh and vital performance, matching profound
emotion with witty observation… This is a truly marvellous book.”
Boyd Tonkin, The
Independent
“A remarkable
and candid document… a celebration of all things that he values
in life-art, music, poetry, friendship, humour and, above all, the love
he found with his wife.”
Nick Rennison, Sunday
Times
“The Presence
is a fragment of autobiography written from the most private part of a
poet’s heart, with a pen dipped in blood and tears."
Carol Ann Duffy, The
Daily Telegraph
“For all its painful honesty, the presence is a surprisingly joyful
and compelling book… imbued with all the best qualities of what
it means to be human.”
Owen Sheers, Independent
on Sunday
See also features in The Jewish Chronicle and The Western Mail.
Available in paperback from October 2nd 2008 from publishers Random House. Or see links to Amazon below.
Also available by Dannie Abse:
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The Author: Dannie Abse is a poet, author, doctor and playwright. He has written and edited more than sixteen books of poetry, as well as fiction and a range of other publications. He is the author of Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve and several autobiographical volumes, the most recent of which, Goodbye, Twentieth Century, was published by Pimlico in 2001 to critical acclaim. His most recent novel, The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds & Dr Glas, was published in 2002 and long-listed for the Booker Prize. In 2003 his New and Collected Poems received the Special Commendation of the Poetry Book Society, and his latest book of poetry, Running Late received the Roland Mathais Prize in 2007. The Presence was the winner of the prestigious Wales Book of the Year award for 2008. |