To Be Alive!

by Alastair Reid

Based on the 1966 Academy Award-winning film (Documentary Short Subject) by Francis Thompson and Alexander Hammid, produced by Johnson Wax for the 1964 New York World's Fair.

86 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Alastair Reid was a Scottish poet, translator, essayist, and scholar of Latin American literature. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1959 and translated works by Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges. Although he was known for translations, his own poems gained notice during his lifetime. He had lived in Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Morocco, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and in the United States.

Among his many books for children are A Balloon for a Blunderbuss, I Keep Changing, and Millionaires (all illustrated by Bob Gill), and Supposing (illustrated by Abe Birnbaum). In 2008 he published two career-spanning collections of work, Inside Out: Selected Poetry and Translations and Outside In: Selected Prose.